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5.5g Reef Islands


Sandeep

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No power head ...??? What do you have for flow...???

 

 

He has an HOB filter. Aquaclear from the looks of it, plenty of flow.

 

Yeah I was kinda surprised not to see more, especially if the HOB is set on the lowest speed as OP noted. Although, I guess the softies don't have the same flow requirements as critters like SPS, gorgonians, etc.

 

Regardless, following along, lookin' good so far! Welcome back.

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Here is an aerial view of the tank which gives you a better sense of the layout and perspective of the three coral islands. The taller acan island is closer to the front of the tank while the zoo island is near the back and the micro elegance/ricordiea island is in between the two. You can also see the happy neon tip hammer at the back of the tank that was hidden from view in the earlier pictures that I posted.

 

The tank sits on a corner of my desk so this is the angle that I typically look at it from.

pico_20130715_5.jpg

 

The aquaclear 30 is now operating on full throttle and its flow is more than enough for the tank, no more turbulence needed.

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love you scape and coral placement especially the torch! ur old 5.5g was my wallpaper for the longest time ever. keep up the great work

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First off welcome back. Your original 5.5 inspired me to build my own 5.5 and join the SW/NR world, thank-you!

 

Seems like your getting some "spotlighting" from the LED lamp. This happened with my 5.5 as condensation built up under the lid/cover the water droplets would distort the LED's. Not much you can do about it if you want to maintain salinity levels!

 

Tank looks great though, can't wait to see it grow in.

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hey sandeep, do you mind telling me how you are able to keep corals already in such a young tank? haha its making me jealous!! and what salt do you use, tropic marin still?

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I used Seachem Stability when I set up the tank to speed up the cycle significantly and not stress out the clown which was added in the first week of the tank.

 

I'm using Seachem Aquavitro Salinity as my salt. Just have to make sure you use it within 24hrs of mixing or parameters will drop due to precipitation.

 

4L (1 gallon) water changes weekly and adding Seachem Reef Plus (Vitamins & Amino Acids Supplament) once a week.

 

Fish feeding (few flakes) twice a week, target feeding of corals (flakes, PE mysis, cyclopeeze) once every two weeks.

 

Tank temp is maintained at 80 degrees F

 

hey sandeep, do you mind telling me how you are able to keep corals already in such a young tank? haha its making me jealous!! and what salt do you use, tropic marin still?

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I used Seachem Stability when I set up the tank to speed up the cycle significantly and not stress out the clown which was added in the first week of the tank.

 

I'm using Seachem Aquavitro Salinity as my salt. Just have to make sure you use it within 24hrs of mixing or parameters will drop due to precipitation.

 

4L (1 gallon) water changes weekly and adding Seachem Reef Plus (Vitamins & Amino Acids Supplament) once a week.

 

Fish feeding (few flakes) twice a week, target feeding of corals (flakes, PE mysis, cyclopeeze) once every two weeks.

 

Tank temp is maintained at 80 degrees F

 

 

Thanks a bunch! i hope to be as knowledgeable as u one day Sandeep. where do u buy/get ur corals from btw?

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  • 4 weeks later...

Latest Update:

I got some nice zoos and one acan at the frag show last month. After acclimatizing them I've now glued most of them in place. Placed some zoos on the lower portions of Zoo Island as well as one at the base of the Torch tree on top. On Acan Island I added a new coral foot extension for the new acan, it also helps support the island better from tipping over.

 

 

FTS

Very important to have the open spaces between the islands to maintain that sense of scale and proportion which are the key elements of this tank design.

pico_20130815_1.jpg

 

Zoo Island

pico_20130815_2.jpg

 

Acan Island

pico_20130815_3.jpg

 

Micro-Elegance/Ricordea Island

pico_20130815_4.jpg

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Latest Update:

I added an exciting new coral to the tank which really adds a spectacular spot of yellow color to the tank. I reorganized my ricordia, micro-elegance island and added a new dendros coral. The island looks so much better now. The micro-elegance has room to spread out and the new dendros looks beautiful.

 

pico_20130823_1.jpg

 

pico_20130823_2.jpg

 

FTS

pico_20130823_3.jpg

 

Dendros are a non-photosynthetic coral, meaning that they don’t need light to grow, relying on their tentacles to catch their food. I’ve had a dendros in my 50g tank for a few years so I’m quite familiar with their care. The dendros is a relative of the sun coral, but I much prefer the dendros to sun corals. Dendros are so much easier to feed and are quite voracious eaters and they spend most of the day with their tentacles extended, unlike sun corals which typically stay closed most of the time during the day and only extend their feeder corals at night. Dendros are also much easier to feed and not messy to feed like sun corals. Spot feeding them with flakes or frozen foods like PE Mysis and cyclopeeze they instantly grab the food and swallow it and open up their feeder tentacles a few minutes later. Mine in my 50g have been extremely slow-growing so they are perfect for pico tanks and will not outgrow your tank. I'm spot feeding the dendros twice a week.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Enjoying some macro photography of the tank this weekend.

 

pico_20130901_1.jpg

 

pico_20130901_2.jpg

 

pico_20130901_3.jpg

 

pico_20130901_4.jpg

 

pico_20130901_5.jpg

 

pico_20130901_6.jpg

 

pico_20130901_10.jpg

 

pico_20130901_7.jpg

 

I’ve now switched the tank over to a Coral Compulsion 14W Par 30 18K Vibrance Reef bulb. It’s a lot bluer than my previous ecoxotic PAR38 12K bulb. From what I’ve read, using a cooler light not only helps bring out the colors in Acans, but it helps keep them from losing their intense colors and changing to orange under warmer spectrum lighting. The Coral Compulsion bulb is tiny and only 14 watts! The LED’s are: 3 Deep Blue 455nm, 2 Neutral White 6500k, 1 Cool White 12000k and 1 True Violet 420nm. The bulb came with 60 degree optics which were too narrow and not covering the entire tank. I swapped them out for 120 degree optics and now have full coverage of the tank and also a lot less harsh shadows.

 

pico_20130901_9.jpg

FTS

pico_20130901_8.jpg

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