My New 5.5 gal Nano (aka - The Puddle) Large Pic Warning

[tripsied]

I have been lurking around the boards for the past few weeks, having returned home from a year long abscence from home, finding myself in desperate need of a tank and something to do (other than managing a 65 gallon FOWLR and besides I missed you guys!!). I love reefs and can't stay away from them.

Having lurked around here for information on nano's/pico's I decided on a 5.5 gallon tank that should keep me occupied until I can get a 24 gal Aquapod. I wound up bringing home this little bundle of joy!

I had to clear off a spot on my horribly messy desk!

I got the tank setup by putting on the filter, adding the heater and the Minijet 404. Then I took out the glass canopy, I am not a real big fan of the plastic strip in the middle (causes shadows that bug me), so I puled off the strip, cut the rear plastic strip to fit as tightly around the filter (Aqua Clear 200, for 5 to 20 gallon tanks) and popped in the 2 glass slats (adding the handle for the closest one so I can open the tank).

With Flash

Yes, I am a Wawa coffee fiend!!!! 8O 8O
64 ounces of pure Wawa Kona goodness!!!

Without Flash - Kinda Dark but shows off light strength

I put the light light fixture on the glass and thought it looks kind of dark. The guy at the LFS said that the 18 watts ought to beable to handle LPS, which it very well may, but I'm thinking add another one later ($25 isnt too bad for these lights). Am I on the right track with adding the second fixture or can I get away with the one? I wasn't all that thrilled baout the lights sitting directly on the glass, so I took apart an old painting easel, cut them down to size and slid them under the light.

Closeup of the Ghetto Rails

I am still not sure if I am going to leave the light on the rails or the glass...when the water clears I'll have a better idea.

So now I am waiting on the water to clear up and settle down a bit, then I will go and grab some rock out of the 65 gallon fish only tank, pop it in there and get the cycle rolling on this new tank! I will keep this updated as possible!

Looking forward to comments and questions.

Tommy

The Puddle
5.5 Nano
18 watt PC Lights
Aquaclear 200
Minijet 404

 

[Diana]

Looks like a great start! I love new tanks.

I started in the saltwater hobby with a 5.5 gallon tank.... the details of my setup are in this thread:

http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=66965

Cant wait to see more pics!
-Diana

 

[tripsied]

Thanks for the reply, Diana!

I had checked out your tank's thread, while going through every thread in the Nano Buildoff competition and that tank was one of my favorites and a major influence on why I went with the 5.5! You have a really beautiful tank!

I happened to notice that you have the Coralife 18 watt fixture. I was looking at my sandbed, thinking, that looks a little dark for LPS, how as the fixutre been for you? I also did not realize that they get that warm! 8O

I have been seriously considering a softie/LPS combo for this tank, they are really some of my favorites and the only SPS I'm up for handling atm is acropora plasticus . It's just going to take time to get there. So while the tank is "cooking" so to speak, I can plan out my next few purchases. I really haven't made the decision as to whether to stick to one particular ocean or a mixture of what I happen to like.

If I may be so nosey as to ask, how have the macroalgaes been doing? I really liked the way you had the macroalgaes in with the coral, gave a really look to the tank. I have been adding some caulerpa and other munchie to the 65 gallon FOWLR for the tangs and really liked the look. I wasn't sure if the macros would take over or be a massive amount of work to keep in check.

Tommy

The Puddle
5.5 Nano
18 watt PC Lights
Aquaclear 200
Minijet 404

 

[tripsied]

Tank Update

The water finally cleared up! Yay! I added a rock that I got while on a film shoot in Panama. It's nickname has become "Skully Rock" because it kind of looks like a face. I wish I still had some of the rubble that I got while I was there, but I had given that to a friend a while back.

Full Tank Shot
I haven't really cleaned that glass yet, I wanted to get a picture before any ensuing sand storms. New tanks are kind of a pain with stuff going to suspension so easily. :twisted: :evil: :twisted:

Skully Rock
Again, I haven't really cleaned the glass yet, so it's still a little hazy. The mouth is to the lower right of the rock, yes, its very twisty, then the nose and then the eyes (moving to the left)

I will be adding more rock over the course of time. I have to go to the LFS this afternoon, as the 65 gallon needs a water change, so I will be checking out their rock! Though I do kind of like the tank at this stage...its very Zen-like!

