5gal Minibow Update!!! With Pics! (fixed pics)

[MonKei]

So its been quite a long time since I've posted anything regarding my tank, but here we have it, looking lots better than the last time I showed pics... I'm Currently a 3 year student going to school at UoP in stockton, and have been studying Business/computers.. I've moved around a few times this year, so the tank has moved and evolved with that... not been a lot of fun, but thats ok... yes, I am crazy and take the box of water home with me for breaks... anyway.. on to current specs and whatnot...

Equipment...
5gallon All-Glass Minibow (acrylic)
25w submersable heater
Aquaclear Powerhead 201
Penguin Bio-Wheel 170 Filter
2x Coralife 10w 50/50 PC lights
1x Hellolights 13w 50/50 PC


Inhabitance...
Rock and Sand
6lb Fiji Live Rock
2 inch sandbed
Fish
Clown (Allardi or Sebae unsure) and a Nemateleotris magnifica (Red/White Firefish)
Inverts
3 Blue leg hermits, 3 bumble bee snails, 2 medium sized snails (unknown species), 2 sandsifting stars ... hope to get a cleaner shrimp sometime...
Corals
Frogspawn, Green star Polyps, Candy cane Coral, 2 variety of mushrooms, Leather coral (toadstool I believe), and a green SPS frag (I don’t know what it is specifically)..

I think that I am very close to overloading my poor 5gal minibow..

On to pics
Whole tank

DIY Lighting

Side View

Frogspawn

Candy Cane Coral and Hermit

Mushroom

Unknown Green Frag

Leather

So there ya have it. Hopefully to come is a 10gal setup with built in filtration.. custom set up for easy moving to oregon (yes, that was read correctly.. 630 miles one way) and back.. we'll see what happens to that.. and I've got a 175w 10000K halide setup that I got on ebay for ~55 bucks that I'm hoping to put over the 10gal whenever that comes.. probably a few feet obove the tank to lower the intensity and not cook my softies.. but we'll see if it even goes up... anyway.. just an insight as to whats going on in my neck of the woods..

 

[Fozza]

Pics aren't showing for me for some reason.

 

[MonKei]

something was up with my host.. I moved the pics to my edu's web hosting.. so they work now

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Looks good.

How long have you had the sand sifting stars in the tank? I'm really surprised you have those in there. They can get up to a foot across and can quickly wipe out the microfauna in a sandbed.

 

[Fozza]

Looks pretty good.

You actually have a bigger fish bio-load in there than I do in my 29 gal.

I only have a clown and a clown goby, thought I was edging a high bioload just with those two.

 

[MonKei]

Magnolia,
I've had the sand sifters in there for about 4 or 5 months now, they dont seem to be growing any and they dont seem to be hurting the tank at all.. so I'll prolly leave them in there till they become too big or I get a sump/fuge to put them in.. they're doing a good job of keeping my sand fairly clean though..
Fozza,
I was kinda worried about the bio-load too, I just got the fish about a week or so ago, but seem to be alright - clown's happy and the firefish is coming out and whatnot.. both eating fine.. I'm going to be doing regular water changes too, so spikes should be kept to a minimum.. (or one can hope anyway..)

It was noted to me that the frag that is in the middle of my tank is likely to be hydnophora, a hyperagressive coral.. I dont see it growing fast and isnt sending out any tails that are disturbing other corals.. so I think its ok for now.. but if I see it start to be aggressive I think that I'll need to remove/move it asap.. anyone have other ideas on it? thanks!
-thayer

 

[Anonymous]

Looks good.

How long have you had the sand sifting stars in the tank? I'm really surprised you have those in there. They can get up to a foot across and can quickly wipe out the microfauna in a sandbed.

SM,

Archaster typicus (sand sifting star) does not grow very fast, quite slowly in fact. it mainly feeds on detritus, micro-algea that are present on your sand (the ones you don't se) and a little bit on micro-fauna. but if you think about how fast this star moves under the sand, chances are it won't wipe your tank within a week :wink:

mine is doing just fine and sometime goes onto the glass, as on the picture to eat micro-algea on the glass.

it keeps the aragamax sand plain white


Toine