Cuog's Adopted Pico

[cuog]

A couple days ago I picked up a tank from a local reefer who didn't have the time to take care of it. I got the whole thing for a killer deal, 75 bucks.

 

It has a twin T5 18/20 watt light, heater, powerhead etc, in the back area.

 

The fuge area has cheato and live rock rubble. I was considering relocating the live rock to the display, would this be a good or bad idea? Also depending on what there is I may pick up another rock at the LFS. Livestock include a few random mushrooms, some GSPs 2 sexy shrimps and a goby of some sort. He's been hard to photograph, especially without an LCD on my camera, but here are some pics anyway, cause I know how much everyone here loves them. Also what would be a good clean up crew to help with my algae?

 

My plans include an increase in clean up crew, a pistol shrimp if this is a goby which will bond with one, and probably a couple pom pom crabs. I don't know if I'll be keeping the sexies or not, they like stomping on the coral a little much for my taste. For coral, I will probably be getting some more polyps and zoas, xenia and other softies, I may experiment with SPS, but at the moment that seems unlikely.

 

[Stephensx04]

good find for that price. Transfer the stuff to a bucket, and maybe clean the tank.

[badfish816]

sweet pickup

[cuog]

Cleaned the glass a little more and rearranged everything.

[ihatesears18]

Nice find for the money. Now get some coral and take more pictures!

[Growerguy]

Dang that is a nice deal!

[beats123]

I think the goby is a diamond watchman goby. Sweet deal on that tank too!

[cuog]

The tank seems to be cleaning up somewhat, the redish purple algae has been slowly reducing its numbers while there has been a little more green algae showing up on the glass

[tony.pham]

I think the goby is a diamond watchman goby. Sweet deal on that tank too!

 

Thought it was a blue spot, when I first saw.

[cuog]

No photo updates as not much has really changed. I bought some snails from the LFS, all that had were margarita snails so I got three, but one kept getting itself flipped over on its back and eventually died, so down to 2.

 

I have finally decided what I will be doing with this tank as far as the contest. Equipment wise I will be taking out the AIO section to bring me up to the "5.5" gallon display, it will be ever so much fun taking off that paint, but that's what paint thinner and razor blades are for. After that I will be modifying this: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod...mp;pcatid=16729 into a hang on back refugium. Instead of doing the standard Aqua clear, I will actually be extending the "holding" area with lexan or acrylic to about a gallon to hold cheato, a decent sized piece of LR and maybe a small sand bed. In this area I plan to have relatively low flow for its size(<90gph through the sump) with a large number of detrivores to handle the waste accumulation here. Finally I will be building an ATO likely completely mechanical, so at least something can stay stable in the event of a power outage.

 

I'm not going too ambitious on the stocking of this tank, mostly because I don't really find SPS very visually appealing especially for the amount of work they require. Personally I prefer a more tentacled look to the corals so that I can watch them move in the water flow. Because of this I will be allowing the GSP to grow out a good bit, but not too much. Plus adding some other things like xenia, large polyped zoas, and maybe some frogspawn or torch coral. Almost all of this will start as small frags since this contest is about growing coral, and I can save money that way so there's more to spend on equipment. The last mobile livestock I have planned is some pom pom crabs in the DT as well as a Pistol shrimp to pair with my goby. Depending on algae and DT detritus I will be adding some more snails to the display and keeping hermits and other crabs in the fuge. I may add an emerald crab to the display but that would be about it.

 

My substrate will be replaced in the upgrade for the contest, it seems like its crushed coral now, which seems to be a bad idea from what everyone says on here so I will need to fix that. For flow I will be getting rid of the pump in the AIO section(probably delegating it to SW mixing) and instead going with a koralia nano for flow.

 

As February passes I plan to have a lot more pics and updates as I focus on getting this tank setup just how I want it hardware wise before moving on to finishing off the stocking. Feel free to leave comments.

[Brooklyngal]

that goby is a yellow watchman goby that's turned female. I had a YWG for almost 2yrs that was bright yellow for most of it (male coloration), and now looks just like yours. IME they turn female after being kept alone for long periods of time.

[cuog]

Official FTS submission

 

I cleaned out the AIO section which had a lot of dead and decaying matter hiding in the LR rubble. Right now the rubble is in a separate container, I will be gluing the pieces together to hopefully make a new interesting rock. Pics later of the new scape. The equipment upgrades should be here next week so I can move the Chaeto out of the display and into the fuge.

[cuog]

I got the new HOB filter from DFS today, tested it on the tank, I like the surface skimming effect a lot. I had some bad slime on top of the water which was gone in about ten minutes. Also reef cleaners on the way to help deal with some of that cyano and algae.

 

[Deep Thief]

What kind of HOB that surface skims did you get? Mark

[cuog]

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod...mp;pcatid=16729

 

I'm definitely glad I got it, it has a decent amount of space for chaeto inside it, and I just finished getting it setup to run a 1ish gallon fuge off the back which I will be posting pics of in a few days.(assuming it passes leak testing)

[Deep Thief]

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod...mp;pcatid=16729

 

I'm definitely glad I got it, it has a decent amount of space for chaeto inside it, and I just finished getting it setup to run a 1ish gallon fuge off the back which I will be posting pics of in a few days.(assuming it passes leak testing)

That does look pretty good, did you throw the cartridges away? What model did you get. They are all pretty cheap. Mark

[cuog]

since the cartridges are just carbon in fancy filter floss I may use them on occasion when things start getting a little cloudy. I got the smallest model since I want the lowest flow I could reasonably get in my fuge. It's rated at 90 gph with it turned all the way down I'd guess it to be about half that putting my total DT turnover at ~150 gph or ~30x.

[cuog]

Here's some pictures of the new sump. I haven't moved the heater over yet as I'm still working on getting the flow into it to be a little bit better.

 

[c_k_kuehne]

Interesting sump arrangement.

[cuog]

I was very simple and cheap. I'm going to be building a simple LED light for the fuge using some old 3mm 420nm LEDs, I read that this wavelength seems to be decent for photosynthetic plant growth, so between that and spillover from the DT I should be able to grow the macro algae just fine. Eventually, I'll be switching from an old pretzel container to the slightly less ghetto 1-2 gallon plastic hex tank. One of those seem to show up on local craigslist every once in a while.

[Growerguy]

Thats a pretty sweet idea.

[tiffanydunk]

sweet idea for the sump!

[cuog]

It's working well now for a proof of concept but the very thin plastic on that jar is starting to make me nervous. In a week or two I will probably build something out of acrylic instead.

[cuog]

My tanks have now shuffled and what was in my 5.5 gallon is now taking up residence in my 10 gallon with my planted puffer tank now in the 5.5. Now I updated to a less than half gallon vase.

 

Current pic:

 

 

Just waiting on some more rock from reefcleaners going to try out their dry rock in this and my 10 gallon.

 

Filling it up:

[c_k_kuehne]

Good to see a regular vase pico in the mix