dgphelps' 5 gallon Marineland Portrait pico

[jaynkeel]

Question. Does the Hydor you upgraded to provide a big difference in flow for you? And does it fit in the back pretty good. I see the stock pump is only rated for 75 gph so I see an upgrade is in order.

[dgphelps]

Oh yes HUGE difference, and the initial pump was being used to mix salt in the garage and died after a few days. They really suck. But I have great flow and it is chaotic not just unidirectional by being constrained and with a slight angle there is a small vortex but also some cross directional to make it choppy and changing. The Flower pot polyps are always waving about in all directions as is the GSP.

 

The Hydor fits perfectly. This is the most GPH rated pump I could find at this size. Probably would need to be tuned down for the 3 gallon but it works well in the 5 gallon and won't kick up the sand - or at least doesn't for me and I have very fine sugar grain substrate.

[jaynkeel]

Cool looks like I might have to upgrade to something along those lines, I believe they make one size up from yours as far as flow gph goes but actual dimensions are the same. Thats the one I might get, rather have too much than not enough. I could put the mp10 in there but would rather keep it uncluttered if possible.

[dgphelps]

More tank life shots.

 

Weird mantis shrimp like thing. I keep finding these regularly in both my tanks:

 

 

Tiny frag of pink lemonade acro from a local reefer:

 

Scallop/clam thing that's been in my tank since day 1. It's extending this tube much further and more often lately:

 

I love this little sea foam Favia frag, I have it on the sand and that means it doesn't get super bright light, but it extends it feeders each night beautifully:

 

Yellow sponge colony found in both my tanks, it's all over along with clear tunicates and pineapple sponges:

 

Pod life beside an emerald mummy chalice frag:

 

Forgot what these were called, stomnifores? I have several in both tanks - the smaller tank has colonies of it in a deep black:

 

It's been a while since I added this frag (since the 28th of March) - green slime acro proof of happy SPS at least so far:

[brandon429]

I have never seen three of those things shown

 

Your feeding regimen will beat what many giant tanks can pull off in terms of biodiversity support in one year it will be astounding even if you move rocks again, doesn't matter, the import diversity and export matters.

 

Really good benthics so far, best diversity I recall seeing. I have the sponges and fanworms but no where near that diversity

[dgphelps]

Thanks! Happy to say the amount of fanworms is growing. I see small tubes coating everything now, including the back walls - they are large enough now to see the white and red fans.

 

I also have a fair number of digitate hydroids which I am on the fence about. They reel themselves out at night and sway about. I have read mixed reviews on them, and the only consensus is that they sting if you touch them and are hard to remove.

 

Most cases say they die out after a while - given I have no predators and am doing what I can to encourage this micro-life I'm not sure if I will end up with hundreds or if they will fade away.

 

I also have some small bits of macro algae, mostly a stiff dark green bristly one and some bubble algae. I manually remove what I can during WCs. I had some softer growth on some frags but the pods and ceriths seem to be taking care of that nicely now. I bought a frag of sympodium coated in a nasty macro algae but two days with the gorilla crab and it was completely gone and the coral was left unharmed. I think those crabs get a bad name - I target feed him and he's never touched anything desired in the tank.

 

I guess I can just use the 3 gallon pest tank as a cleanup stop before adding things to this one. The benthic life there is slightly different - less hydroids (I have seen one in a nook), no tunicates, and less of the dusters, sponges, etc. I do see more pods, but they tend to be the smaller ones. interesting given the rock all came from the same place.