Rimless - Zen/Bonsai 5-Gallon Setup?

[dapellegrini]

I had no idea how cool Live Rock is. Seems like I am perpetually discovering something new. A lot of my time online is now spent research various things I have found in my tank and I am currently working on improving my night viewing as this seems to be when almost everything decides to come out...

I must have dozens or more feather dusters:

That last one actually has two heads that come out of one tube - sorry for the blurry pic - it is just about center frame. Also countless pods, bristleworms and other odd things. My orange ball anemone has now killed two snails, errr..... he may be next on my hit list. Bad picture of him here:

Here is my new hang out spot after work:

I moved the ballast over to the shelf and got all of the wires out of sight:

A few quick shots of the whole tank:

...

 

[dapellegrini]

After the initial addition of the mini nassarius snails (the white ones) I put in an order from a more diverse group to help graze through the dying algae that had more or less infested the tank and the glass. So in went some Nerites, Onyx Nassarius and a couple of Cerith snails. Of the bunch I think the Nerites and the White Nassarius are my biggest assets. I also added a Scarlet Hermit after a lot of research and feedback on this being the most docile HC, and the least likely to call open season on my snails. Final addition to the CUC was a few micro brittle stars (really tiny things) to help my bristleworms in the tight spots.

While they have been doing a phenomenal job keeping most things clean, including the glass, I still have a ways to go before all I see is coraline. Just the same, the Bryposis is completely died away - now just brown dead junk, and most of the hair algae has also subsided. All parameters test 0 on multiple test kits (NH3/4, NO2, NO3), but I am not convinced that my NO3 is truly at 0 as I do still see some bad algae that is not yet dead. Trends is in the good direction though.

This was one of my worst rocks (uncured fiji), used to be covered in muck, now fairly clean with coraline coming in spots

This was another bad spot with bleached coraline and hair algae. Some of the algae is obviously still there, but it is getting better and the coraline is filling back in nicely:

And finally my last "bad spot" but also doing better with good coraline growth:

 

[dapellegrini]

The two corals that were gifted to me are doing great. The Monti Cap has put out little heads all over its surface and seems overall very healthy and two small zoanthid plugs (now glued to LR) have thrown at least 4 new heads since they have been in the tank that were definitely not detectable when I got them.

 

[Eklikewhoa]

Nice looking tank!

 

[dapellegrini]

My little SW is VERY slow to change - but while I have been focusing on this new little reef tank, my others have suffered from a bit of neglect - with plants overrunning them. I ended up ripping out the carpet plant in the smaller tank because it had gotten to be about 5-inches thick and invited a bad dose of hair algae - just replanted a few pieces which should form a new carpet over the next several weeks. Still have a bit of hair algae on the dwarf riccia, but you get the idea... These pics are from about 5 minutes ago...

More on the big tank here (lots of critter pics, etc)

http://aape.naturalaquariums.com/forum/ind...hp?topic=1942.0

 

[Slice of Ocean]

Your tank is looking good.

 

[nano reef boy13]

If you never done saltwater before, i wouldnt recomend you starting off with a 5.5 gallon. the reason is, is that there is toooo many possibilities of things going wrong. you would have to check the salinity really often, and you would have to get your water checked almost every other day because of the such small mass of your tank...it wouldnt be a good idea to put any swimmers in there either. the most you can put in there is a couple of zoo's and probaly a couple of leathers but not too many. if your up to the challange than you should try, but im not guarenting that nothings going to die.... good luck!!!

 

[SaltwaterChris]

Any updates on all your tanks?

 

[dapellegrini]

Sorry for the delayed reply - this week has been very busy.

I have added a number of new corals, 2 Pom Pom Crabs, a Blue Porcelain Crab and a sexy shrimp. The tank is going great. I also changed out the 13k AB halide with a 14k (very blue) Astralux. It took a bit of getting used to, but I like it now.

I will try and post up some new pictures tonight.

 

[dapellegrini]

Here are some pictures from about 10-days ago, before the new light, but well after most of the newer additions:


These were sold to me as "Rare Uber Blue" - not my favorite and more of a purple under my light:

And these were sold as "Rare Blueberry Fields" - more black and green in my tank - I think they may actually be "Purple Puddles":

These little ones I got from a hole-in-the-wall LFS - I really liked the bright yellow/green ones. The orange was mixed in. I think these are "Bumble Bee" and an "Orange Delight"

These were gifted to me from a friend at work who did not know what they were. I can't figure it out either

Here are a couple more of this poor little polyp that I picked up. I am guessing some kind of Clavularia sp. I would like to swap this one out for a more colorful version, but have yet to find a good source...

