A kiwis 5 gallon aquarium adventure

[thagrosh]

Hello i am a new reefer from New Zealand who is looking for some suggestions for a fish for a 5 gallon nano reef( i'm only wanting one as i don't want to overcrowd the small tank )   its 21" long 6.5" wide and 14" deep and i am planing for mainly soft corals all tho i have a hydra 26 HD for when i want to upgrade to a larger tank once i have space for it ( so may try my hand at hard corals). i am personally reckoning that i can go for a green clown goby but was wondering if there are any other interesting options that would cope well in a tank of that size i am planing on getting a Tunze Comline 9001 Protein Skimmer later on once i have the money and the tank has been modified (using an aqua one betta trio but removing the dividers to give me a 5 gallon display volume ) any recommendations would be appreciated as well as advice i don't expect there to be a large bio load on it but always plan for the worst case scenario       

[Snow_Phoenix]

Tail Spot blenny, Pictus clown blenny, YCG or even one of the small goby/pistol shrimp pairs like a Yasha or Black Hi-Fin would be nice. 

[Andreww]

Blue spot/dot jawfish by itself with a lid on the tank. 

Stunning to look at and has a big personality !

 

[Clown79]

Tailspot blenny. It's cute and full of character

[fot80]

I have a 5 gallon spec that I'm housing dwarf seahorses in.  They're adorable.  However, I do have a refugium set up to grow the pods they eat.  It's a fish only setup since any coral may sting them.  (they're tiny so even a harmless coral may hurt them)  I also had to downgrade the pump since a low flow rate is required for them.

[1.0reef]

Tons of various small fish that'll work, gumdrop coral crouchers (small scorpionfish), most small gobies, small blennies, etc

Anemone shrimp are cool as well

[thagrosh]

well thought id do an update after looking at alot of the fish its still a hard choice as i am probably going to have to import a fish. but in the mean time though i would do a tank up date as today i went threw and got rid of the dividers. 

 

 

started by using a box knife blade to cut the silicon along the sides then wiggled the panel until it came lose but it left some that i had to scrape of.

 

 

once i had done both panels i proceeded to scrape of the remaining silicone. Then used methylated spirits to soften the small amount still left by the blade and with a bit of elbow grease and a cloth the remainder was taken care of.

.

[thagrosh]

once all the silicone had been removed i proceed to give it a good wash an dry and begun test fitting its components like the pump heater and lighting bracket. Now i have to get another desk or table to put it on so that it doesn't obscure my freshwater tank and save up for the protein skimmer and get some bags for the bio filtration and chemical filtration. which on the topic what do you guys recon is a good/ needed for filtration i was planing on using carbon and some matrix from Seachem.  But i am interested in getting some chem pure blue as well. as you can see on the back of the tank i will be looking at putting some chaeto algae in the back to begin with but am also considering making a hob refugium for it.   

 

 

[thagrosh]

as soon as the pay cheek goes in it disappears  ended up buying a desk for the tank to go on and begun setting up the hydra 26. then i went to the LFS and picked up some dry rock and some chem pure blue and after some playing around i have settled on the rockscape i would like for the tank and done an initial set up to see how it looks.

 

  

over all im happy with the amount of dry rock and it should hopefully give me plenty of space for some nice corals. now to begin curing the rock and getting some salt water to start the cycle. which on the topic should i add the chato algae right at the beginning when i start to cycle it or once the cycle is compete? as well as for a tank of this size is it worth chucking some rubble in a bag or container and putting it in the back compartments or will the dry rock in the tank do most of the work? 

[DCUEVAS74]

Great start and love the scape.  Good luck with the progression and enjoy the process!

[thagrosh]

well this will be the last update for a while as i went to the LFS and got some salt water for the tank to begin the cycling process. just using some food and time as i don't have enough money to buy some bacteria but might do it next week  anyway here's some more pics. i also changed up the aquascape a little and so far the 600 ltr pump isn't blowing the sand around.

  

 

 

 

[pappadumplingz]

Hey, a reefer in the land of our close neighbours. Tank is looking great so far, going dry rock was a great choice.

[Cintax]

The tank looks great so far. I wouldn't worry about saving your pennies for a skimmer right now. You can manage a tank that small with just water changes. If in the future, the bioload becomes significant enough to warrant the skimmer address it then. I'd use that money for other things you need now.

[thagrosh]

well its been a bit since i did an update and now that the tank is cycled thought id post something. i got a green star polyp to test weather or not the glue has leached so if it can survive then ill start adding some nicer corals. also i got a Tunze Nano ATO to help keep the tank stable and have also ordered a innovative marine desk top reactor as they were going cheep. it should hopeful be arriving next week so it will be interesting getting everything to fit and still have space for a small refugium.