 

[bleedingthought]

I think adding a second fixture will give you more flexibility. Everything is looking good, though. 8)

 

[tripsied]

Bleedingthought
I am really considering adding that extra light fixture and you are right, it would give me some added flexibility, though everything so far seems to be doing well and thanks for the encouragement! Hopefully this thread will help encourage someone else to try a nano as well!!

I am currently deciding whether or not to DIY a new stand as well, I really think that it will add to the tank, as well as give me flexibility as I really need to revamp my water change process...I'm kinda messy. I am also considering adding a sump to the tank (a 40 gallon or the largest I can fit, but haven't decided yet 8O 8O ), but not sure how to handle the overflows, as this isn't a drilled tank.

A few corals have been added: a blastomussa merletti and some zooanthids and blue mushroom (need to get pic of it)

I am heading out to the LFS today to see if there are any frags that I want to get. I still need to add some rock for coral placement, but I have time to do that though.

Photo Additions: (I will add a full tank shot, as well as any new frags I get from the LFS today)

The Blastos
The blastos have been doing really well thus far in the tank. They started out rather near the sand, but have now been relocated to the middle of Skully Rock and seem to be doing very well. It is rather encouraging to see their growth. I am hoping that Skully will provide enough room for the m to spread out on, though I might move them at a later time. I (with some help) have figured out that the blastos are merletti's, though i don't know what type, I was told they were rare, but that doesn't tell me much, so if anyone knows, I would appreciate the input.

The Zooanthids
The neat thing about the zoos, is that there is a small blasto (I believe the same species of merletti) attached to the rock! The zoos should have a green center (it was almost neon green at the LFS), but have decided they want to be brown in my tank , I'm not positive that adding the second will help the situation (I've read that the brown color mean they need more light, white (bleaching) means too much light, the worst that happens from adding the second fixture is that I loose $25.00 in the deal (or get a new fuge light)

 

[tripsied]

Well, I haven't updated this in a while, so I figure I had better hop to it.

Several major things have occured since the last posting. First, roughly 6 pounds of rock has been added to the tank. So I am probably somewhere between 9 to 10 pounds worth of rock in the tank and that's close to where I want to be.

There have been some livestock changes as well. Firstly, the Rainsford goby that was the initial inhabitant of the tank died rather suddenly, so I added a small green chromis from my 65 g FOWLR. The chromis was a lot more "hidey" than it had been in the 65, preferring to stay in 1 or 2 different spots behind the rocks and only accepting what food passed by via the powerhead.

Next, came the Posilipora, 2 frags ($19.00 for the pair). The "posi's" seem to be doing very well, all polyps seem to extending and waving in the flow. The frags had a greenish tint to them which turned decidely brown after a few days of being in the tank.

About a week ago, I noticed that I was starting to have a cyano breakout. No big deal, thinks I. I put a packet of Purigen in the filter, ensuring that all tank water goes through the Purigen, so if there were nutrients not being handled, the Purigen would handle it and everything would be ok. Not in this case! The cyano has begun to spread all over the tank. I harvested a large amount during a water change. I usually do a 2.5 (roughly) gallon water change every Saturday or Sunday, sometimes I do an additional water change on Wednesdays as well. As of today, the cyano hasn't gotten better, so I am going to go to the LFS and get Chemi-Clean and nuke the cyano.

I have also added 2 Oscellaris clowns that have really made the tank a great thing to look at (other than the cyano). They were the most active clowns I have ever seen, zipping from 1 side of the tank to the other. They have since settled down and the pair seems to be getting along pretty well with the chromis, who has now pretty much come out of hiding and swims around the tank much more often, though not like he usually did in the 65.

The last major change that happend to the tank was that I purchased a 130 watt PC light fixture, compring of a 10k and 03 Actinic bulb, which is purple, I wanted blue but I'll live, and a blue LED moonlight fixture. This tank now is by far the brightest lit tank I have ever had...basically I use it to light my room, if youo can believe that. So I now have roughly 16 watts of PC light per gallon in my tank.

