Sultanen's 2,5G Pico Reef

[Sultanen]

Welcome to my 2,5g Pico-Reef project!

This is my first ever saltwater tank, I have always been fascinated small tanks, plants,invertebrates and challenges in FW so I find those coral grown picotanks rather attractive.. Therefore I decided to start my own!

 

If I would try to make some goals for myself with this tank it is to get a mixed reef dominated with colorful SPS, I also want to make the tank work with as low maintenance as possible. Last but not least i need this tank to teach me to be patient since I will need to add corals slow since I simply won’t afford to fill it in a hurry.

Well, that’s enough of boring introduction. Here is the setup I start with initaly:

 

Latest FTS:

 

• Tank: 2,5g (the real volume is 2,8g or 10,7L)
  
• Filter: Wave Niagara skimmer 280
  
• Light: 18W Wave PC, 10k+arctic
  
• Heater: 50W Hydor
  
• Moonlight: Rio Minisun
  
• Background: Back To Nature, Vit Kalksten (White limestone)
  
• ATO: DIY 10L container
  
• Salt: Red Sea Coral Pro
  
• 2,3kg Fiju Liverock
  
• 2,5kg Seamoa pink Livesand 0,5-1,7mm
  

 

 

Day1 - 3/1-10

Bought the livesand, liverock, Salt and testkits.

I know its not optimal but i started the tank with “old” water from a friend, this will get changed into the parameters Im aiming for with my salt in a couple of waterchanges.

Parameters:

• Salthalt 1.025
  
• PH 8,0
  
• NH3 0
  
• NO2 0,1
  
• Temperature: 25C
  

 

A bunch of pics of the startup:

Borrowed this book from a friend, its great and I can recommend anyone to read it

I decided to hide my HOB and was pleased with the result

Moonlight

 

 

Day2 - 4/1-10

Building of my DIY Automatict Topoff

 

I came up with this idea for a ATO mainly becous I had all of the parts, except the Floatswitch laying around or used in other DIY projects.

The principle is simple, when the floater gets triggered it closes a 12V circuit triggering a relay that starts an 230V airpump pumping air into a 10L bucket, the air then forces whater out of the bucket up a hose and into the tank.

I like the use of an airpump here becous it gives me a nice slow and controllable flow wich is perfect for such a small tank, now, 3 days later I can say that it works like a charm using up about a liter of whater each day. The reason that I use a relay is that I don’t like the idea of having a 230V DIY circuit running through the tank, it would have been a lot more simple if I had a 12V pump laying around.

 

Pics of the build:

My first proof of concept test with a 1,5L PET

 

 

 

Day3 - 5/1-10

Bought a little CUC since I don’t expect to see much of a cycling in this tank.

The CUC atm:

• 3X Banded Trochus Snail
  
• 2x Nassarius vibex
  

 

 

 

Day5 - 7/1-10

Will do watertestings tomorrow of all the parameters I can.

• Temperature: 24,8-26,0 is what I have seen all over the day
  

 

Started to do some testing with 70W MH setups last night, to get some clue to how much heat it will generate and what I can do to prevent it, I love testing out my ideas of DIY!

Here are some pics of my experimenting:

First I tried with an old DIY MH (above), this one got to hot (28C) so I decided a fan was needed to bring the temperature down, this is my simple testsetup:

Ugly but it works, it has been running like this for 4h now and the temperature is 24,5C and this with a lid that wasn’t there with the last test, im simply amazed of what a 120mm fan can do on its lowest speed!!

Here is a quick test comparation of the blue 18W PC compared to a MH(not the one I will use), the difference in brightness is still quite obvious (got the same exposure settings in both shots), and the light will be even closer when in done with the fixture.

[thesmallerthebetter]

very impressive clean set up

 

i love the backround.

 

welcome to the pico crowd!

[Kazooie]

Nice!

 

Any way I can get a link the the light your using?

[Sultanen]

very impressive clean set up

 

i love the backround.

 

welcome to the pico crowd!

Thnx!

The background is a Swedish brand and they are indeed lovley!

Im affraid the setup wont be as clean as it is today when in done with my MH experiments though, but ill try to keep it as clean as i can while still cool =)

 

Nice!

 

Any way I can get a link the the light your using?

