Leyth's 5 Gal Nano

[Leyth]

Bit of a cross post from NR, but I'd like visibility for advice since this is my first tank.

Well some pieces have arrived and some others will be coming in tomorrow and Monday. I went to my local fish store and picked up a few pieces of live rock, 10 gallons of water, and some live sand. Unfortunately, they didn't have the sand I wanted so I grabbed some Nature's Ocean Samoan Pink. I also messed up and bought some wrong items like the heater.



At the moment I have no light fixture. I am going to make the decision on which light to order after I post this. Here is the current setup though:

• 5.5 gallon tank
• Aquaclear Power Filter 20 with Carbon insert and Biomax insert in the stock media rack
• Aqueon 50W heater(not the pro, this is the mistake I made, I thought I saw a good deal, eheim 50w comes in tomorrow)
• 4.5 lbs of Live rock
• Nature's Ocean Samoan Pink Live Sand
• No light fixture (don't let the iPhone flash arm hover method fool you, I was just trying to take pictures lol)

Anyways, here are the pictures: I have the filter running on high and the heater maintaining 79 F. How does it look to you guys? Anything look off?

My refractometer arrives tomorrow and the API test kit arrives monday. I'm not going to lie, other than getting the light fixture and hooking it up, I have no idea what to do now. I guess start testing the parameters Monday and then add corals/fish once things look stable?

 

[revhtree]

Looking good! I can see you're going to be good at taking photos. Welcome to R2R!

 

[Chrisfish]

Welcome, looking good so far. Lots of great people here that can help you. There are threads here that will tell you how to cycle your tank.

 

[DustyXB9Reefer]

Looks good so far! I have an Aquaclear 50 on my 29 planted tank. Pretty decent filter! Easy to use, easy to clean. Almost wish there was more surface skim but pretty much anything that goes under the waterfall is pushed down and sucked up by the intake.

What light are you planning on using?

 

[Leyth]

Hey everyone, thanks for the replies and support. I got the rest of my supplies today. Everything except the API test kit. It comes in on Monday, I hope that's not going to be a big deal and that I can start testing on Monday.

The refractometer showed 1.025 so I think I am good on that front. I also added two more pieces of live rock because I felt like I didn't have enough. I think this looks a lot better.

The only issues or concerns I have now is:

• The hydor koralia 240 is moving sand a good bit, is there such thing as too much flow? How can I alleviate this issue?
• I have no idea what to do with my lighting intensity. It's a 5 gallon so I took someone else's settings as a baseline and just cut everything in half to start with.

Here are some more pics:

 

[Leyth]

Looks good so far! I have an Aquaclear 50 on my 29 planted tank. Pretty decent filter! Easy to use, easy to clean. Almost wish there was more surface skim but pretty much anything that goes under the waterfall is pushed down and sucked up by the intake.

What light are you planning on using?

Oh sorry, I missed your question. I ended up going with an AI Prime.

 

[DustyXB9Reefer]

Those are really nice little lights. Might be too much for so little but that's the nice thing about those lights you can adjust them.

 

[jsker]

Welcome R2R. I wonder if you can up load Hydra setting? I am looking at your light schedule an it looks a bit to long. Also are you running the lunar par of the app? I am running mine at %1 and give the tank a very nice effect at night.

 

[Leyth]

Welcome R2R. I wonder if you can up load Hydra setting? I am looking at your light schedule an it looks a bit to long. Also are you running the lunar par of the app? I am running mine at %1 and give the tank a very nice effect at night.

Thanks. I am running the lunar part, here is what I have it set to.

Should I try to shorten my schedule to match yours?

 

[jsker]

I would run them for 12 hrs at the longest, then run the lunar for shut off time till the time the light come back on. I thing we all want to see our system 24/7 and that is the nice thing about the lunar. You can see the tank all the time unless there is not a moon or new moon. Then it is dark.

 

[Leyth]

I would run them for 12 hrs at the longest, then run the lunar for shut off time till the time the light come back on. I thing we all want to see our system 24/7 and that is the nice thing about the lunar. You can see the tank all the time unless there is not a moon or new moon. Then it is dark.

