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Cultivated Reef

Gritchie4's 5.5 gal. Pico


gritchie4

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Where did you get your bulb and fixture gritchie?

 

I got the bulb from BoostLED and I got the fixture from office depot or office max. Can't remember.

 

you will probably have to increase your cuc later but for now a couple snails and a hermit should be fine. my dwarf blue legs seem to kill snails less than my other hermits, but i also hear that zebra hermits are great cleaners, eating most anything. Whatever you get, see if you can get a couple of larger empty shells from deceased hermits or snails from your lfs for your hermit to move into as it grows. you can just hide them behind one of the rocks. lookin good though, wish i hadnt gotten rid of my picotope, it was a nice little tank.

 

Appreciate the advice. Will see what the lfs has this weekend. Unfortunately the only store I like here I'm Vegas is 45 minutes away from me.

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Was finally able to get a pic of the algae on the rocks:

 

Flash on

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Side view

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And a little extra for dog lovers. My puppy Rosco that me and my girlfriend rescued a few year ago.

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Well a pretty big update. I went and got my cuc today. I got 5 small nerites and 2 red hermit crabs. I also bought something.else that might have been a mistake. I'm not going to blame it on being new cause I hate making excuses. It was an impulse buy and from now on I'm making my gf come with me and hold my wallet lol. Well anyway I got a one and a half inch yellow watchman goby. I saw him peaking his head out of the rock and couldn't resist. If you thinl this was a mistake let me know cause I can handle it. I'm going to be testing regularly and water changes twice or three times a week. I'm going to do anything I can to keep him alive. Well here are some pictures.

 

Snail

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Crabs

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Hope you enjoy.

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did a water test today. pH was 8.2. ammonia was 0. nitrite was 0. nitrate was between 0 and 5. the watchman goby (whom my girlfriend named Frank the Tank) ate some pellets today and I bought some frozen hikari frozen brine shrimp for him. Snails are crawling everywhere and the crabs are fun to watch. Everything is looking good.

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getting a fish that fast is normally not a good thing. but since you did, you might as well try your best to keep the tank healthy by frequently checking the parameters. feed the goby every day from now on until he visibly fattens up, or is regularly eating for say a few weeks. after that you want to feed him less frequently, every other day or maybe eventually 3 days a week.

 

you dont need 5 nerites, 2-3 is fine enough, they will all likely starve in the next few months if your tank stays healthy w/o much algae. also watch the tank surroundings everyday because they love to crawl out when you least expect it.

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Appreciate the advice. did another water test today and the results were the same as yesterday. going to do a small water change today to lower some nitrates. I'll see how the goby is doing over the next few days but I may return him cause I feel I put him in to early.

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trust your gut feeling. if everything is running smoothly and the fish looks happy and well fed and active, then there would be little point stressing him out, catching him and returning him back to the store.

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trust your gut feeling. if everything is running smoothly and the fish looks happy and well fed and active, then there would be little point stressing him out, catching him and returning him back to the store.

 

I just need to take a step back and breathe. I just got to let him so his thing and keep my parameters in check

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No. Nothing else is going into the tank until at least the first of April cause I need the tank to settle. Plus I'm not a fan of pistols. I like the sexy shrimp look tho.

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Yea I mean I like the relationship the two have but I can just picture the sand storm the pistol will kick up in such a small tank.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey everyone. Haven't updated in awhile. I'm going to break this up into a few posts to give you a timeline. Well a few weeks ago I returned the goby. I couldn't get him to eat any prepared food. I tried mysis, brine, and pellets. Nothing so instead of letting him starve I took him back. So I took a step back for a week or so and just did water tests and the only tank occupants were the CUC. After getting 0's across the board for the week in water tests I went and picked up a couple zoanthids to see how they would do. All three were open within 15 minutes of being in my tank. And since then they are all open and looking great. Here are some pics:

 

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More to come in a second

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Well a couple days after the zoanthids were bought i went to the same LFS to look at their new shipment. They had sexy shrimp and they looked so cool so I picked a couple up. They also had a yellow clown goby but he was not eating prepared food yet so the owner said he will get it to eat prepared and let me know. And now to the pics:

 

Sexy shrimp

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They nibble on the zoas a little until I feed them. They are so cool are fun to watch strut their stuff around the tank.

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Then this past weekend I went to the same LFS, owner knows me by name now lol. Well he was having a sale, buy one coral get one half off. So I looked around and picked out a few things. He just got in a shipment of ricordea so I picked up 2. I also grabbed 2 zoanthid frags, a red mushroom frag, and a paly and zoanthid mix frag. Also picked up so chemi-pure elite. He definitely hooked me up. Well everything is opening up really well and the red mushroom has already started to grow another one next to it. And now for the pics.

 

Paly and Zoa mix

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Zoanthid

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Ricordea

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Red mushroom

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Zoanthid mix

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Current FTS

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Hope you enjoy

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Mr. Microscope

Lookin' good!

 

Watch out for signs of photo-resistance from your new purchases. Those LEDs are intense!

 

Also, I'd move those green palys away from the zoas on that rock. They're likely to crowd them out over time.

 

Good luck!

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Thanks for the advice. I have the light pretty high up right now since they were all under t-5's. I'm also gonna start moving corals around this weekend and the green palys will be moved.

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I like the 'scape! Keep it up!

 

Thanks for the compliment. I look forward to seeing your picotope brought back to life.

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wow those are very nice zoas!! this tank is on its way to epicness. feed those sexies till they are full! if skirts start to disappear feed more.

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