5G to 1G?! looking for advice.

[kelso1980]

I have a 5G tank now that is doing really well. We recently moved from a 1600 Sq ft home (with an awesome fish room) to a tiny 700 sq ft home with a baby on the way. I know a 5G tank is tiny, but we really dont have the room for an aquarium...so I was wondering if downsizing is an option.

Current Stock:
1 Green torch (aka Todd's torch)
1 yellow torch
Hammer
Armor of god Palys
several zoa colors
1 brain (Not doing well)
sunset montipora
4-5 Ricordea

CUC:
mini brittle stars (like a million)

Equipment:
HOB filter
Heater
2 mini PH's
2 dosers for 2 part
ATO
Par38 LED

This is a picture from several months ago. Some livestock has changed but it looks about the same.

I'm looking to downsize to a 1G that looks similar to this:

My plan would be to sell off a few of the corals that I am a little less in love (which will be very hard...) with and get rid of a few of the rocks. I dont think I will have a heater in there, but with a new baby, we can't keep our house at 65 like we used to.

So do you think it will work? No sump? Less water volume to screw around with and my dosers are only on dosing 2.2mL/day as it is so if I cut it in half, I dont know if that will be too much still for only 1G. I could do 1.1mL every other day I guess.
My other concern is that my light is going to be way too much for the little tank.

Any advice for me to get this to work? I'd love to be able to keep my tank.
Thanks!

 

[KafudaFish]

Congrats on the baby on the way.

I see your concerns about space because been there, doing that.

Honestly even if you went from a 5.5 to a 2.5 or a 1 gallon, you are still going to take up only 1 square foot of space.

The 5.5 is 16 x 8 or 128 sq. inches so 0.89 sq. ft. in a 700 sq. ft. really isn't going to mean much.

Do you have room for an x box or a blue ray?

Go through your stuff and something that you have not used in years get rid of it and keep your tank.

 

[cody6766]

If you do downsize, I would buy a 2.5 or 3 g tank. They aren't much bigger than that 1g, but will seem much bigger when you start to add critters. I bet you could find a corner for your 5g though. It's not that much bigger than any f the small options.

I think you will be fine without the heater in a small tank. I don't use one in my sub-1g Pico and it is just fine. I do keep my house around 76 though.

Congrats on the little one!

 

[tommer725]

Pictopes are great. You might like them

 

[x3thelast]

1gal tanks are really not very hard to maintain if executed properly. first off, the hammers and torch have to go, there just isnt any room for agressive stinging long tentacle corals, unless thats all you plan to keep. 2nd, just because its tiny doesnt mean you can slack off on equiptment, i HIGHLY recommend a controller of some kind; be it a neptune or reefkeeper, it will make your life a WHOLE lot easier. Since you wont be able to keep such a low ambient temp, i suggest you have an ATO set up with the controller along with a small clip on desk fan to keep the stable temp. get a par30 bulb and call it a day as far as the lighting or get crazy and stick an ai nano over it like on mine. also, you might as well sell off all your livestock along with your tank and start off fresh. you wont have much room so its important to pick and choose wisely what you want in the tank because there wont be much room to have everything you may want, but the good part is you can have more variety for a fraction of the cost since you can fill it up with just frags!


umm...what else...
oh i recommend dosing c - balance.i dose .5mL every day alternating part a/b.
and since it takes less than 10 mins to do a full water change, knock it out!

if you want more ideas, check out my 1 gallon thread.


GOOD LUCK and congratulations on your HUMAN FRAG!