Humble 5 Gallon Pico Tank

[banasophia]

1 minute ago, Poison Dart Frog said:

My second pico reef. It is just getting past the ugly stage so I added a few thing. A gorgonian, a leather, and another rock flower anemone. Still not much to look at but it's slowly maturing. 

 

Looks beautiful - I love it! Those sponges are really cool, and great combination of other livestock! 😍😍😍

[Poison Dart Frog]

On 11/30/2019 at 12:43 PM, banasophia said:

Looks beautiful - I love it! Those sponges are really cool, and great combination of other livestock! 😍😍😍

 .

[Poison Dart Frog]

 .

[Poison Dart Frog]

 .

[Poison Dart Frog]

Off topic post because... why not? One of my other critters. A Jacksons chameleon. 

 

[Poison Dart Frog]

 .

 

[Poison Dart Frog]

.

[Lula_Mae]

7 hours ago, Poison Dart Frog said:

I added these paly grandis and the purpleish zoas are new too.

Great work OP! The tank is really nice and starting to look mature. Your grandis paly looks different than the ones I've had, like a different species of paly I can't think of the name of (although it can be hard to tell from the pic). The pom-pom is super cute. Pom pom crabs are some of my favorite animals! Your big gorg might just be getting ready to shed, I've had them close up for days, shed, and then open up again. Sometimes I very gently brush them with my fingers to help remove the shed. I've gotten some beautiful stuff from Gulf Coast Ecosystems before, their frags are always huge and healthy!

 

On 11/21/2019 at 11:22 PM, Seadragon said:

I just found your journal and I love your Pom Pom Crab!  Are there any downsides that you've found with the crab?  I hear they like to hide a lot and are nocturnal?  I also hear they sometimes brush up against corals and fish and give them a little sting with their nems?

I've had probably a dozen or more pom poms over the years; 95%+ of the time they are very shy and will find a little overhang somewhere to hang upside down from and wave their poms around. They'll often come out for food bits when you feed the tank. I've never had any issue with them going around stinging things. Only once have I had a non-shy pom pom crab--Shelby was a unique crab (the link in my sig for the 1.6 gallon has the story of that saga lol). Long story short, she tackled and tried to eat (alive) the second pom pom I'd added in hopes they'd share poms as Shelby had lost hers. I also recall a video posted on here once of a pom pom dragging tiny baby blue leg hermits back to her lair--had about three in her claws and could barely walk as a result!  Examples like these are outliers, though, because they almost always are very shy creatures and so much fun to watch! The bigger the tank, the less often you're likely to see them, which makes a pico perfect to observe them more closely.

[Poison Dart Frog]

 .

 

[Poison Dart Frog]

 . 

 

 

 

[CD_Scapes]

29 minutes ago, Poison Dart Frog said:

The nephthea has already recovered. Even at it's best it used to sag but not so much now. And the xenia looks way better. Even the toadstools and zoas look happier. I've watched anlot of helpful videos where people say you are more likely to do damage with too much light than not enough but I never really applied that. Tidal Gardens videos seemed to emphasize that. I think, despite not having a super powerful light, it was too much when turned up high. So with some of the simpler corals maybe less is more. 

I think your P. grandis are P. muthuki 

[Poison Dart Frog]

47 minutes ago, Northwoodsreefer said:

I think your P. grandis are P. muthuki 

Thx.

[Poison Dart Frog]

 

[Poison Dart Frog]

Moved the large gorgonian to my other tank. Added a large dry rock in the corner with a leather coral and a sponge from the other tank. 

 

[Poison Dart Frog]

New leather coral appears to be adapting to tank conditions ok.

[Poison Dart Frog]

This toadstool has pretty cool flowing motion compared to the others. 

 

[Poison Dart Frog]

I moved a few things around including my green toadstool which is now glued to a rock. I may end up buying the smallest powerhead I can find for this tank. 

 

[Poison Dart Frog]

I took the rock with the green tree coral out of the tank when doing a water change and scrubbed all the algae off with a toothbrush. The coral recovered pretty quickly. I moved the frogspawn to the sandbed for now. I really need to get a small powerhead for added flow.

 

[Poison Dart Frog]

I think I may glue my green toadstool to a frag disc and place it on the magnetic ledge for more flow. Either that or the geen palythoas. I'm getting ready to set up my third tank, a 20H, so maybe if some of the leathers outgrow this tank they can be moved there. I struggle with LPS and I think it may be due to all leathers putting out chemicals. I am going to try changing the carbon more often. Otherwise things are growing fairly good. 

 

[Poison Dart Frog]

The domino damsel hosts in the zoanthids (or palys whatever they are) like a clownfish. He spends a lot of time just sitting in them. Hard to get a close up pic because he swims away when I get close, thinking I'm about to feed him. 

[Tired]

Oh, yep, dominoes host. I've seen them hosting stony corals in the wild. 

[Poison Dart Frog]

The pom pom crab has grown a little bit. 

[Tired]

Oo, lovely friend.

 

By any chance is that thick shell courtesy of a scarlet reef hermit? Mine seem to love those real thick ones that turn them into walking rocks.

[CD_Scapes]

8 hours ago, Poison Dart Frog said:

The domino damsel hosts in the zoanthids (or palys whatever they are) like a clownfish. He spends a lot of time just sitting in them. Hard to get a close up pic because he swims away when I get close, thinking I'm about to feed him. 

 

47 minutes ago, Tired said:

Oh, yep, dominoes host. I've seen them hosting stony corals in the wild. 

That’s got me thinking...solo dominoe in the 29 Biocube?

[Poison Dart Frog]

11 hours ago, Tired said:

Oo, lovely friend.

 

By any chance is that thick shell courtesy of a scarlet reef hermit? Mine seem to love those real thick ones that turn them into walking rocks.

Yup it is. Mine changes shells on a regular basis. I keep several empty shells in there so they leave the snails alone.