Here is an accidental shot. I was trying to get a starfish and ended up getting an ok picture of one of my more common feather dusters. I must have at least a dozen of this sort, along with about 5 other varieties. You can see some of the yellow sponge coming back off the top of the pic

And a completely washed out FTS (full tank shot), with the various new frags arranged a little bit better:

I will post up more recent photos under the new light a little later...

 

[Eklikewhoa]

Sweet!

I just got my second Mini-M to pair off with my Planted Mini-M...I have been deciding on how to filter them but I think I am gonna go with a nice sized 2213 with the ADA lily pipes and then have the heater in-line.

I have the Mini-Solar on top of my planted Mini-M which I have bought supplies to mod it to a 70w MH cause I feel that the lighting is inadequate but will probably do the same for the Reef Mini-M.

 

[SaltwaterChris]

Looks really nice and clean

 

[dapellegrini]

I have to wait until the lights go out to see most of the cool critters - and thus the quality of my photos suffers quite a bit. These are either taken with a flash or with the lamp on in the room - thus the messed up colors.

Here are a couple of the Pom Poms:

The blue porcelain crab:

And the sexy shrimp:

and here are a few quick FTS with the 14k light. I am still not 100% convinced that I like this like this light more than my 13k (which was much less blue):

I also recently pulled out the rocks on the left side (the taller stack) and mashed up a whole tube of Aquamend to try and get these things to stay together - but I have a feeling I will be revisiting that in a few months... You can see some of it (the white stuff) here:

Last FTS, bottom-up w/ new light:

 

[Lytehouse]

I somehow found your thread as you were starting and followed with interest as I also moved from fresh to salt. Very impressive job of researching, reading, asking questions and putting together a very interesting tank with very few distractions of equipment.

Great job, Congrats.........

 

[dapellegrini]

Thanks!

I am still considering modding the smallest Eheim ECCO canister filter into a fuge to replace my current powerhead setup. This would be much more for aesthetic purposes than anything else. The PH combined with frequent water changes and siphoning from the surface of the tank have keep things nice and clean to this point. The move to a canister filter would be more for the idea of removing the heater and bulky powerhead out of the tank.

More if/when I tackle that one.

Thanks for looking!

 

[ThomasinKind]

The tank is coming along really nicely. I love the sexy shrimp.

 

[dapellegrini]

Well I am just about 3 months in now...

Maintenance is down to weekly water changes (between 2 and 4 gallons, removing 1 gallon at a time, replacing and repeating), and weekly or bi-weekly (that means every-other-week, right?) scraping of glass to keep it shiny.

I cracked for a Sexy Shrimp, ended up with two and they have declared open session on my Zoo's... All of my cool mini bumblebee zoos were eaten, along with a few heads of each of my other colonies. The more aggressive one later jumped out of the tank (found him dry on the carpet) and since my zoos have been doing notably better.

Anyways, I thought I would post up a bunch of shots taken with my wife's new little digital camera.

Starting with a few FTS:

Here are some different strains of Coralline Algae, or at least I think thats what all of these are. Note the lumpy ones and that last shot with the red stuff growing up off the rock kinda like a mushroom...

 

[dapellegrini]

The tank is overrun with Amphipods - if you look closely you can see them everywhere. I have watched them prey on smaller pod-type creatures - I hope having too many is not a problem. ???

Here are some more obvious shots of a couple:

Here is a slightly clearer picture if the two-headed feather duster:

I also have a lot of these little tiny red feather dusters, but very hard to get them clear in a picture:

Various wild, red macro algaes:

 

[dapellegrini]

And finally a strange new things - no clue what this might be - any thoughts???

Current inhabitants:

- 1x Scarlet Hermit Crab
- 1x Sexy Shrimp - soon to find a new home
- 1x Blue Porcelain Crab
- 2x Pom Pom Crabs
- misc Snails
- misc Zoa colonies
- 1x Orange Monti Cap
- Small Colony of Clove Polyps of some sort

I was feeding the tank with Marine Snow along with frozen mysis (just a tiny bit) for a while and I think that was causing a more than average amount of junk on the glass. I have now backed down feeding to once a week at most, the night before water change day. The Hermit Crab has molted once, as well as the Porcelain Crab and both of the Pom Poms. I am anxious to be rid of the sexy shrimp, and bummed that they are certifiable zoo killers... All of my other critters only like to come out at night.

Overall things are going quite well, the tank seems to be settling in nicely and I am enjoying it.

 

[Swanwillow]

do you have anything for the sexy shrimp to be in? They normally live in anemones, so that may be why they killed the zoanthids-they bugged them to death...