An interesting thing happened with the cyano when i added the new light fixture. Normally, cyano will develop air bubbles on its surface. This usually seems to be constrained to just a few, here and there. However, after the first full day of the new lights, I came home to find that the cyano was completely covered in air bubbles, some several millimeters in diameter, yes they were pretty large for air bubbles.

There is nothing in the tank that produces air bubbles, so this air had to come from the cyano. I am used to seeing cyano get bubbles, just NOT this much. I clear the bubbles by blowing them gently with a coral feeder (a shrunken turkey baster), the bubbles reappeared after about an hour or less. I am wondering what this "behavior" is. I am guessing it is a propagation method - moving small pieces of the cyano to further locations via the air bubble? Be that as it may, the cyano is getting nuked this evening and hoepfully will stay away.

The next purchase is going to be a cleaner shrimp, ala Finding Nemo. I am hoping the shrimp will help scavenge up any left-over food particles from the fish. Also, a hermit crab will probably go in the tank as well.
I do have to be careful of how much and what I jam into this tank.

I have a DIY tank stand/canopy in the deisgn phase at the moment. I am planning on adding room for a sump and possibly a refugium to the setup. It will really complicate things, however, I think the benefits of the sump/fuge far outweigh any inconvenience I may experience. I had not realized that there is so much involved with designing a stand and canopy! There are so many factors to take into account that it's almost mind-boggling. I think I have come up with a design that is going to work. I will post all of that in the DIY section, as well as go through the thought process of how I came to the design I did. I can only hope that my carpentry skills live up to the design!

I will add some photos when I get home this evening.

 

[tripsied]

Here is an updated full tank shot, taken just a few minutes ago.

Tank Inhabitants

2 Oscellaris clowns
2 Green Chromis
1 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp

2 Posilipora species frags
Brown and green zooanthids
Hammer coral
Blastomussa Merletti
Hydnophora species (green)
1 purpe mushroom (buried under hammer coral)
Green macroalgae

The parts for the top shelf of the DIY stand have been cut, this weekend is assembly and purchase of lumber for the bottom shelves and supports. So we will see how that goes!

Will update with a few more pictures in a bit!

 

[adinsxq]

 

[tripsied]

***Waves to Adin***

Well, here are a few thing that are going on.

1. I plopped a really pretty Rainford goby into the tank the other day (I had to get some stuff at the LFS and saw they had one). Before anyone jumps on my case about having 5 fish in a 5.5 gallon tank, all of the fish will most likely be going into my 15 gallon that I am building and should have running very shortly (if I can figure out overflow box sizes).

I also added some green Gracillara (spelling???) macroalgae to the tank (the green stringy stuff in the back). All well and good until a day or 2 later I came home to find the tank glass a nice shade of neon green.

So now I have a nice size algae bloom going on in the tank. It most likely has to do with adding so much to this tank so quickly, however, I am suspecting that the macroalgae has something to do with it. I have found that if I add macroalage to a tank, I tend to get a higher concentration of green/brown alages. So I have to figure out what's going on. Here are some of the factors I am thinking of. Input or correction of thought process is really welcomed.

1. I am a heavy feeder (flake and frozen cyclops) and there is no skimmer on the tank (I have one of those Fission nano's or whatever it is...well...it's crap is what it is so I took it off...makes a nice aquatic paperweight!) So that might have something to do with the issue.

Things I am doing to correct this:
I changed out the sponge filter in the AquaClear and Saturday I am going to change the carbon bag.

I also do a water change every single Saturday (sometimes on Wednesdays as well). I should probably make the Wednesday water change a permo part of the tank schedule. I do roughly 50% water changes. (2.5 gallons is no big deal)


2. The tank has not yet "balanced out" from all the addition of livestock.

If this is the case, there is nothing I can do (other than the water changes) except wait this out.


3. The addition of the macroalgae is now putting pressure on the microalagaes and they are now competition for food sources, so the microalagaes have kicked into overdrive to "beat out" the macro.

Resolution
Take out the macro and see if the microalage production slows down. I don't really want to take out the macor because I kind of like it in there. Makes it look a lot less like a museum and more like the real ocean (a really crappy version I might add) and the only other place to put it would be in my 65 gallon FOWLR, with 2 tangs (Sohal and Yellow) the macro would disappear in short order.

