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Hammer's 5 gallon pico reef: almost 4 months! updates, new corals and bye bye clowns :(


HammerLover

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HammerLover

Hello everyone, its me Hammerlover. Although cookie jar reefing is a joy and great experience for me, I wanted a fairly "bigger" setup where I can keep more shrimps, crabs and snails which i cant in my pico jar because only very few and small shrimps/crabs are allowed (they can irritate the corals, or even die in starvation). So after reading the thread of the legendary pico reefer, El Fabuloso and seeing Sandeep's awesome AIO pico tanks I decided to plunge myself into this new journey and start myself this new project!

 

---TANK SPECS---

* 5 gallon standard tank modded to a 5 gallons AIO setup (4 gallons DT and 1 gallon sump)

* Pump rated for 10 gallons as return pump

* Sand from beach (washed twice and sundried for a week, then washed again before using)

* 3 kg of liverocks fresh from the sea (My LR has amazing worms, pods and tiny feather dusters plus a hint of coralline algae)

* DIY LED lights by Sir Florencio

* Polyfilter (from my 12 gal fowlr), TGR HPP (local version of Seachem Matrix) and some liverock rubble for the sump. There is another section where Im planning to add some macros soon

* DIY gravity fed ATO from my dog's old water dispenser :lol: inspired by Nano Sapiens

 

So here is the obligatory cloudy shot :P

OwnNCJO.jpg

 
The tank after one day, it cleared up nicely but my phone cam is way too crappy it still doesnt look nice <_<

ignore the reflection of my face, the gate and our car

jFWAqnn.jpg

 

A top view of my sump, the green plastic thing is my DIY ATO
IkX8M23.jpg
 
A closeup of my LED lights. Its nice how the violet and blues mix together :wub:

xwKWpOA.jpg

 

---PLANS---

-longevity, regular cleaning of my sandbed, sump and medias is a must!

-turn this setup into a mixed reef (softies, some lps and sps)

-lots of shrimps and crabs :rolleyes:

-Keep It Simple

-Have a fully stocked reef even in a budget

 

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope this setup and new journey will be a new adventure for me.

~Aaron ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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HammerLover
3 minutes ago, Weetabix7 said:

Hoooraaaay, you're off to a great start!!!! omgomgomg

Thanks Weetie :happy:

 

I wont be having much of a cycle though since I bought an established liverock from the sea plus medias from my fowlr to seed the entire tank with lots of bacteria. I'll take decent phone shots soon haha :blush:

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HammerLover

Thanks Lula Mae :)

It was actually the cheapest among the smallest pico tanks availble that can fit my project. I do like the jbj but I cant put a sump in there. Maybe a HOB. I'll probably finish my mini cycle this wednesday and add my basic CUC soon. Maybe some turbos and nassarius. 

 

But no hermit crabs, I have a really bad experience with them and I dont want to risk it.

 

 

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Hey...an upgrade! I'm so tempted to get a slightly larger tank. Maybe that will be my reward if this tank makes it through the first few months. :) How old was your jar before your upgraded?

 

I'm going to have to look at that AIO thread you were talking about.

 

Question for you - which beach did you get your sand and rock from? Do you mix your own salt? I'm going to see if I can get my dad into reefing. He's been a FW guy for so long but has always wanted to get into saltwater. I figured maybe a small 5 gallon would be nice for him. He used to talk about Cartimar back in the day, so maybe he still knows where it is to get corals. I wish I knew about Cartimar when I visited over there. I'm always curious as to what the SW hobby looks like in the Philippines.

 

Looking good so far!

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HammerLover
6 hours ago, Rain24 said:

Hey...an upgrade! I'm so tempted to get a slightly larger tank. Maybe that will be my reward if this tank makes it through the first few months. :) How old was your jar before your upgraded?

 

I'm going to have to look at that AIO thread you were talking about.

 

Question for you - which beach did you get your sand and rock from? Do you mix your own salt? I'm going to see if I can get my dad into reefing. He's been a FW guy for so long but has always wanted to get into saltwater. I figured maybe a small 5 gallon would be nice for him. He used to talk about Cartimar back in the day, so maybe he still knows where it is to get corals. I wish I knew about Cartimar when I visited over there. I'm always curious as to what the SW hobby looks like in the Philippines.