 

ether way here's some pics of the tank 

 

the test subject 

   

 

the ato placement/ life saver as it has kept my salinity swings to a minimum 

 

as well as i forgot i added a second pump to help with water movement. all tho i may swap it out for an actual power head and ether way only got two separated spaces left to add things so will most likely just go with a fuge and a reactor and leave the protein skimmer as i am considering just adding shrimp and hermits  

  

[thagrosh]

update time luckily my reactor arrived but the stock pump that it came with shorted out in 3 hours which sucked. but ive replaced it with a eheim 300 pump and is now up and running its currently just running carbon but has helped with a massive algae bloom.

 

ive also got a bunch of new corals here is the hairy mushroom and bonus blue mushroom that came with the frag

 

aswell as a couple playthoas and a free finger leather that was attached to the frag 

 

also managed to get some pulsing xenia and the green star is thriving atm 

 

and finally some dull zoas that were going cheep but will be the beginning of a zoa garden on that particular rock 

 

next on the list is live stock which im thinking of doing a shrimp only tank or shrimp and a green clown goby if i can find one for sale in nz. but as always it can be hard to find species and when they do come up for sale you have to be quick 

[thagrosh]

so been awhile since i updated this thread a lot has happened i got a second hand aqua one 90 liter nano and upgraded and threw ups and down managed to grow my tank to this

 

 

this was back when i just added my fist ever anemone so that my new clowns could host one tank was about 1 month old and i used live rock of a fellow reefer who runs a frag tank. also got a majority of my coral from him as it more of a group run frag tank, as there is a lot of frags that get shared around. plus its hard to find nice looking corals that don't break the bank 😂 

 

 

ended up getting a gonipora when the tank got to 3 months old to see how stable the tank was and it quickly settled. in tho the clowns begun hosting it and it did not like them at all so moved it on to a mate from the group. 

 

 

then a week later i decided to try my hand at sps and got 2 birdsnests a blue and a green which were doing well for 2 months, as well as managed to get my hands on a Hawaiian reef lobster which isn't all that common in New Zealand. till i did a water change 2 weeks and forgot to match my kh which at the time i was running on the high side and caused my tank to crash from the drop killing a lot of my coral 

 

 

tho managed to score a flame bubble tip anemone which my clowns are now hosting. tho in the 2 weeks my zoa started to melt so i got rid of them and i had a red cyano out break also set up a fuge for chato 4 weeks back that's started to kick in and my tanks recovering well but im still needing to sort out my water chemistry as algae is an issue and could probably do with more cleanup crew

 

 

so as it stands im just working on getting this tank back to full health plus learned a valuable lesson so ill be curious as to what this tank will look like in the next 6 months ill post my current livestock list bellow hope your adventures are going fantastically and i wish you all happy reefing 😁

 

2 clownfish (one orange on black)

1 flame bubble tip anemone

1 Red firefish

1 yellow coris wrasse

1 red Hawaiian reef lobster 

2 red legged hermit crabs 

3 turbo snails

 

 

 

[chawk413]

I recently got an Evo 5g/19L all in one tank. I just set up the tank 3 weeks ago and it has cycled. Added a cleanup crew yesterday with 5 turbo snails, 5 hermit crabs, and a brittle star. Just have some set up questions:

 

http://www.fluvalaquatics.com/us/product/10528-evo/#.W3m_gXfMySM

 

How often should I be changing the water? How much should I take out at a time?

How many fish can I add?

What are some beginner friendly corals? 

If I have inverts/ corals, do I need to buy copepods, phytoplankton, rotifers, etc.? 

 

Thanks! 

[thagrosh]

if you stick to soft corals to begin with things like xenia,zoanthids,mushrooms,green star you should find it relatively easy to start with as they are photosynthetic and can come in a range of colors but if your wanting faster growth then you can fed things like reef roids or red sea A B amino acids but they aren't required . also i would probably reduce the amount of cc in a tank of that size 2-3 turbos,a hermit crab and your brittlee star as you will find early on you don't have a lot of algae for them to eat plus as they grow they should keep up with the demand.

 

as for water changes i found that i could get away with a 50% water change once a month. but it only had 2 tubros a hermit and used to have a yellow clown goby but that usually means that the tank looks a little ugler at the end of the month. personally i recon for a tank of that size a 2 ltr water change once a week would be plenty and if you think that the tanks looking sad (coral closed up) then do a slightly larger water change 🙂. if your wanting to push back your water changes tho you will need to keep a close eye on how much your feeding as i found i was giving my tank a little to much to begin with (found that just a small pinch of flakes was enough for all my tank inhabitants) and as a result i had alot of algae early on which made me a little hesitant about reefing but if you stick at it and work threw eliminating the possible causes it becomes extremely rewarding 😁.   

 

on the topic of fish in a tank as small as a 5 gallon your limited to 1 fish, 2 if there from a small goby species.  you could keep a single clownfish but i personally like clown gobys their small and colorful as well as you can ether keep a mated pair or two different types (say a yellow clown goby & a green clown goby) but if you are wanting to keep 2 you will want to let your tank mature a bit or perform larger water changes each week until the tank can cope with the waste they produce. 

