Dalton’s 5 Gallon Pico Reef

[robertsdalton]

Hello everyone!

It’s been a while since I’ve had time to keep things updated on here. But I just finished my first year of college & hopefully this summer will yield lots of progress.

 

My last update was during a rough time for the tank:

 

 

I battled the cyano for a while and had some help from fellow members @JBM and @dpoltsdsu who sent some macro my way to help get nutrients under control. Thanks guys!!

 

Unfortunately, I came home one day to see that my yellow goby had disappeared. He wasn’t on the stand, not on the floor, nowhere in the tank or the internal filter. Just disappeared without a trace. It was a sad day.

 

I also decided to completely take the internal filter out of the display. I originally liked it, but I decided the rimless look would be better without it, it would give me room to spread out the rock and fit more coral, and would give just a bit more room for fish to swim. It was a pain to take out because it was siliconed to the glass & I didn’t want to empty out the tank just to cut it out, but eventually I got it off & stuck an AquaClear on the back.

 

I spent the next few weeks collecting coral from various road trips. (The local fish store where I live has a selection close to nothing). I also dared to take in a starving bubble tip nem & nurse it back to health. 😧

 

Things are looking good now, and I’m super happy with my little ocean.

 

 

 

Things are are a bit closed up in the photo. I took it this morning right as the light turned on & things started to wake up. The anemone has been a wonderful inhabitant. He’s got his bubbles back & the color is looking so much better. 

 

I also picked up a Fiji Devil Damsel who quickly became comfortable & now acts like king of the reef.

 

My goals for the future are pretty simple. I of course want all of these frags to start getting bigger. But I also want to fill this little tank with as much life as I can, in a sustainable & humane way.

 

I’m also still using the Current Marine Orbit LED,  and it’s working at keeping things alive, but that’s about it. I have plans to upgrade the light to the Kessil A160 sometime in the near future.

 

Well that’s all for now, thanks for reading!!

 

Dalton

[dferrari13]

Lookin good.....Slow and steady wins the race.

[Christopher Marks]

Great update @robertsdalton, good to see your system back on track! I agree that it looks nicer without the internal filter, were you able to hide the heater inside the Aquaclear HOB filter?

 

I'd love to see the anemone all opened up. What's the story with that one?

[robertsdalton]

1 hour ago, Christopher Marks said:

Great update @robertsdalton, good to see your system back on track! I agree that it looks nicer without the internal filter, were you able to hide the heater inside the Aquaclear HOB filter?

 

I'd love to see the anemone all opened up. What's the story with that one?

I didn’t think about putting a heater in the filter but that’s a great idea! The less equipment displayed the better, am I right? I’ll give it a shot.

 

The nem came from my lfs. As I said above, the selection there is not great. Their standards of care also seem to be a lot lower than other stores I’ve seen, but that’s the only one in town. I went there to look around & asked about it. They said it seemed so far gone that they were thinking about tossing it. I asked to take it off their hands & they just gave it to me. It was a risk, but I’d rather have risked it than seen it tossed into a dumpster. Fortunately he’s doing great! I’ll update you with a picture as soon as I can.

[dpoltsdsu]

Looking great! Glad the system is back on track. 🙂

[robertsdalton]

20 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

I'd love to see the anemone all opened up.

This first photo isn’t mine, but just serves as a comparison as to what the anemone looked like when I brought it home.

 

And here it is this morning, looking much better! It hasn’t completely grown it’s bubbles all back, but it’s definitely on its way to full recovery.

[robertsdalton]

Just wanted to add a few photos to show some different angles of the tank. Everything’s doing well as far as I can tell.

 

 

I also put in a water bottle for scale. Sometimes it’s hard to tell just how small these tanks are.

 

 

 

 

Thjs is my favorite side to watch the pulsing Xenia from. It’s almost hypnotic.

 

 

 

I put in a porcelain crab a couple days ago but I haven’t been able to take a good picture yet. He’s usually only out at night when the moonlights come on.

 

Dalton

[Blaino24]

Any updates on this reef?

[ReefAdoRe]

On 5/28/2018 at 12:57 PM, robertsdalton said:

This first photo isn’t mine, but just serves as a comparison as to what the anemone looked like when I brought it home.

 

And here it is this morning, looking much better! It hasn’t completely grown it’s bubbles all back, but it’s definitely on its way to full recovery.

Hey there, great tank! Thank you for sharing.  I am curious, how did you get your anemone back to health?  It is a vast difference.  IME, when they are that far gone, they will not even eat.