The 18W fixture? Its not to easy to find online but its a Wave Solaris 18W, love it but the bulbs are not standard and therefore is more expencive then the regular once.

[Kazooie]

Oh, that's too bad. Nice colors coming from it.

[Squared]

Really awsome setup. I like.

[chriscross]

Fat najs! =)

[.Newman.]

Very nice tank start!

You have some very nice looking LR in there and it makes your tank look incredible.

In terms of the CUC, I honestly think you would be good with just one trochus snail, and if youre not feeding anything to the tank, there is no need for nassarius at all. Also 1 nas is enough for a 2.5 gal. The CUC should not be the biggest bioload in your tank, and in a 2.5 gal the water volume really limits you a lot. Leave some room for the main inhabitants of the tank (assuming you will be doing more than just coral)

[Sultanen]

Very nice tank start!

You have some very nice looking LR in there and it makes your tank look incredible.

In terms of the CUC, I honestly think you would be good with just one trochus snail, and if youre not feeding anything to the tank, there is no need for nassarius at all. Also 1 nas is enough for a 2.5 gal. The CUC should not be the biggest bioload in your tank, and in a 2.5 gal the water volume really limits you a lot. Leave some room for the main inhabitants of the tank (assuming you will be doing more than just coral)

Thnx for the input!

 

I know the CUC is quite big, i have a thought behind it though... Im planning on buying a single fish, probably a Trimma goby of some sort, meanwhile ill start dosing some sort of bacteria culture and start feeding, this will probably get some algae growth going presenting my snails with great food and they have to be able to keep it up.

Im not 100% that the other snails i have got is nass, they are atleast really small (about 10mm long), i bougth them to have something eating animal protein in the tank, making me able to feed a few Artemia each day creating some ammonia to get the bacterias something to work with from the start

 

If my CUC takes up to much bioload ill always be able to put them in a friends tankt though.

 

 

------------------

Day6 - 8/1-10

The ugly papermade MH fixture i set up last night was working like a charm, after 12h of continual use the temperature in the tank was still 24,5C!

 

Next step is to lower the fixture and add another fan to make it able to transport even more energy away from the tank. The setup is still verry silent keeping both fans on the lowest speed, from a meter away its dead silent!

 

The fixture is now 7cm lower and running 2x120mm fans... Lets see how that affects the temperature:

 

[.Newman.]

is it safe to use cardboard near a MH light? awesome cheap fixture btw!

 

can we get a pic of the smaller nas snails? what color are they? if they were nas it would be very obvious by color and shell shape+ a syphon.

 

Since the LR you used already contains bacteria, and the snails are providing the ammonia, it would not be very beneficial to the livestock to put ammonia and the bacteria source (if its bottled bacteria) into the tank. all you need to start is already there. Plus you already said you dont expect to see much of a cycle anyway, why induce another one?

 

another thing is testing the water at least at 3 day intervals. these first few weeks are very volatile for a small tank that just started. be very vigilant with water parameters. since you received the rock in the mail, I expect to see some dieoff or at least the aftereffects that are testable.

 

Making algae grow is about the last thing you should be doing lol, the algae can do that on its own and will once the tank somewhat stabilizes. Remember the cycling phase diatom bloom? usually that happens, but sometimes it can be another algae instead (even if diatoms aren't a real algae, you get the idea lol). So eventually youll get food there for the herbivores. for now if they have nothing, you can feed them dried seaweed sheets with the flow turned off. the margaritas should respond. For the nassarius give them a pellet or something. if they are nassarius that is lol.

 

trimma sounds like a great choice for this tank, but until your have that fish and are feeding it things, dont expect your nas snails to do much. they might starve.

 

I cant think of anything else to suggest, you probably want me to shutup by now anyway lol.

[Sultanen]

is it safe to use cardboard near a MH light? awesome cheap fixture btw!

 

can we get a pic of the smaller nas snails? what color are they? if they were nas it would be very obvious by color and shell shape+ a syphon.

 

Since the LR you used already contains bacteria, and the snails are providing the ammonia, it would not be very beneficial to the livestock to put ammonia and the bacteria source (if its bottled bacteria) into the tank. all you need to start is already there. Plus you already said you dont expect to see much of a cycle anyway, why induce another one?

