Makingfilms 5 gallon Evo build.

[makingfilms]

Hello

I thought I would make a blog of my new pico reef tank.

So here is the background for my tank. I had a very successful 55 gallon reef that I had running for 4+ years. I worked as a grunt at a very high end coral fragger/propigator/seller in college who only had rare expensive coral. So I only stocked my tank with small expensive frags that he would give me and let them grow out for 4 years. Last June My job made me travel to Europe for 3+ months so keeping my tank going was either gonna cost me an arm and a leg for a maintenance service or I was gonna have to get rid of it and sell everything off. I took a weird middle route selling my tank to a lfs for cheap who fragged my now large colonies but let me keep some of my the frags at their store to start over as well as my pgmy wrasse and two spotted goby.

When I got back I set up a 5 gallon Evo which they gave me to hold my live stock in and took my frags back Figuring I would rebuild my 55. Fast forward a few months to now and everything is still in my Evo growing nicely and the live stock is happy. . I am seriously debating just keeping the Evo going and selling my 55. Is this a bad idea?

Current setup:

Fluval Evo 5 gallon

Lighting: Currrent USA Orbit LED

Flow: Hydro Nano 240 / stock return pump

Filtration: In tank media basket running chemipire blue and filter floss.

A mame nano skimmer (totally not necesscary but my friend gave it to me for some snails)

7-10 pounds lr and 2 inch sand bed

 

Water: Red Sea coral pro salt Rodi water

Misc: Smart micro ato



Livestock

3 blue hermit carbs
2 asterea snails
2 nassarius snails
1 emerald crab
1 stag horn crab (he needs to go he won't make it in this smaller 5 gallon any one in SoCal interested let me know)
1 possum Pygmy wrasse
1 2 spotted goby
a ton of frags

Will try to get a pic tonight or tomorrow

[REEFerMAdNESS88]

My stance is if you are planning on being at your current location for 2 or more years I would say go for it otherwise if you plan to move frequently over the next few years stick with the pico.

[gulfofmexico]

I have an evo too. They're very nice tanks. Can you post a few pics of where you keep your mame and ato? I was thinking of getting them.

[makingfilms]

So here are some pics I got on my iPhone today.

Sorry for all the algae my nano mag should arrive today and my algae has bloomed since removing my stock light, I guess my new lights aren't quite dialed in yet so I get green film quickly. My ato is the blue light in the top right. My water comes in behind the power head. I had to remove my skimmer until I can cut a hole in my top this weekend or make a new top completely. my snails keep climbing out with the top off and worried my wrasse or goby may go carpet surfing. Generally however it is behind the large rock. Any body know any good settings with the current USA Marine orbit led. I should have gotten the pro with the full spectrum if I keep this tank, but maybe I'll just grab a nanobox in the future.

 

http://imgur.com/gallery/RaFTs

[makingfilms]

a few weeks ago in January my nephew dropped a paint marker in the back of my tank return without me knowing which ended up wipping out my mandarin goby, possum wrasse, and two spotted goby from my previous tank, it also nuked a rare torch, most of my galaxea, some other random other corals, a hermit crab, and all of my pods.

After discovering the cause of my tanks demise, I decided I had to take Drastic measures to save the remaining corals and cuc.

I made 2 5 gallon buckets of water and placed all my corals and cuc in bucket 1 with a powerhead in it from my 55. I let them sit in there for a few hours to wash off ant toxins from the marker. I then dipped my corals in Coral Rx and put them in bucket two or my makeshift hospital tank with a less powerful powerhead and my old lights over it. I borrowed a canister filter with cycled media, and did one gallon changes every day. The only coral that I had epoxied to my rock was my galaxea which I had to frag with a dremel. I only saved two very small pieces. The majority of that coral was dead from the marker.

I discarded all my live rock and sand and cleaned the tank inside and out. I refilled the tank and added highly cured sand from a friend who had a bunch extra he was willing to donate to the cause. The sand was dry sand that he seeded with algen pods and has been sitting in a recently cycled but empty tank. The sand only has been seeded with algen tisbe pods so the sand should be virgin from any nasty hitchhikers . Nothing else has hit this tank. With the pods I was hoping I could see if any chemical remained in my tank after its cleaning. If the pods died I knew I would need to recline the tank. I added biospira and let the tank sit for a week and monitor levels. the pod population grew and the tank began to get film and gha algae. bad. I had this issue on my tank before it crashed and still contributed to my lighting. Actually this week I figured out that my kitchen light that is under the counter seems to grow algae very well and I needed to remove the bulb in that corner.

 

two weekends ago or about 8 days after my crash, my LFS was having a huge one year anniversary sale/ party and everything was 30-50% off. I was able to pick up about 7 pounds cured tonga branch for super cheap. The guy only charged me for 4 pounds plus gave me 50% off on my purchase, and threw in some tonga branch rubble for free as well. I kept everything I bought in buckets of water the whole time and quickly transferred to my tank to be safe and minimize any dieoff. I let the tank sit from Sunday - Monday to monitor the rock and die off. On Monday Night My tests where still zero so I added 1.0 ppm ammonia to the water to see if my tank could process it. That Tuesday night my levels where back down to zero, so I decided it is time and added My corals and remaining live stock to the tank. two weeks later, everything is still doing great. Tests still zero Nuisance algae has started to drop as well. I will just monitor closely and wait a few weeks before adding anything else. I actually will probably sell a few frags and the stag horn crab in my tank so I will lose some bioload. I have been on doing gallon changes every other day and plan on continuing for a few weeks as well.

I think I will only have one to two fish in my tank. I probably will do something similar to what I had in my tank originally. My mandarin was frozen trained and was from my 55 gallon. He could survive in my 5 gallon no problems. he was happy to get frozen twice a day instead of constantly eating pods. He was super fat and happy when he died. I DO NOT want to try to train one again as it was a pain in the behind and I do not have the time anymore.

any ideas on cool fish would be appreciated. I will probably get a possum wrasse again or maybe a pink streaked wrasse since I love wrasses but not sure what else to get. I don't want the standard nano livestock so I might just keep it at one wrasse.

 

Here is an fts as of two weeks ago when I added all my coral back into the tank. Its a shitty iPhone photo. The algae has probably been reduced by 50% since this pic which is heading in the right direction. I will post a cleaner shot tomorrow am.

 

[makingfilms]

My lfs had a insane deal on a pink streaked wrasse so I grabbed him last night. here is a new picture

 

I have been having an algae issue in this corner but it has been clearing slowly since I got blocked out the light from under my kitchen cabinets that hit that corner and added another powerhead for some flow. I am also reviving my 55 gallon but My GF wants certain fish so I am going to keep it a fowlr and should have it wet my next week yay!

[Langer6]

Wow sorry to hear all this but looks like you have things back in order. That tonga looks amazing.

[Droy008]

Wow rough start to a thread, but congrats on the new wrasse!

Good thing you had all the supplies on hand to properly treat everything. Looking forward to the grow out progress of this one.

Also I say take another middle road and get a nice 20-30 gallon aio tank.

[Lizzie1324]

Loving those scans! Ditto...sorry to hear about the craziness, but glad things have died down. I just love picos! Can't wait to follow along

[vlangel]

So sorry that the tank went through such a rough patch. It looks like you recuped pretty well however and am now back on track!