 

Looking good so far!

Here is sandeep's thread: 

 

 

I do need to find some macros soon for my sump haha.

 

5 gal tanks are nice and cheap and it can be placed almost anywhere. Not too small compared to a 3 gal pico and not too big compared to a 10 gal (which is way too big for me lol)

 

my jar was setup last october so it was about 6-7 months old before I started this project. Most of my corals were sold or traded but I have a few frags lying around in my jar reef that will move here as soon as its coral ready.

 

Cartimar is actually one of the biggest LFS centers in the Philippines. You can find freshwater fish stores, saltwater stores (majority of them sucks actually) and lots of dogs, cats whatever animal for sale. There is also a garden center where a whole lot of ornmental plants are also available. Reefing is quite popular here in our country but majority follows the traditional way of reefkeeping (which is feed heavily, skim heavily and dose).

 

Regarding the LFS at cartimar the corals are cheap, fishes are cheap and most LS are cheap except imported zoa/paly frags. A rock with wild pretty dragon eye zoanthids only costs 4-5 dollars here haha. And a large wall hammer or frogspawn can be 3-4 dollars. 

 

When I did my jar reef many were fascinated and angry over my setup lol. The biggest setback here is heat since Philippines is a really hot and humid country with lots of rains. I constantly monitor my temp in my setups and the hottest temps so far is 29 degrees celsius. Im still debating whether to add a fan but I have an ATO which assists me with my laziness in topping off :happy:

 

 

 

 

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HammerLover

Regarding the beach, some beaches are strict whether they allow collecting or not. In Boracay even a dead starfish or a small shell is not allowed to brought home.

 

But in Subic and Batangas, the beaches are not restrictive and I wish I brought home some frags when I grabbed that beach sand. I had 5 bottles of coca cola which I filled with beach sand that will be stored for future use (I use to love gardening and I have quite a collection of succulents and cacti :D)

 

i got lazy with those projects and stored the sand for a few years or so then I found reefing and ta-dah! :D 

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HammerLover

Hello guys just a quick update! My cycle abruptly ended today haha. Well I cant blame it. I had liverocks fresh from the sea with minimal die off and medias from my established fowlr (1.4 years old) so pretty much I had a huge ton of bacteria and a quick almost instant cycle.

 

I found a lone sexy shrimp for sale plus 2 porcelain crabs and Ill be adding them later. I bought a xenia frag as my first coral tester, and Im sure the sexy will love it too :happy: 

 

 

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On 4/10/2017 at 6:41 PM, HammerLover said:

Regarding the beach, some beaches are strict whether they allow collecting or not. In Boracay even a dead starfish or a small shell is not allowed to brought home.

 

But in Subic and Batangas, the beaches are not restrictive and I wish I brought home some frags when I grabbed that beach sand. I had 5 bottles of coca cola which I filled with beach sand that will be stored for future use (I use to love gardening and I have quite a collection of succulents and cacti :D)

 

i got lazy with those projects and stored the sand for a few years or so then I found reefing and ta-dah! :D 

 

Thanks for the info! Maybe my dad would be up for a trip to Batangas which isn't too far from him (in comparison to Subic). If Cartimar is still in the same place that it was decades (and decades and decades) ago, he can probably get there too. Although he keeps complaining that they changed all the street names in Manila and now he gets lost. LOL.

 

I wish I could share reefing with my dad! Maybe I can FaceTime him and show him my tank next time we get a stable connection.

 

You should post a pic of your cacti collection too. :)

 

I know what you mean about comments regarding the jar. Just the other day at the LFS store the girl filling up my water buckets was like "100% water changes??? I've never heard of that before." Speaking of water, where do you get your saltwater again? Is it premixed or do you mix it yourself? The more info I can share with my dad, the more likely it'll be that he might actually do it. Years ago he told me he wanted to get into saltwater but the power outages would probably make it rough. Not sure if there are still a lot of power outages there, but I do remember one when I visited back in 2011.

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This is so cool! 

Wish I had access to a place where you can just collect your stuff, and those prizes. I want those prizes here in the NL! 

 

I paid about 15dollars (€14,50) for a kg of live rock, I think thats about 2 pounds. 

