hey guys, so im new all around, new to delaware, new to this club, and new to saltwater. so far so good.
so i recently set up my first tank, let me know what you think. its a 5.5 gallon AIO nano reef with about 7 lbs of live rock, 5lbs of sand and thats it so far. i mean its only 4 days old but i cant wait to stock it up with some corals and inverts, and maybe a fish or 2, prob 1. so as you can see in the pics, i took a standard 5.5 gallon tank and partitioned off 4 inches which is used as my intake and return. one side of the partion is my overflow and my “filter” which will consist of live rock rubble, filterfloss and maybe some chaeto. and the other section houses my pump pushing about 130-150gph, but its adjustible, as well as my heater. that leaves me with about 4.2 gallons in my display.
i also got some nice hitchhikers on my live rock from pet kare on rt 40. i got 3 asterina stars, not the blue kind so any corals should be fine, a small snail, not sure what kind yet since he is about the size of a pen tip. and some sort of polyps. you can see them in the picture. they are circled in black, ive got about 6 of them in all different sizes. they are remaining closed up tho, and im not sure why. they do retract and extend the “stumps” but thats about all the action i get out of them. anyone out there know what they are from the pics?
well ok then tell me what you think. any constructive criticism would be awesome, im open to it all, and hey if anyone wants to throw any coral frags my way in about a month im totally open for that lol.
A 5 gallon can be very tough as a first tank, but its pretty clear you have done your homework and things are looking great. Love the mods, very clean looking and the aquascaping is awesome. Its not easy to make the rockwork look good in any tank, let alone a tank that small. Great job so far. Keep the posts and pics coming.
As far as the polyps go, im not so sure they are coral. Almost impossible to tell from the pics, but it looks more like a tunicate to me than a retracted coral polyp.
hey guys thanks for the kind words. this was my 3rd or 4 rendition of rock scaping, im a designer so im never satisfied lol, but this one i like. there are a lot of crevaces and tunnels and gaps formed by the rock that will be great for some critters to hang out in when i get them.
longballz84 as for my lighting im using a 50/50 coralife (kind of-custum) setup as well as a 10" moonlight with alternating white and blue leds.
and logans_daddy as for the supposed polyps that might be tunicates, hmm could be, i just googled it and its alot closer looking to that than a closed polyp. might be that. that would be cool, something different.
Gratz and welcome. That rock scape is sick, i wish i could get something like that in my 40g, im already drawling sketches for my reaquascaping… Sounds like you did your research and know what you are doing… If you need chaeto, i’m sure everyone in the club has some you could have.
do you plan on attending the meeting on the 16th of November? If so hope to see you there…
This meeting is at Armco Aquatics, which is where gordonious works. But the meeting place can vary between William penn High School, Different LFS, and other locations.
Everyone gets together. Theres tons of things that can happen Speakers, Demos, Raffles, Frag Trading, Frag Selling, Tank discussion, Q&A… Its tons of fun and theres people of all ages. I would suggest you go if you can. Its quite and experience.
ahh man that sounds awesome, just bad timing, ive got my sister coming into town that weekend and we are going to philly so i wont be able to make it, hopefully i can make it to the december one.
[quote=“IanH, post:8, topic:2269”]
Welcome Kyle, tank is looking nice, the itty bitty tanks aren’t too bad as long as you don’t go crazy[/quote]
i know i dont want to over do it, something tastefull, something clean looking. cant wait to start stocking.
hey so ive got a question, so my cycle is going tremendously fast, my nitrites have already began converting into nitrates. and ive seen the numbers go down through 2 or 3 tests. but still no diatom bloom, does everyone get a diatom bloom or no?
hey so ive got a question, so my cycle is going tremendously fast, my nitrites have already began converting into nitrates. and ive seen the numbers go down through 2 or 3 tests. but still no diatom bloom, does everyone get a diatom bloom or no?
Unless you put some sort of biological in the tank to initiate a cycle then yours is likely to be very small because of the size of your tank and the minimum die off associated with buying cured, local LR. I agree with Marchingband that you are likely to experience a diatom bloom to some degree, its only a matter of when. My best advice is to take your time, keep testing, and enjoy the hitchikers for a few weeks ;D
I think there is going to be another one later in November....
