Looks good. That is either the smallest mandarin I have ever seen or the depth of the tank is deceiving
.I'll chat with you more tomorrow
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Ask Nano Questions and Find Information (Nano Expert Albert Thiel)
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Looks good. That is either the smallest mandarin I have ever seen or the depth of the tank is deceiving
.I'll chat with you more tomorrow
Here is a pic of the tank
At one point I had a little bit of everything. SPS LPS and zoas. The SPS went first and once I noticed I moved them over to my display. The chalice I had kept a nice color with little to no growth, and zoas have no growth that I can tell.
The display algae also didn't do well (this pic was just after its arrival). The shipper said it may be the shipping method used as the other package that went out was also lost.
The two clowns are still young and aren't fighting at all.
I haven't thought about more light on the chaeto.... Not sure why though I run my light for my sump 24/7 on my 120. What's a good way to include more light in a tank like this without a sump?
A big tank is easy and very forgiving, where a nano is more like an art form.
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Loki: My suggestions include the following for you to try and get things to improve:
- add some chemical filtration to the large HOB, Poly-Filters cut up would be my first choice, not expensive and efficient
- put some GFO, or some Al. oxide in one of the HOB's to filter out phosphate, and if you use Al. oxide, silicate as well
- check your pH and alkalinity to make sure they are in the proper range
- Chalices need light and "are" slow growers so your observation does not surprise me
- You can add more light inexpensively by using the CFT's (the spiral shaped ones) and use the 6500 K ones and put them in clip on round Shop lights. I would add two of the 23 watt (100 watt equivalent) ones. That should give you a lot more intensity and a high PAR value. They are sold in two packs (I found mine at Lowe's) but make sure they are the 6500 K's.
- That should help the Chaetomorpha grow better too, and will be better for the Chalice as well, although as I said they are real slow growers. What exact kind is it as several types are referred to as Chalices?
- SPS need a lot more light so moving them was a good idea as I suspect that the 120 has a lot more light (LED's maybe?)
That is what I would do, and run some GAC in the small HOB to polish the water even more.
Let me know whether you have any other questions. Thanks
Looks good. That is either the smallest mandarin I have ever seen or the depth of the tank is deceiving
I'll chat with you more tomorrow
He was added to the picture but kept small and not too visible to keep the focus on the overall pic and the title. BTW I will post pre-ordering info and prices for the book but I have to find out in what area it should be done first. The book formatted in 6x9 is around 400 pages with tons of color photos and I seem to keep adding more as I proofread.
Candy Cane
Okay I have a few questions for you actually:
I have a 5 gallon reef ready Ecopico from Ecoxotic. I want to do coral only, maybe (not a necessity) a fish, don't mind not having one. Can I get away with no filter, 1 mini power head, was thinking the ones from Koralia the mini ones? Bare bottom, live rock? I was thinking I would do about 2 water changes a week if I had to but Id like to do only 1 a week because it would be on the same schedule with my other tanks.
I guess to sum up the question, if I want to be successful with coral in a 5 gallon how/what is the best set-up in your opinion?
Second question, is it even possible to keep sps in such a small tank? I want to try it just for the heck of it and see if I can be successful growing 1 or 2 cheap and hardy sps in there, any experience with that?
Next questions about a 10 gallon I have here at school for my students (high school teacher):
I have about 5 to 6 pounds of live rock in it, a HOB filter with some carbon running in it, a mini koralia power head, Deep Blue heater for a 10 gallon, and a black fine sand bed and was planning on doing 1 or 2 clown fish. The kids seem to love them since Finding Nemo and all. It is cycling at the moment so I havent added any livestock yet.
Do you think I could keep 2 clown fish long term and how often / how much WC's do you recommend with that bio load. Also would leaving it sit over Christmas break without coming in to refill top off water affect my cycle in such a small tank? Im worried the salinity increase due to not topping it off with possibly kill the bacteria im trying to build up in the tank. I can come in but dont want to if you dont see it as any type of concern? Sorry christmas break is 2.5 weeks long.
Thanks in advance, sorry its lengthy!
