It's ironic that the first time I actually make a thread about my own system it would be something tiny.
A lot of you know that I'm a saltwater aquarist at a public aquarium, so I work on systems like this 5k gallon reef
I also have my personal 150g and 250g coral propagation flat (flat is pretty empty right now)
But about 4 months ago my girl and I (who also works at the same facility with me) saw this tiny tank visiting an LFS and she mentioned we could probably make a cool little nightstand reef out of it. So we did
Tank is a 5.5" cube, so with nothing in it holds about a half gallon. It also had no lighting and no filtration so we had to rig that a bit with a tiny 60gph flow pump with a pre filter attached.
I added about an inch of sand and a couple rubble chunks from my 150g to get it started.
For lighting I cut a sheet of aluminum and bent it at 90°, painted it black, added 8,000k, 10,000k, actinic and UV LEDs to make a ghetto little 10w fixture to go over it. I attached it with extreme double sided Velcro so it could be removed easily. It actually works quite well.
Fast forward 4 months and it's pretty well stocked. It's housed 2 Phymanthus crucifer anemones, Euphyllia paraancora, and a Zoanthid colony for 3 months and just recently added a couple bleached Ricordea yuma that should turn green, green Palythoa grandis and Stylophora guttatus.
Everything is doing very well in this little system, it holds about a third of a gallon so 90% water changes are done every other day or so. Lights are run about 9 hours per day.
That's it, that's our tiny little tank. I'll update as I add more things to it. Enjoy
A lot of you know that I'm a saltwater aquarist at a public aquarium, so I work on systems like this 5k gallon reef
I also have my personal 150g and 250g coral propagation flat (flat is pretty empty right now)
But about 4 months ago my girl and I (who also works at the same facility with me) saw this tiny tank visiting an LFS and she mentioned we could probably make a cool little nightstand reef out of it. So we did
Tank is a 5.5" cube, so with nothing in it holds about a half gallon. It also had no lighting and no filtration so we had to rig that a bit with a tiny 60gph flow pump with a pre filter attached.
I added about an inch of sand and a couple rubble chunks from my 150g to get it started.
For lighting I cut a sheet of aluminum and bent it at 90°, painted it black, added 8,000k, 10,000k, actinic and UV LEDs to make a ghetto little 10w fixture to go over it. I attached it with extreme double sided Velcro so it could be removed easily. It actually works quite well.
Fast forward 4 months and it's pretty well stocked. It's housed 2 Phymanthus crucifer anemones, Euphyllia paraancora, and a Zoanthid colony for 3 months and just recently added a couple bleached Ricordea yuma that should turn green, green Palythoa grandis and Stylophora guttatus.
Everything is doing very well in this little system, it holds about a third of a gallon so 90% water changes are done every other day or so. Lights are run about 9 hours per day.
That's it, that's our tiny little tank. I'll update as I add more things to it. Enjoy
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