For some reason, there are two meetings this month back to back. The one on Saturday 11/16 then one at William Penn on Monday 11/18.
In my humble opinion, I’d skip the live rock rubble. You’ve already got over 2 lbs of live rock per gallon, I wouldn’t displace another drop of water. If this is an open top system, I’d throw a mangrove in the back. If not, go with your chaeto plan. On a tank this small, I’d probably run a very small amount of carbon continuously. It’s clear that you’ve done your homework and I think this tank has great potential.
Since this is your first saltwater project, let me share with you the best advice any of us can offer, be patient. Your tank hasn’t cycled. There is just no way. Go put that test kit of yours in a closet for now. Your live rock is going to have die-off in the next few weeks, guaranteed. When that begins to happen, a turkey baster will become your most invaluable tool. Get the dead stuff out with every water change. Once the die-off has slowed down, you can start taking water readings again.
If it was fully cured live rock and he transfered it in a bucket with water to the tank, then he would have very very little die off… i know with mine i had almost none. My cycle came before i added LR… You could always speed this up with some kind-of of bio support. Or try the shrimp method. Either way small tank/volume will lead a very small cycle. If wouldnt add to much rubble as your have tons of rock already, i would go with some carbon and maybe some phosban eventually, if/when you get some phosphates… Either way its hardest to do a small tank, because things concentrate much faster, it will take more careful testing and watching… either way good luck, and keep us updated
I agree with marchingband… if the rock was fully cured, aslong as nothing was wrong with the params in the tank it went in, there should be no die off. i feel he is spot on with his cycle. UNLESS something in the tank or water causes stuff on the rock to die, im sure he will be fine. jmo
[quote=“fishguy9, post:15, topic:2269”]
I agree with marchingband… if the rock was fully cured, aslong as nothing was wrong with the params in the tank it went in, there should be no die off. i feel he is spot on with his cycle. UNLESS something in the tank or water causes stuff on the rock to die, im sure he will be fine. jmo[/quote]
This is lunacy!!!
Haha, but really I’ve never been able to find a good source of “cured” live rock. I just don’t believe the hype. Even if you could trust the source 100%, you’re still dealing with a sterile system that won’t have the natural food and chemical filtration to support what’s on the rock itself. But I do understand where you guys are coming from. Anyone care to wager a xenia frag for his tank on it?
This reminds me of another live rock story. I recently started up a 24 gallon (I have a thread on here) and I shipped the live rock via 5 gallon buckets with no water in them. The rocks were stored in my storage container and spent nearly 1 month in 110 degree temperatures and again, no water. … just sealed in those 5 gallon buckets with extreme humidity. When I prepared them, I dipped them in fresh water outside for a few days and scrubbed them completely multiple times. When I introduced them to the tank, hundreds of little red feather dusters appeared that survived no water, 110 degree temperatures, fresh water and multiple scrubbings over a month long period. Amazing.
Im not sure why you think so. Its pretty much exactly what i said also but i just wasnt up for contradicting your post ;D I just set up a 265g with almost 300# of LR. I had almost 200# sitting in a tote with a heater and pump that i bought last spring/early summer. I took the other 100 or so pounds out of my established 75g. Because of the challenges of aquascaping a 30" deep tank most of the rock sat out of water for several hours or more on my coffee table. My 265g never cycled(at least to the degree that parameters were measureable).
you're still dealing with a sterile system that won't have the natural food and chemical filtration to support what's on the rock itself.
the system is far from sterile the second you add liverock and im assuming you meant bioloical filtration and not chemical? as far as biological filtration, again, it is added with the LR. thats what makes the rock live vs dead. if the amount of bacteria present on the liverock is sufficient enough to consume the amount of ammonia produced by the tank(i.e die off, bioload, etc) then there should not be a cycle. this is the balance that we strive for in our tank. what a lot of people dont realize is that there are often mini-cycles everytime you add a new fish to a newer system. this is why some people suggest adding a small amount of food to a new tank to avoid a 2nd cycle when adding fish.
depends on where u get the rock i got 75 pound or so from other reefers to start my 75 and was keepin sps with in a week ( still have that first sps) as for xenia ill give u a great frag for 10$