I have a 5 gallon reef ready Ecopico from Ecoxotic. I want to do coral only, maybe (not a necessity) a fish, don't mind not having one. Can I get away with no filter, 1 mini power head, was thinking the ones from Koralia the mini ones? Bare bottom, live rock? I was thinking I would do about 2 water changes a week if I had to but Id like to do only 1 a week because it would be on the same schedule with my other tanks.
I guess to sum up the question, if I want to be successful with coral in a 5 gallon how/what is the best set-up in your opinion?
Second question, is it even possible to keep sps in such a small tank? I want to try it just for the heck of it and see if I can be successful growing 1 or 2 cheap and hardy sps in there, any experience with that?
Next questions about a 10 gallon I have here at school for my students (high school teacher):
I have about 5 to 6 pounds of live rock in it, a HOB filter with some carbon running in it, a mini koralia power head, Deep Blue heater for a 10 gallon, and a black fine sand bed and was planning on doing 1 or 2 clown fish. The kids seem to love them since Finding Nemo and all. It is cycling at the moment so I havent added any livestock yet.
Do you think I could keep 2 clown fish long term and how often / how much WC's do you recommend with that bio load. Also would leaving it sit over Christmas break without coming in to refill top off water affect my cycle in such a small tank? Im worried the salinity increase due to not topping it off with possibly kill the bacteria im trying to build up in the tank. I can come in but dont want to if you dont see it as any type of concern? Sorry christmas break is 2.5 weeks long.
Thanks in advance, sorry its lengthy!
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Thanks for the info I have GFO and carbon laying around for the 120 so I'll just get a media bag and put it in the frag tank. Now I need some small media bags and I'll see what happens.
With my disappointment with the tank the chalice was moved and is doing well in the 120. I'm not exactly sure what type of chalice it is, but I have a picture of it.
I have the bulb your talking about as well. They are the ones I use on my garage. Would you suggest leaving it on 24/7 or just on and off with the white lights during the day?
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I have GFO and carbon laying around for the 120 so I'll just get a media bag and put it in the frag tank. Now I need some small media bags and I'll see what happens. With my disappointment with the tank the chalice was moved and is doing well in the 120. I'm not exactly sure what type of chalice it is, but I have a picture of it.
I have the bulb your talking about as well. They are the ones I use on my garage. Would you suggest leaving it on 24/7 or just on and off with the white lights during the day?
Sent from tapatalk
On the 5 gallon :
BB and live rock should work and water changes based on what the nutrient level tests show is what I would agree should be possible but they may have to be large enough to keep your PO4 and NO3 low enough so you do not get algae outbreaks and that may require 1 or 2 a week or larger ones once a week making sure that the water you use has the same pH, temp etc. as the water in the tank so you do not shock the corals. How much you feed will also affect how much and how often you have to change water. Make sure too that you clean out any detritus that accumulates and blow off the rocks with a kitchen baster and when you siphon water out get as much of that out of the tank so it cannot decompose. Yes good water flow is needed and the type will depend on what corals you put in there as some like low flow but not laminar flow but a flow that varies in where it comes from and flows over them. The key to success will be to have some low range tests so you can determine how good or not so good the water quality is or becomes and change water accordingly to keep all nutrient levels low. Keeping a tank without any other filtration than live rock is not all that easy but can IME be done (it is in fact what a lot of people who keep Pico tanks do ... they rely on large water changes to keep the water chemistry under control). Make sure also that your tank is fully cycled before adding anything as you do not want an ammonia spike in such a small tank when you already have life forms in it.
Use porous live rock so you maximize the biological filtration as much as possible. Of course in a tank that small you will need to be careful not to overload it as that will bring the water quality down real quickly so testing often until you understand and know how the water quality changes and over what period of time will be important. Once you know that you can pretty much go on a regular schedule of water changes and volume you change and will not have to test as much.
