My 5 gallon Ecoxotic Ecopico build

[NemusMaximus]

Met up with Jose today to pick up some corals from our Mr. Coral order. Here's an update on 5 gal frag city:

3 new acan frags here, also visible is a new favia (The 4 corals up top)

"hellboy" favia from Mr. Coral

What we think is a purple Leptastrea coral (Interested in trading this coral)

Another favia I think, reddish/purple and green. Hard to tell from the pic, but the acan is what Mr. Coral calls "Double Trouble", purple/white/green.

Thats it for now. The base of the new corals are a bright white, and I already cant wait for those bright eye sores to disappear, and the corals to grow onto the rocks.

 

[SkullV]

Met up with Jose today to pick up some corals from our Mr. Coral order. Here's an update on 5 gal frag city:

3 new acan frags here, also visible is a new favia (The 4 corals up top)


"hellboy" favia from Mr. Coral


What we think is a purple Leptastrea coral (Interested in trading this coral)

Another favia I think, reddish/purple and green. Hard to tell from the pic, but the acan is what Mr. Coral calls "Double Trouble", purple/white/green.


Thats it for now. The base of the new corals are a bright white, and I already cant wait for those bright eye sores to disappear, and the corals to grow onto the rocks.

Lookin' good man! If you want to add a nice little HOB filter that fits on the back wall without changing the light bracket check out one of these:

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=9821&rel=1

I am using one on mine now. You will have to either ditch the glass top or get one custom made though (I'm doing the latter don't want to loose my firefish!).

 

[dtt]

Pico

Pico

Great looking tank. I have used limo black window tint for my back glass, its cheap from an auto glass tinter shop and looks real good. Get the limo black tint

 

[cnseekatz]

Hey Nemus, cool looking tank. I like your setup. I read one of your recent posts saying that the 5 strips wasn't enough for your zoas? Is that true? I had heard from a few people that said that 3 was enough.

 

[NemusMaximus]

Yeah, the 5 strips are a no-go, Im sorry to say. I have palys and zoas at the VERY top of the rock work, and they are stretching. All my LPS (acans, duncans, favias etc) look great. The mushrooms do too, but the zoas are definitely stretching for more light. I would invest in a DIY led kit, or a PAR38 bulb instead. Thats what Im looking into now.

 

[jeppun]

Check out coralcompulsion.com they have very great par38 led lights for less then 100.. And u can get a tank clamp if u want also.. Check it out

 

[cnseekatz]

Yeah, the 5 strips are a no-go, Im sorry to say. I have palys and zoas at the VERY top of the rock work, and they are stretching. All my LPS (acans, duncans, favias etc) look great. The mushrooms do too, but the zoas are definitely stretching for more light. I would invest in a DIY led kit, or a PAR38 bulb instead. Thats what Im looking into now.

Hm... Do you get a lot more output from the PAR38 configuration? That's a bummer, I dig the ecopico LED look... it's so clean.

Here's a stupid question. What do you use when you do water changes in such a small tank. I used to have a 40g and just used a regular old siphon, but there's not enough room in this setup. Do you just use a smaller siphon, or do you pump the water out?

 

[chicano]

Awesome!!

 

[cnseekatz]

How's this tank coming along? I'm loving mine... Putting it on my desk at work may have been a mistake!

 

[NemusMaximus]

The tank is coming along well. I still havent gotten around to purchasing the PAR38 bulb, as Ive been busy and broke lol, but here are some (crappy camera phone) pics I took yesterday :

 

[cnseekatz]

Tank looks nice! I love that Duncan. For some reason I haven't been able to find any small (2-3 head) colonies. I've got like 3 good reef stores nearby and they only have massive colonies. Oh well. What's that spider-webby looking white stuff in the middle?

 

[NemusMaximus]

Its a sponge. I believe a small bit of it hitch-hiked on some LR I purchased, and now its taking hold and growing all over that frag in the center. I wish it was something other than white, but I think they are good to have. lol

 

[cnseekatz]

Ha! That thing's a beast!

 

[NemusMaximus]

As far as the Duncan, I know what you mean. I got lucky, and got it at Petco (haha, I know, I know). I took a risk on it, since the tank they had it in didnt look great, but for $15 it was totally worth it. I got it at two heads, and there are like 6 on it now.

I also got that lobo in the pic for $15. They had some hair algea on them, but I tweezed it all off, and havent seen it since. I thought they were good buys, especially for a Petco.

 

[cnseekatz]

I'm as far from a reef snob as there is man... I have a pulsing xenia in my tank and I think it's awesome! I haven't looked in Petco, but I wouldn't have a problem buying something from them if it looked okay. You might even be able to get a deal on something if the clerk doesn't know what it is. I just read that someone got a couple snowflake clowns at petco and paid $17.99/each because the guy just figured they were regular clowns!

As far as the duncan goes... have you seen this? It's pretty stunning, but I'm afraid to order anything online.

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=597+321+3181&pcatid=3181

 

[cnseekatz]

Do you have any mechanical filtration in there? Or just LR and flow?

 

[dohc97]

nemus is a good friend of mine, ill answer for him

he has no other filtration. Dont be afraid to order from liveaquaria, great customer service but i would find the duncans locally. Just keep your eyes open on your local forums and the local boards and something will pop up. I know you guys in cali have a ton of swaps.

 

[NemusMaximus]

Thanks Jose.

Yeah, no other filtration. I clean the sponge in the filter like once a month, but I dont even think that the stock pump does much of anything except add a little flow.

I need a better pump for this tank. Its challenging though, give the small size of the tank, every "nano" pump that offers a good flow rate is still too big.

 

[cnseekatz]

Thanks Jose.

Yeah, no other filtration. I clean the sponge in the filter like once a month, but I dont even think that the stock pump does much of anything except add a little flow.

I need a better pump for this tank. Its challenging though, give the small size of the tank, every "nano" pump that offers a good flow rate is still too big.

The flow from the little crappy stock pump seems to be perfect in my setup. The Koralia was too much. So I'm okay with flow, but my Nitrates are consistently measuring around 20 ppm. I know that's an "acceptable" number, but that's without any fish, and I'd really like to put something in there to swim around. I don't know if the little sponge is helping or hurting. I saw someone put a little tiny bag of carbon and a different sponge media in the stock pump. Would that help? Or do I just need to increase the flow a bit? What do you think?

 

[NemusMaximus]

Tough to say. It sounds like your rocks just aren't completely ready yet. Thats one of those things that only time will fix. Just keep up on your water changes and let the rocks build up their bacteria.

If you want to drop it for the time being tho, the carbon might help, along with more water changes.