 

another thing is testing the water at least at 3 day intervals. these first few weeks are very volatile for a small tank that just started. be very vigilant with water parameters. since you received the rock in the mail, I expect to see some dieoff or at least the aftereffects that are testable.

 

Making algae grow is about the last thing you should be doing lol, the algae can do that on its own and will once the tank somewhat stabilizes. Remember the cycling phase diatom bloom? usually that happens, but sometimes it can be another algae instead (even if diatoms aren't a real algae, you get the idea lol). So eventually youll get food there for the herbivores. for now if they have nothing, you can feed them dried seaweed sheets with the flow turned off. the margaritas should respond. For the nassarius give them a pellet or something. if they are nassarius that is lol.

 

trimma sounds like a great choice for this tank, but until your have that fish and are feeding it things, dont expect your nas snails to do much. they might starve.

 

I cant think of anything else to suggest, you probably want me to shutup by now anyway lol.

In fact i love thoughts and comments on my projects, hate it when a thread becomes a monologue!

 

The snails, i think they look like small Nas, they do have their syphon, they do eat meat, i havent been able to feed them earlier since i didnt have artemia at home, i rinced a little peace and feed them 4 artemias with the HOB turned off, they came put of the sand and went crazy =)

 

 

Since the snails find all of the food i feed them that easy i think that i will wait with a fish and let the Nas be my ammonium producer atm.. Cous i really belive that you need one, ofc the snails produce that aswell, but they will eventualy run out of that if i dont feed the tank, and i wanna have the herbivorous focusing on alge (got my diatom bloom)so i think this is a good way to go =) But i will buy your argument about not adding any bacteria culture.. saves me some money to, yeay!

 

I did all of my water-tests today, damn thats alot of tests, luckily i wont do them all that often. The LR Btw, i didnt get it shipped, i just got it in that box from my LFS so i dont expect that much dead stuff coming off my stones =)

 

When plugging my HOB back in it ran for a few sec then it died, now it wont come on again... Don't know what it is, took all of it apart but the impeller aint moving the slightest!!

[Sultanen]

When plugging my HOB back in it ran for a few sec then it died, now it wont come on again... Don't know what it is, took all of it apart but the impeller aint moving the slightest!!

I got it working again, then it died again, semes like the impeller gets stuck somehow, have cleaned the impeller-housing now, hope it will work now, well, i installed a 200l/h pump in the tank now, just to be sure i wont run out of circulation...

 

I dont know how much circulation the SPS will require but atm i got 520l/h or 137GPH in a 2,5g tank, shuld be plenty, the sand aint movin yet!

 

The water-test results, forgot to post them earlier:

 

• NH3 0,0269-0,0538 (hard to read test, Tropic Marin)
  
• NO2 0,025
  
• NO3 25-50 (Since its water from an old tank i think this value was kinda high from the start, time will tell as i start changing water)
  
• PH 8,0
  
• KH 6-7
  
• Salt 1.022
  
• MG 1380
  
• PO4 0,1
  
• Ca 410
  

[.Newman.]

good cycling parameters, either the ammonia or the nitrite isnt as toxic in SW as it would have been in FW (i forget with one exactly), but for the sake of the nitrates alone, You should probably do a 50% water change to get them below 20ppm comfort zone. For now I would just forget about everything but the ammo, nitrite, nitrate, and salinity and test those frequently (about every 3 days, salinity more frequently) to make sure you are progressing with your cycle.

 

Like you said all snails will produce ammonia, none should "run out" lol because you should be feeding them all, if you can visibly see nothing in the tank that they should be eating. for the herbivores the algae will come in due time, but for now I suggest feeding since you got everyone so early in the game.

 

Remember that worms and pods can out-compete the nas snails easily for your food, so make sure the snails get the food each time.

 

Btw, those are nice nas snails. definitely related to nassarius. (most nas snails I am familiar with have cream-colored, olive-colored shells)

 

That HOB impeller is probably having issues with sand grains getting stuck in the joint assembly (a name i made up for the junction between the impeller magnet bar and the motor shaft thing). w/e you model of HOB is it really sounds like a sand issues and all you need to do is rinse it out with tank water to flush the sand out.

 

Take some pics of the other snails too