On the SPS corals in a small tank:
SPS need a lot of light of the right spectrum and if you are going to try that then you need to provide a lot of light ... if you keep the easier types such as Pavona coral you should be able to get by with CFT's of 6500 K 23 watt ones (100 watt equivalent) and they should do OK but in that case you will need your alkalinity at 8 to 9 dKH and make sure your Calcium levels are around 420 to 450 ppm. Again good flow but not too forceful for Pavona but if you keep other types you may need stronger flow. All depends on what SPS's you intend to keep.
On the 10 gallon:
Clownfish unfortunately need lots of space and I would not put two as even if you start with small ones, the soon grown and the tank becomes too small for them. 5 or 6 pounds of Live rock is a bit too little for a 10 gallons. I would go up to 10 pounds of porous LR. HOB with carbon is fine but add some PO4 remover to it as well, and maybe a few pieces of Poly-Filter ... just cut up the large rectangular shape it comes in and use a 3 inch piece of it in the HOB in addition to the carbon and the PO4 remover (only needs a small amount).
Keeping 2 clownfish long term is not an option for a 10 gallon, even 1 is cutting it close. They grow and grown and need lots of swimming space to remain healthy. Start with a real small one as that will allow the fish to get used to the limited space that is available.
In small tanks evaporation IS a problem as it will increase the s.g. and if the evaporation is high the s.g. will go up too much. Do you have an idea of what the evaporation rate is now as leaving it for 2.5 weeks may be too long ... note though that if you have no corals in it you can lower the s.g. slowly before the holidays to 1.020 which should not make the s.g. go too high but the real problem is not so much the s.g. alone, the fish will need food as well and 2.5 weeks without food is too long.
You may want to keep the tank fallow over the holidays and just keep the cycle going by adding some organic material that can decompose slowly and keep the nitrogen cycle going and then after the Holidays before you add a Nemo :-0 adjust the water quality with water changes to bring it to the right s.g. and low nutrient levels. Note that fish can be kept a lower s.g. levels but you need to slowly acclimate them to it if they come from a tank at a store where the s.g. is higher. Drip acclimate for a hour or more so the fish gets acclimated to the lower s.g. in your 10 gallon tank and make sure the temp, in the container used to acclimate does not drop too much or the fish will get stressed out and may get ick.
Hopefully this helps but if you have more questions do not hesitate to post them here on this thread ... I have no problem with answering more questions if what I wrote is not clear enough.
My Banggai Cardinal ...
Thanks for the info
With my disappointment with the tank the chalice was moved and is doing well in the 120. I'm not exactly sure what type of chalice it is, but I have a picture of it.
I have the bulb your talking about as well. They are the ones I use on my garage. Would you suggest leaving it on 24/7 or just on and off with the white lights during the day?
Sent from tapatalk
Glad the Chalice is doing better, looks like Echinophyllia or Echinimorpha but when they are frags ID is not always that easy as there are at least 5 different types that are referred to as Chalice and a lot of them look very similar when real small. ID is easier when they get somewhat larger. But good that it doing a lot better and it looks like it too.
Good that you have the compounds needed and can get the light I suggested but make sure you get the 6500 K one and not the lower K ones that are sold such as 2700K or 4600K or 5000K, I did get some from Lowe's in 6500k and a 2 pack was around $13 and change I think. Do not leave it on 24/7 just run a regular 8 or 9 hours photoperiod. That is all the tank needs.
If there is a Petsmart in your area you can get small bags for 89 or 99 cents and I am sure Petco probably has them too.
Nice Chalice BTW
For the 10 gallon:
I don't have any fish in the 10 gallon at the moment, it is still cycling, so far the evaporation hasn't really been that bad. It goes from 1.0255 to 1.026 over the weekend, Friday 2pm I fill it with water, I return Monday 6am and test it. Thanks for the advice on the poly filter, that's going to be a good option for me. I can stop in once over break, so it will go 5 days without water top off then 5 more days. Without anything in the tank except a little frozen mysis shrimp to help feed the bacteria and 5 to 6 lbs of live rock do you think it will be okay?
What I might end up doing is keeping the clown the kids plan on buying in the 10 gallon till the end of the year then introducing him in my 55 reef tank after this school year (I have one in there already, hopefully it works out) or give him back to the LFS. Ill have the new class pick out a smaller fish maybe a royal gramma or something to that effect, gobies usually stay small too.
