sr2z´s Pico Desktop Reef

[sr2z]

Behold, The Desktop Pico vol. 2:

Date of establishment = yesterday (21/10/2020)
The tank = 4,5 gallon cube
Lighting = Completely DIY (notice the wooden construction), has a "White mode" (on the photo of the empty tank), "Blue-white mode" (on most of the photos) and a "Blue mode"(no photos here, but I can tell you that it looks great, in my opinion).. What do you think?
Filtration = Built-in, someone could call it a "rear sump"...
1. A sponge
2. Some ceramic rings
3. Seachem purigen
4. Seachem Matrix
5. Another sponge
6. Resun sk-300 protein skimmer (I know, a bit too oversized)
7. A sponge
8. More sponges!
9. Return pump
Deco = I used two kilos of Caribsea Liferock, I think it looks OK. Those odd things that you can see on them isn´t algae, just a lot off bubbles from yesterday. I had the opportunity to use some live rock, but after close inspection a discovered that it was full of Aiptasia...
Sand = Used to be live sand, but was completely dried and washed in fresh water so.... yeah, not too live now...
Dosing = Nothing except some Sera BioReefclear to help with the cycling, eventually some Seachem Stability. After the first corals, I will see, and probably ask you folks for some advice!
Parameters = Actually, I didn´t test yet, but I´ll update it as soon as I get to it. All my tests are Salifert
Stocking =
1 Blue-legged hermit crab
1 Cerith snail (massive, I don´t think I´ll add more Ceriths...)
2 small Dove snails (mistakenly identified as Nassarius.)
Maybe I´ll add some other kind of snail...
3 zoanthid frags (Jungle Juice, Bam Bams, Lime Chillies and some unindentified hitchhiker zoas that came with the Chillies)
Some GSP
In the future, maybe, just maybe.... a fish (clown goby, or maybe even a Banggai Cardinal)

That´s all I could think of at the moment, if there is something that I have forgotten, remind me please! I am open to any opinions on my tank and any advice.

The tank with white light, on the second day of existence:

Some random photos:

This weekend, a few shrooms will come (Ricordea yuma)... Next week, some more zoas!!!!

 

[maceto]

Hi,

Nice work :) Looks great.

Which water do you use?

 

[maceto]

I will keep a couple of Neon Blue Goby (Elacatinus)

 

[sr2z]

Hi,

Nice work :) Looks great.

Which water do you use?

Thanks @maceto !
I use RO water and the Aquaforest reef salt mix.

I will keep a couple of Neon Blue Goby (Elacatinus)

That is a nice suggestion, thanks. Neon gobies are insanely expensive in my area (for how small they are) and I was looking into some Amblyeleotris gobies, or something similiar...

 

[sr2z]

Would an Amblyeleotris and pistol shrimp combo be too much for this tank?

 

[sr2z]

Or maybe a yellow watchman goby - pistol shrimp combo? Anybody?

 

[sr2z]

Two tiny ricordea added this saturday!

 

[sr2z]

Soo, I have the opportunity to purchase an Alpheus shrimp that looks somehow like the Bullseye shrimp. I know that they don´t pair with gobies too well, so would it be possible to have this solo shrimp in the tank + add a clown goby to patrol the upper areas of the tank?
Thanks