I think my best course of action is to keep up with the water changes, change the carbon, as well as add 1 or 2 more snails to the tank and wait. It's kind of a boring solution to the issue, as I wish there was some magic powder that made some cool sparks and a poofing noise and instantly my tank was issue free...not a very likely thing to happen.

Tom

 

[wade1]

I think you are pretty well on the mark. I would add to stop feeding flake regularly. Its a good supplement, but it has huge (and I mean huge) amounts of free nutrients that wind up in the watercolumn fast when the food isn't consumed. And a pretty good amount never gets eaten. Switch instead to frozen or home-prepared foods along with mysis and cyclopeeze. Just feed sparingly - there's zero reason to feed fish heavily, they manage fine on a great deal less food than people think.

Give it some time with reduced feeding and ramp it up slowly and keep up with your list of resolutions!

 

[tripsied]

Thanks for the info Wade, I didn't realize the flake had so much free nutrients in it . That sounds like a really good suggestion and I am going to implement that right away!

A quick question though: do you think I would get a sizable benefit from adding a PhosBan (HOB) to the tank?

 

[wade1]

Larger water changes and/or activated carbon would be my primary suggestions. Phosban can have a variety of ill effects, although you could try it. A tiny tank would need a very tiny amount!

 

[tripsied]

Thanks for that info Wade...I'm still a little sketchy on reactors at the moment, besides I keep thinking this is a 75 gallon lol.

Just to kind of show you what's going on I've uploaded 2 tank shots.

From yesterday

The tank was scrubbed, scraped and cleaned as best as I could for this shot.

From today
This is the algae growth of roughly a 24 hour period. The lights were on for about 2 or 3 hours longer than normal.

Tank Equipment
Aquaclear 20 HOB filter
Minijet 404
Coralife Lunar Aqualight (130 watts PC...this is upgraded from the 18 watt fixture in the earlier photos...could this have something to do with the algae bloom?? It certainly affected the coralline algae and not in a good way.)

The inhabitants include:

Corals
3 frags of Pocillipora

Brown and green zoanthids (roughly 9 polyps)

Blastomussa Merletti (6 heads main colony...roughly 3 or 4 tiny heads on zoathid rock)

Hydno

Hammer

Colt (not doing well in the corner...will put it back where it was when I do water change)

Green Gracillara macroalgae

Inverts
Skunk cleaner shrimp
2 Nassarius snails (added today.)
3 Astrea snails (added today)
1 Astrea snail (previous inhabitant)

Fish
2 Amphiprion oscellaris clownfish
2 green chromis
1 Rainford goby

Yes, I realize that is a super heavy bio-load for this size tank. The fish are moving to larger quarters within the next few weeks, I hust have to finish building the system and cycle it.

I'll be doing a water change tomorrow, as well as changing out the carbon. I'm using hte AquaClear carbon inserts. Should I be using these or do you think I may see better results by using a different product (i.e. Kent)??

Thanks again for all the help and advice Wade!

 

[tripsied]

I now feel like a total dork! :evil: :evil: :evil:

I believe I have found a major contributor to the issue. A nice big fat bottle of Windex Lavanda sitting rather inconspicuously on my desk (kind of like it was trying to hide). I forgot that it was there and that I had sprayed my desk with it sometime last week, right around when the algae bloom started.

If the Windex is a contributing factor are there any ideas of how long the bloom would last? (that is providing that it was the Windex that sparked the algae)

I really hate it when I do dumb things

 

[wade1]

Is there ammonia in the windex?

It looks like you have a normal type of green algae going... nothing to worry about. Maybe up your algal grazers a little to compensate if its not a temporary effect.

 

[tripsied]

I didn't see any ingredients listed on the bottle. WHile doing the water change on Saturday, I also swapped out the carbon. I used the AquaClear carbon bag. I intentionally didn't scrub the glas but may be once or twice since then. Today the tank is looking pretty clear. It may be that the carbon was bad on the last bag (or the system is finally catching up with all the new bioload).

Things seem pretty okay. I am going to switch food sources like you suggested and keep up with the weekly carbon swaps. That seems like the best plan of action

Also, I have a 15 gallon in the works, will post updates to that project soon!!!

Tom