Do you have any good fish options for a 10 gallon that kids can easily identify with and looks cool but is not insanely expensive?
For the 5 gallon:
These are the exact spec right now:
Read more: Ecopico Reef Desktop Aquarium - Eco Pico Reef Tank
With these specs what types of sps do you think I would be able to keep if any at all? Also I think I am going to go bare bottom with some LR and no fish at all. What about zoas? IDK i guess im feeling out what are my most viable option coral-wise. I dont care at all about fish in the 5 gallon.
I don't have any fish in the 10 gallon at the moment, it is still cycling, so far the evaporation hasn't really been that bad. It goes from 1.0255 to 1.026 over the weekend, Friday 2pm I fill it with water, I return Monday 6am and test it. Thanks for the advice on the poly filter, that's going to be a good option for me. I can stop in once over break, so it will go 5 days without water top off then 5 more days. Without anything in the tank except a little frozen mysis shrimp to help feed the bacteria and 5 to 6 lbs of live rock do you think it will be okay?
What I might end up doing is keeping the clown the kids plan on buying in the 10 gallon till the end of the year then introducing him in my 55 reef tank after this school year (I have one in there already, hopefully it works out) or give him back to the LFS. Ill have the new class pick out a smaller fish maybe a royal gramma or something to that effect, gobies usually stay small too.
Do you have any good fish options for a 10 gallon that kids can easily identify with and looks cool but is not insanely expensive?
For the 5 gallon:
These are the exact spec right now:
- Tank dimensions: 10†x 10†x 12â€
- Tank volume: 5.1 gallons
- Light spectrum: 12,000K White & 453nm Actinic Blue
- Total watts: 15 watts
- Pump flowrate: 80 gph/300lph
Read more: Ecopico Reef Desktop Aquarium - Eco Pico Reef Tank
With these specs what types of sps do you think I would be able to keep if any at all? Also I think I am going to go bare bottom with some LR and no fish at all. What about zoas? IDK i guess im feeling out what are my most viable option coral-wise. I dont care at all about fish in the 5 gallon.
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If there are no fish in the 10 then the variations in s.g. are not really that important as long as you adjust them before putting a fish in it and acclimate that fish to the tank parameters as I indicated in my earlier message. Once you have the Clown yes you could do that and introduce it at night in the larger tank when the lights are out as that usually minimizes territorial behavior and in a 55 there is plenty of space for both so that should work.
When the Holidays are over you could then bring it back and re-acclimate it.
Yes Gobies are always a good choice but many need a sandy bottom as a lot of them like to burrow somewhat, the smaller ones do not need as much sand as the larger ones but in a 10 I would stick with the small ones. Alternatively a Citron Goby may be a good choice and the kids should like that one too as it is one of the funnier Gobies based on its behavior. The other choice is a bicolor Blenny but I think a small clown or the Citron Goby would be a better choice.
For the 5 :
Pavona, Duncan, Candy Cane would be good options for you. Other SPS may be a little too difficult but you could try an inexpensive Acro ... problem though with Acro is the feeing that is needed to keep them in healthy shape and make sure that there are no flatworms on them .. AEFW's will kill them off in no time if you introduce them. If you get one make sure you dip it to get rid of any possible acropora eating flatworms (Lugol's and follow the instructions on the bottle). I'd go with the others suggested though.
And yes no fish would be best in the 5.
Fish for the 10 were listed earlier ... Clown or Citron Goby would be IMO the best choice.
Hope this helps.
Larger view of Cabbage :
All the same to you for the Holidays ... and sure when you have more questions do not hesitate to post them. Glad to help if I can
Magnet my Citron Goby hugging the Front glass of the tank
Magnet on my 2 Yumas
He loves anything in the Tank ... and never seems to get stung even by those corals that do
I posted a few pics of my Citron Goby for you as that is one of the fish I suggested ....
You are welcome and if you want more pics of Magnet's Shenanigans just let me know.
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