 

i hope that helps you out a bit and i hope you have a fantastic reefing adventure 😃 .    

[thagrosh]

 

also got some more zoas about 4 days ago from the group which are doing really well and a diamond watchman goby to help clean my sand bed yesterday . hes been hard at work and i love watching him eat the sand tho the tanks become a bit clouded, but ill let him continue for the week and replace my filter sock during the weekend. other than that just continuing to fine tune the water chemistry and lining up the next set of corals which will be some lps. I will probably put an sps in the tank once i got a dosing pump to keep the alk stable. 

 

 hope all your tanks are doing well and happy reefing 😁     

[thagrosh]

its always interesting looking back at old photos and seeing my old tank and the way it was.

 

so why not time for an update it has been quite a journey, and many lessons have been learned during the 2 years since my last post (main one is all good things take time 😉) as well as unfortunate events and frankly poor husbandry back then. but im happy to show you my tank as it is now 

 

i decided to go bare bottom with a gsp carpet because at the beginning of the year i got my apprenticeship and it has meant that i have not had the same amount of time to dedicate to my tank and i wanted to reduce maintenance. but i also wanted to try and avoid the really common looking softies tank full of pinks and grays that seem to plague nz, and over the 2 years i have been slowly collecting some of the nicer coloured ones i could find i also got a mini maxi that has steadily grown size 

aswell as a bta nem that has been my main focus in husbandry mainly due to the fact that the past has a habit of repeating itself but after i lost my firefish and flame nem (nem ate fish then proceeded to die tho was more than likely also due to poor tank conditions and general inexperience) i go a another bta tho this one was a rainbow from a tank shutdown it was perfectly happy till i moved flat at the beginning of this year where it decided to crawl to the back of the rock work and lose its tentacles tho over the past couple months and some anti bacterial treatments and anti fungal treatments it has recovered with my aim to get it back to its original size 

 before i moved 

about a month after it crawled out of a hole at the back of the rock work i chucked it into a breeder box i was using to hold frags 

how it is now 

 

as you can see it has a ways to go. tho im happy that it made it considering all the times it looked like it was a total goner

overall looking back it has been an enjoyable hobbie and considering ive just gotten myself a 160 ltr tank i have no plans on giving it up anytime soon.

anyway heres some maco shots of the tank today as every reefer loves some close ups 

[thagrosh]

1 year later the nem is a very happy lad  

 

Acans.

 

with my 160lt i wanted to have a acan garden. with the species being a moderately new addition into the nz reefing scene and only recently becoming widely available, i began collecting them and with the beginning of the new year i set up the tank that would become my garden while in the mean time storing some of my early acans with other reefers in the area. 2020 was a moderately peaceful year for me in terms of reefing the tank developed well and overall there wasn't to much drama.

 

till i added a filefish to try and take care of my last pest i picked up over my journey of reefing. sadly this turned out to be a mistake as the filefish still had something from the importer and i proceeded to lose my lawnmower blenny and my yellow coris wrasse which was quite the blow. worst part was that the file fish developed a habit of picking at the acans for food despite getting more than enough during feeding time.

 

so I sumped my collection of acans while the file fish stayed in the display to continue to mow down the aptasia in the tank. I moved the file fish on to a fellow reefer who also had some to get rid of around 2 months ago. this meant i could pull my acans from out of the sump and get some light back on them and get them back to there happy state. tho i found the worst imaginable some of my colony's were losing tissue and i couldn't figure out why. I googled the problem looking for info but mostly found a lot of threads with the issue but no answer. after a dip in melafix and with a magnifying glass on my worst affected colony (a weird brown and purple that i had to frag up and only have a sole head survive) i found small black bugs (disk in shape with small tail max size about 1mm single black band across the middle of the disk) emerging from the flesh of the acan I took it down to the vets to have a look threw a microscope as with the magnifying glass they were just small moving black dots. i had heard of people using invader or something to get rid of black bugs/red bugs/what ever lps eating bug it is and begun looking for the corresponding drug here in nz with the answer being a medication called milbemax a cat heart medication that contained the key ingredients

 

milbemycin oxime                                      (kills crustaceans remove any hermit crabs or other wanted crustaceans)

Praziquantel                                               (kills flat worms and other parasites)(wrasses are extremely sensitive don't go above 2mg/L dose)

 

having done a praziquantel treatment for what i assumed was flukes with the fish (sadly wasn't the answer to what killed them) im in the boat that it was the milbemycin oxime that was what killed the black bugs in the end and i saw a rapid improvement of the acans health (skin was re grabbing the rock and none were looking like they were pealing of the skeleton) with the tank now back on track so here are some photos of the tank today 

     

     

 

[thagrosh]

new phone new camera 😁 not much of an update but some nice close ups and over views of the 160 and a view at the slightly larger acan garden 

 

 

i hope your tanks are going well today 😄