5g Survivor Build

[MaxxuM]

Today, the move is complete... So, if anyone's interested I'll share my experience.

Disaster struck my 2.5g Pico when I mistook a bottle of Seachem Stability for Prime while regenerating Purigen. I replaced a spent package of Purigen for the contaminated one right before bed and woke up the next morning to a heartbreaking sight. The tank had crashed. It was like looking into milky water. After three 100% water changes things looked somewhat stable, but within 24hrs the damage was 'beginning' to be revealed. Lost four corals and the rest were hurt. So I watched and waited, praying the rest would make it. I'd forgotten there was 1 aiptasia in there. Long story short, that 1 aiptasia exploded into more than 100... in a 2.5g tank. Everything was covered. I couldn't even clean the glass due to all the little suckers covering everything. So, I went into storage and found my old 5g tank and rushed it into service. Thank goodness for Reef Town where I purchased 3 adult Berghia Nudibranchs. Those little suckers cleaned up my tank in less than a month! Worth every penny.

The build process was pretty simple. Took all the rock out of my pico and put it into an RODI bath for three days. After that, it went outside in the sun to dry off for another week. While that was going on I put sand and saltwater into the Survivor Nano, tossed in a small bottle of BIO-Spira and fed the tank a cube of mysis. I fed the tank some pellets every other day along with a few ml of Stability to keep things moving along. By day 7 there was no ammonia or nitrites and nitrates were at 50 I believe. By day 12 nitrates were down to 10. I moved the baby clowns into the 5g (guy in my area breeds them). They were TINY so please don't crucify me. The pico was always temporary.

There was a short explosion of algae and diatoms on days 15-25, but it was gone just as fast as it came. At that point I removed all chemical filtration, did a large 50% water change, and started moving corals I 'refragged' onto new clean plugs. Until the nudibrachs finished doing their job, I had to wait. That waiting was horrible. Everything was injured, being constantly stung my aiptasia and the water quality was still not great. It took close to a month before I was confident everything was clean. Even so, I migrated as many nudibranchs into the new
tank as I could find, just in case.

Equipment
Tank: 5 gallon Fluval Spec V
Lighting: Kessil 360we on ridged arm mount w/ Spectral Controller
ATO: 1 liter gravity fed refilled every 2-3 days
Salt: Red Sea Salt @ 35ppt
Pump: Generic 80gph
Circulation: hygger Mini Wave Maker (@ minimum wave pulse - ~600gph; borderline too high IMO)
Filtration: inTank basket (Floss, Purigen, Matrix) occasionally ChemiPure Blue or Carbon but never longer than a week
Water: RODI Zero TDS typically but I get busy and use RO water sometimes (live in apartment so RODI is via faucet and a pain to make)
Current Levels: pH 8.1, Calcium 420, Alk 8, Magnesium 1320 : Ammonia/Nitrites/Nitrates/PO4 all register zero (struggling to raise nitrate/phosphates)
Water Additives: SeaChem Fusion 1 & 2 (Alk loss is ~0.1-~0.2 per day) Dosed manually every 2-3 days
Fish Food: New Life Spectrum tiny pellets, frozen mysis shrimp, live Tigger Pods added every couple days
Coral Food: Reef-Roids every 2-3 days & Brightwell's CoralAmino 2 drops per day as per instructions
Rock: Purple dry rock (don't remember the brand)
Sand: way too fine... Should have waited for "Special Grade"

Inhabitants
2x Ocellaris Clownfish
3x Nassarius Snails
2x Blue Legged Hermits
1x Mexican Turbo Snail
2x Astraea Turbo Snails

I don't follow naming trends nor do I really buy the "expensive" stuff. I just buy the cheap stuff and enjoy it. (See photos below)

Tank Notes
Clown "female" is a dang bully. Had to separate them due to "male" trying to jump out of the tank due to aggression. The more stress is placed on them the more the female bullies the male, so I'm trying to stay away from the tank.

"Coal miner canary" SPS that was beginning to color up in the pico is now going brown. I think it's due to having no measurable nitrates or phosphates in the tank. Even with my heavy feeding, Amino dosing and not running any chemical filtration nutrients still wont rise. Thinking of dosing nitrates/phosphates, but I'm too chicken.

Hermits are a pain in the butt. They keep irritating the gorgonian coral by climbing all over them as they use them to 'swing' to frag tray. If it wasn't so comical I'd get rid of them.

Anyone know the name of this one? I don't think it's grown or changed in over 2 months.

Spot the snail?

Going brown... but appears to still be growing.

 

[juanrmattos]

These are the experiences that make us better reef keepers @MaxxuM , everything will go back to normal sooner than you think

I also had An Evo 5 , it was a very gratifying journey

 

[MaxxuM]

These are the experiences that make us better reef keepers @MaxxuM , everything will go back to normal sooner than you think

I also had An Evo 5 , it was a very gratifying journey

Thank you! Just popped over to your thread and saw that you're using the Aquaforest Probiotic Method. I'd like to stick to a single "system" to reduce complexity and in theory make things more predictable. ZEOvit is way too involved (and expensive) so I've been looking at Red Sea's line of products. You've been using the Aquaforest method a while... what do you think about it?

 

[juanrmattos]

Thank you! Just popped over to your thread and saw that you're using the Aquaforest Probiotic Method. I'd like to stick to a single "system" to reduce complexity and in theory make things more predictable. ZEOvit is way too involved (and expensive) so I've been looking at Red Sea's line of products. You've been using the Aquaforest method a while... what do you think about it?

YES!!!, as a matter of fact, I’m about to start an EVO 13.5 using the complete Sed Sea Reef Care Program; I love Aquaforest but the dosing for such a small reef is extremely hard.

Will keep an eye here, best of luck!!!

 

[Dcal]

Beautiful setup and coral selection. Mistakes happen to the best of us.

Your unknown looks like a stylo/birdsnest to me unless you're talking about the picture below

 

[MaxxuM]

Beautiful setup and coral selection. Mistakes happen to the best of us.

Your unknown looks like a stylo/birdsnest to me unless you're talking about the picture below

After some research I think it's a "Slimeball Anacropora". Think I'm giving it too much light so I'll be moving it down in the next week or so to see if it colors up.

 

[MaxxuM]

Next group of photos...

These plain green zoa's shrank down to almost nothing. They are coming back slowly.

This hammer retracted for a week and part of it died off. I didn't think wall corals could do that, but it looks 100% better and on its way back to recovery.

Pectinia coral seems to be doing OK, but I'm worried his sweepers may hit other's near by. Watching him.

These zoa's don't seem to grow very fast, but they do expand more than my others.

 

[Dcal]

Whoops I thought you were talking about the other picture but slimeball looks correct to me too. Awesome zoas

 

[MaxxuM]

Quick update. Bought a few more corals and moved the center rock out due to pests (replaced it with dry rock). Not sure what exactly was killing/eating the zoa's, but I didn't want to risk it spreading. So it's gone. Also, my new tank arrived today. I just couldn't pass up the great deal I got on it. Home building has been delayed though, so the Survivor build looks like it's going to remain for now.

It's dropping 0.4 - 0.5 dKH per day now. So, I'm switching to Tropic Marin's All-For-Reef and a Kamoer X1 to see if it's a viable option when I finally move everything to the 45g. I may DIY the All-For-Reef, but this bottle will probably last me a while.

 

[najer]

Nice work and great pics.