Gotcha, ok what about this? I tried to use just the kelvin option instead of individually changing the colors because that was pretty confusing. However, I still don't know what I am doing. I started it at 10pm so that we could run it later in the day. I figured noon to 2:30pm would be pretty high sun and then let it drop off into 6pm and then drop off into 9:30pm.

Also, I am in day 4 of my cycle. The only critter I have seen is a brittle star fish that seems to be surviving the cycle. Is that normal?

 

[jsker]

I am running at 42k right now. I am acclimating till the end of this month to be at the full setting of the lights. My blues are running higher than my whites, green,s and my reds. I like running the lunar effect so that I can see the tank at night my schedule is all over the place. My schedule falls more in the day time, my thinking is the fish have a natural clock in them and messing around with that might not be good in the long run. But that is just my feeling So to recap I would try turning down the whites, greens, and reds to about 15% and leave you blues were they are at. If you have the acclimation effect I would use that and have it on for two week so the system can get used to the light. The AI lights are very strong and they will have an effect on your system if they are run to. I was told by tech support, for the dimensions and depth of my tank not to really run the light over 40%. I am watching the tank closely and as the lights ramp up and if things are not happy I will make some adjustments. I would also suggest to have a longer ramp up of the light, possibly 4 hours.

 

[moreef]

I really like your tank and especially how all the equipment is on the end it looks really clean. Only thing I would consider is an ATO to keep salinity constant. Great job

 

[Leyth]

I am running at 42k right now. I am acclimating till the end of this month to be at the full setting of the lights. My blues are running higher than my whites, green,s and my reds. I like running the lunar effect so that I can see the tank at night my schedule is all over the place. My schedule falls more in the day time, my thinking is the fish have a natural clock in them and messing around with that might not be good in the long run. But that is just my feeling So to recap I would try turning down the whites, greens, and reds to about 15% and leave you blues were they are at. If you have the acclimation effect I would use that and have it on for two week so the system can get used to the light. The AI lights are very strong and they will have an effect on your system if they are run to. I was told by tech support, for the dimensions and depth of my tank not to really run the light over 40%. I am watching the tank closely and as the lights ramp up and if things are not happy I will make some adjustments. I would also suggest to have a longer ramp up of the light, possibly 4 hours.

I see, alright let me go work on that. So you recommend I use acclimation feature even if there is no live stock in the tank at the moment?

When you say run the light over 40%, that means never put a color above the 40% right? So when doing that with the kelvin feature, you would just lower the brightness to 40% right?

I really like your tank and especially how all the equipment is on the end it looks really clean. Only thing I would consider is an ATO to keep salinity constant. Great job

Thanks! I am starting to look into an ATO. I can't believe how much water has evaporated in the past 3 days.

 

[jsker]

I see, alright let me go work on that. So you recommend I use acclimation feature even if there is no live stock in the tank at the moment?

When you say run the light over 40%, that means never put a color above the 40% right? So when doing that with the kelvin feature, you would just lower the brightness to 40% right?



Thanks! I am starting to look into an ATO. I can't believe how much water has evaporated in the past 3 days.

Yes use the acclimation effect every time you add corals, live stock. This gets them used to the lighting and does not stress the new addition.
I would try the manual adjustments. It is still on auto after you save. AI told me not to go over 40% you can run higher then 40% but I would not do this on the whites, reds. greens. just the blues. just watch the tank and do not cook any of the critters.

 

[Leyth]

Ok so I updated my AI prime settings.

Cycle starts at 9:30Am and ramps up to 1PM - 4:30PM of daylight which looks like this:

Then ramps down to 9:00Pm where only Very Deep Blue sits at 5% with Lunar cycle starting at the same time and ending at 12:30Am.

Is that good or too much?

 

[Leyth]

Here is a photo update as well. I checked the salinity and it was 1.026. I did some cable management and did a decent job I think, could definitely be better.

Heres a few full tank shots:

Here are a couple of shots to show where in the house the tank is.

 

[Leyth]

Ok, my test kit came in today so here is what I've got.

Ph: 8
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10-20ish?

So just to recap, I set the tank up Thursday, installed the light on Friday, and today is Monday and these are my numbers. I used live rock, live sand, and pre mixed salt water from the LFS. Does it look like I am cycled? Or did it never happen? Also I am seeing brown algae? I can't tell what is showing up on the middle rock. You can see the above pictures to see what it looked like 3-4 days ago.