5.5 gallon pico

[aydemir]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the sw hobby, and started up a 5.5 gallon tank last september-ish. Tank is 10 inches deep, 16x8inches top.
The tank has been through a lot of ups and downs, mostly due to my inexperience. The tank had a large dino outbreak which I managed to beat by total lights out + peroxide. Unfortunately the old anemone I had did not make it, I had no other tank to quarantine it in, my zoos also melted.
old nem

old zoos

After the deaths of most of my livestock (my peppermint, snails, and cleaner shrimp also died due to nitrate problems) I decided to take it easy and let the tank stabilize. The only livestock left were the clownfish and my reef hermit crabs.
After about a half year I decided the tank was ready. I added an RBTA and 2 red striped gobies, and just last week added a zoo colony and some zoo, mushroom, and ric frags (I know its overstocked on fish way too much...:uhoh3
Here's an fts from today

zoo rock and ric, the red skirt zoos were added yesterday, some have not fully opened yet

nem and clown

one of the gobies keeping an eye on me :lol:

EDIT: Forgot to mention I added a sexy shrimp yesterday, he wouldn't pop up for a picture though, hes a little less than an inch long right now and likes to chill on the anemone where I can't take pics of him! :headwally:

 

[aydemir]

Equipment, and refugium in progress

Equipment, and refugium in progress

For any wondering, my equipment:
lighting: 6 3watt Deep Blue Solar Flare micro LEDs, 2x6700k daylight, 3xactinic royal blue, 1xblacklight
In the pictures above a 24watt par38 (12 2 watt LEDs) full spectrum bulb was used, but is not currently being used (I plan on using it later)
Picture setup

Normal setup

Filtration: aquaclear 30, Hydor Pico Pump 160GPH, seachem purigen, cobalt nitrate removing resin
Biological filter: Live rock (about 1.5-2 pounds), live sand (caribsea brand)

Also, I am setting up a refugium, and since I don't have overflows I might just use two aqualifter pumps to exchange water, it would per hour move about 7 gallons between the two tank. The refugium is a 2 gallon Fluval Spec with a 40GPH pump, lighting is provided by a 13watt CF, and a 0.75 actinic LED (was previously moonlight for the DT). There is chaeto I might move to the back filter chamber later, in the filter chamber of the fuge is seachem de-nitrate. The fuge is in the process of cycling so the tanks are not connected atm. I don't plan on upgrading the pump because I want to have the nitrate resin and the de-nitrate to work more efficiently.

Water parameters in the DT are:
ammonia, nitrite - 0
nitrate - 10
I just purchased a reef test kit, but I still don't have stony corals, so I probably won't be using it till I get some (if I do get stony corals)

Also, anyone know of any good ways to introduce copepods to the fuge? The chaeto the LFS gave me didn't seem to be 'crawling' with pods. I live in Canada, so I can't order the LA pods

 

[aydemir]

Battling with zoa pox on the small rock with zoos, I will document it here soon. Also the anemone moved a little further back, closer to the filter. I'm not going to bother covering it since the anemone is much larger than the intake, but I'll keep a close eye. Its been on the move for about a week now...

 

[aydemir]

Refugium finished cycling about 3 days ago, I connected the two tanks together with the aqualifters, nitrates are at 5ppm now :spin1:
The glass is also littered with copepods! I spoke too soon...still have reefpods on order though. Also moved the nitrate resin to the refugium, since the refugium is viewable does anyone know of any cool critters I could add there? More importantly some useful critters like CUC? There were a few really small HH snails that are doing a pretty good job on the algae.
On the other hand, the zoas aren't looking that great, still waiting on the Furan 2...

 

[aydemir]

Haven't updated in a while...
zoos made it through treatment, anemone almost went out :uhoh3:
Sorry for the bad pictures in advance
FTS

rics

zoas, lower frag not open today :sad2:

GSP, a lot more green in real life

watermelons, palys, mushrooms

more mushrooms

some kind of photosynthetic gorgonian (anyone have an ID?) and sexy shrimp!

leptastrea

 

[Josh40996]

5.5 gallon pico

The tanks coming along great and it's nice to see your fuge is working great! Personally, I would add alittle more LR in the DT, paint the back black and move your heater into the fuge/sump but hey, what ever floats your boat

GJ! Keep on reefing.

 

[squishifishi]

Looks great! Love picos so much! That gorgonian coral thing is sooo cool, very unique! I love iT! Do you still have your little evoitia gobies in there?

 

[aydemir]

The tanks coming along great and it's nice to see your fuge is working great! Personally, I would add alittle more LR in the DT, paint the back black and move your heater into the fuge/sump but hey, what ever floats your boat

GJ! Keep on reefing.

Thanks! I would add more LR but I don't want to risk any pests. I found a fireworm the other week when I took the rock out to attach corals :fun5:
My fuge isn't constantly connected to the tank, I usually run the pumps for about 2 hours a day (no overflows so I have to monitor it). I haven't connected them for a while now because the nitrates in both tanks have been at 0 :fun4:

Looks great! Love picos so much! That gorgonian coral thing is sooo cool, very unique! I love iT! Do you still have your little evoitia gobies in there?

If you're talking about my trimma gobies then yes!

Somehow forgot to mention the addition of a new fish in the DT, black ocellaris clown, because everybody needs a friend

Also kind of impulse bought a yellow clown goby for the refugium :debi:
the spongebob face is a reflection of my phone case haha

Also added xenia to the fuge, and a second emerald crab 'Junior' (still don't know why the first died...)

 

[unreal45]

A 5.5 is a tough tank to start with, but you are doing a great job.

 

[smiz]

If you worried about pest get dry rock and stick it in your sump to culture!

 

[aydemir]

If you worried about pest get dry rock and stick it in your sump to culture!

I can't find any nicely shaped dry rocks that I can get a box of 5 pounds or less! I might try to bum one nice piece or rock off the LFS's leftovers lmao! I'm heading off for school so I won't really have time to do the aquascape, so if I can't find any suitable rock that I think will work within the next month I probably will leave it be.

 

[aydemir]

update!

update!

Was away at university so wasn't able to update. My dad is looking after the tank, really just feeding and doing WC, for the most part the tank is just chuggin along. The rbta hadn't been doing fantastic so I gave it to a friend. The clownfish seem to be using the mushrooms at the bottom right of the tank like an anemone. Oh, and the gorgonian has taken a turn for the worse, going to remove it tomorrow it appears to be rotting, not really sure why - I haven't seen the tank for around 4 months lol.
Green ric is bleached and shrunk, other one is doing fine and just started to split (i think) recently. Opinions? The reason I think its splitting is because of those 'intestine' looking things coming out from about 1-2 cm away from the mouth.

'original' mouth on the side haha

GSP really took off

Leptastrea was knocked over by a snail (says my dad) and it kept growing, on the underside of the rock, so if this is true, leptastrea is doing great! In this pic it didn't have FPE but when it does you can't see the rock except for the bare part on the right

FTS

 

[aydemir]

GSP pic didnt add from last post

 

[stevenson22]

nice setup