I am very Jelly!!!

 

Also, can you explain how that ATO works? I want a DIY ATO for the summer, but I dont really know where to start. I was thinking about getting a hamster water bottle, and put the exit at the water level. That correct? 

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52 minutes ago, Lisa166 said:

This is so cool! 

Wish I had access to a place where you can just collect your stuff, and those prizes. I want those prizes here in the NL! 

 

I paid about 15dollars (€14,50) for a kg of live rock, I think thats about 2 pounds. 

I am very Jelly!!!

 

Also, can you explain how that ATO works? I want a DIY ATO for the summer, but I dont really know where to start. I was thinking about getting a hamster water bottle, and put the exit at the water level. That correct? 

I believe you stick a little airline tube in the metal tube of the water bottle, and feed that into the tank.  You should be able to find something on here of someone doing one to be sure (I think the airline tubing is to prevent any possible rust on the metal).

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HammerLover

 

15 hours ago, Rain24 said:

 

Thanks for the info! Maybe my dad would be up for a trip to Batangas which isn't too far from him (in comparison to Subic). If Cartimar is still in the same place that it was decades (and decades and decades) ago, he can probably get there too. Although he keeps complaining that they changed all the street names in Manila and now he gets lost. LOL.

 

I wish I could share reefing with my dad! Maybe I can FaceTime him and show him my tank next time we get a stable connection.

 

You should post a pic of your cacti collection too. :)

 

I know what you mean about comments regarding the jar. Just the other day at the LFS store the girl filling up my water buckets was like "100% water changes??? I've never heard of that before." Speaking of water, where do you get your saltwater again? Is it premixed or do you mix it yourself? The more info I can share with my dad, the more likely it'll be that he might actually do it. Years ago he told me he wanted to get into saltwater but the power outages would probably make it rough. Not sure if there are still a lot of power outages there, but I do remember one when I visited back in 2011.

I dont have my cacti collection anymore, though I still have a couple of succulents. I'll post pics of my garden soon. I have quite alot of tropical ornamental plants today and that's the one I will post :P

 

regarding the water, I bought Reef crystals in cartimar too. I mix my own water and I buy RODI water in 5 gallon containers ( a refill of water cost $0.5 lol). I dont do seawater since most seawater collected is from Bacoor City where the water is not that clean. And most of the time the sg is way too off like 1.020 or 1.018

 

I could help your dad with directions in cartimar. Its actually quite easy and accesible, and most local reefers go there to buy reefing stuff

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HammerLover
15 hours ago, Lisa166 said:

This is so cool! 

Wish I had access to a place where you can just collect your stuff, and those prizes. I want those prizes here in the NL! 

 

I paid about 15dollars (€14,50) for a kg of live rock, I think thats about 2 pounds. 

I am very Jelly!!!

 

Also, can you explain how that ATO works? I want a DIY ATO for the summer, but I dont really know where to start. I was thinking about getting a hamster water bottle, and put the exit at the water level. That correct? 

IKR? Its really fun to have a beach quite near you (well Batangas is around a 3-4 hour drive). Corals are quite cheap here too. 

 

I bought the sexy and porcelains for only $2.5 :P I really hate it that there is only 1 sexy left haha. Its nice if you have at least a small group of them like 4-5. I'll just wait for the incoming shipments after a few weeks.

 

the ATO was inspired from Nano sapiens idea of using a pet water bottle. You need an airtight container to do this. I'll find his build thread and link it to you

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HammerLover

Okay some pics :D

I eventually moved here the torch coral from my cookie jar reef. It turned green from golden brown but I dont really care much now haha. Ive also added the xenia frag , the porcelain crabs and my lone sexy shrimp. Ive also added a single turbo snail to aid with mh very very small diatom bloom. 

 

Here's the lone sexy posing with the turbo snail 

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HammerLover

Xenia, compeletely ingnored by the  sexy. The sexy likes to hang out in the torch more :lol:

 

CtivaSe.jpg

Crappy FTS. The sun's glare makes it hard to take this pic

2a8x3uP.jpg

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Neat things happening in this tank!!!

It'll be interesting to see what you think of this setup, compared to your Cookie Jar, after it's been up 3 months or so. 

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