Humble 5 Gallon Pico Tank

[Poison Dart Frog]

My domino damsel jumped out of my bow front pico tank. I found him in the empty water change bucket when I got home from work the other day. 😥 I have screen material to DIY a lid for it but just hadnt gotten around to it. Lesson learned (my other tank has a lid already). Anyway I got a purple dottyback or pseudochromis or whatever it's called. Seems pretty happy so far. And I added a coral banded shrimp at the same time. And in the fluval tank I added a "war coral".

Also, I picked up a 20H from Petco during their dollar per gallon sale. I have everything I need for it now so I'm setting it up today. I have one Current USA Orbit Marine light. I may end up needing to add a second one but one will get me started. I plan on moving one or more of my toadstools when they outgrow the fluval. 

[Poison Dart Frog]

And some more pom pom crab video. He seems more bold lately during the day when the light is on. 

 

[Poison Dart Frog]

I got a pretty cool Favites red and green war coral the other day. I fed it reef roids and immediately all the sweeper tentacles appeared. I haven't glued it to a rock yet because eventually it's going into my 20H that I'm getting ready. I also want to frag my green nephthea leather at some point and start growing it out in the new tank. 

 

[Poison Dart Frog]

My little bow front tank is doing well. I tested nitrates on both tanks and they were about half with the bowfront tank which is way less mature, compared to my older tank. I got about 10 where the older tank was between 15 and 20. Which is surprising because I feed the bow front tank heavily with frozen food and garlic where the older tank gets a pinch of flakes and 1 or 2 shrimp pellets for the fire shrimp. Maybe frozen food is actually less likely to raise nitrates. Seems there isn't a clear answer.

Also, the coral banded shrimp had one large pincher when I got it from the LFS. Last night it shed and it suddenly has 2 large pincers. So weird how they can do that.

My 20 gallon tank is now up and running and on Wednesday I am going to add biospira and a fish. That is how I did my most recent tank, just dry rock and biospira, and it has had far less algae problems than my older one which used mature live rock. 

 

[billygoat]

24 minutes ago, Poison Dart Frog said:

My little bow front tank is doing well.

What an awesome little tank! I am just imagining the bowfront as it matures, with that whole big rock on the side getting covered in zoanthids and the gorgonians growing big and tall. I'm sure it will look super cool! I really like it a lot.😁

[Poison Dart Frog]

9 minutes ago, billygoat said:

What an awesome little tank! I am just imagining the bowfront as it matures, with that whole big rock on the side getting covered in zoanthids and the gorgonians growing big and tall. I'm sure it will look super cool! I really like it a lot.😁

Thanks so much. I'm not sure if I'll even add anything more or just let it grow. (I do want to order more rock flower nems for my new 20H at some point, so maybe another one of those.) Have you noticed... this is an insanely addictive hobby? lol

[Tired]

If your tank is cycled enough to keep corals and a shrimp happy, it's cycled, and shouldn't need a bacteria boost. 

[Poison Dart Frog]

19 hours ago, Tired said:

If your tank is cycled enough to keep corals and a shrimp happy, it's cycled, and shouldn't need a bacteria boost. 

Actually, I was referring to a new tank I just setup (my 3rd 🙄), not the most recent one in the video.  It is a 20H. I just added a skunk clown (after adding biospira). Also it has had some biomedia in the filter which had been in the filter from my old tank. It's not much to look at yet but I'm looking forward to gradually adding things to it when it's ready. 

[Tired]

Ah, I see. What are pink skunk clowns like? I don't see them in aquariums much, I guess people prefer the classics, but they're cute.

 

That rock that's kind of on the top left of the arch there looks a bit out-of-place. If it's not glued, I'd suggest moving it a bit to the left, so it settles into that kind of notch. 

[Poison Dart Frog]

3 hours ago, Tired said:

Ah, I see. What are pink skunk clowns like? I don't see them in aquariums much, I guess people prefer the classics, but they're cute.

 

That rock that's kind of on the top left of the arch there looks a bit out-of-place. If it's not glued, I'd suggest moving it a bit to the left, so it settles into that kind of notch. 

Yeah, I'm gonna have to rescape a little bit I think. I'm pretty sure the skunk clowns are very likely to host anemones or corals, which is what I'm hoping for it eventually. From what I've read they're pretty hardy, so I figured it would be an okay fish to start out with in the tank. And it's different. This one has been at the pet store for at least 3 weeks and looked okay so I bought it last night. It ate today which is a good sign.

I also bought this shark nose goby and put it in my Fluval tank. Depending on how it gets along with the damsel, I have the option of moving it to the new tank. But I figured I'd try it and see. I think yellow tail damsels are a bit less aggressive than some other varieties. I haven't seen much aggression so far (I did feed them pretty good which may help.) The goby mostly just perches on things and then swims for about 30 seconds, then perches again.

 

[Tired]

I used to have a sharknose and a yellowtail together. Yellowtails really aren't aggressive at all- you'll maybe see a little bit of lunging, especially around its claimed spot, but that's about it. And when they do get aggressive, they do it by slapping things with their tails instead of nipping, which some fish don't really seem bothered by. My yellow watchman goby would just ignore being tail-slapped in the face unless it went on for too long. 

[Poison Dart Frog]

The little goby has claimed the left 10% of the tank and the damsel the remaining 90% lol. I've been leaving the magnetic algae scraper where he can perch on it. I also moved the magnetic ledge to the left side of the tank and I'm going to mount the sponge on it to give him some more space to hang out on. Otherwise he is eating good and seems healthy. 

[Tired]

Sounds like they're getting along well. If you don't see any excessive nipping, or any repeated incidents of the goby going into the other space and being chased away (which would suggest it wants more space to move in), you're good. 

[Poison Dart Frog]

6 months since this tank started. I moved the sponge to the magnetic ledge on the left side. 

[Poison Dart Frog]

So I got up today and looked at my bowfront aquarium and it looked like the anemone had eaten the coral banded shrimp. Thankfully it turned out to be just the shed it was eating and the shrimp was alive and well in its little cave.😅

[billygoat]

Congrats on your 6 month tankiversary! This is one of my favorite little tanks and I always enjoy your updates. I'm glad to see that everything is still doing well. 😊

[Poison Dart Frog]

I thought this was kinda cool. I just noticed I have a starfish in my tank. 

 

That's what I live about reef tanks. All the strange wildlife that just seems to appear out of the blue. 

[Tired]

That's an asterina. Some types are harmless to corals, some types eat zoanthids. The ones that eat zoanthids tend to be larger and darker gray, and I don't think that's one, but it may be worth keeping half an eye on. It looks like probably one of the harmless detritivores, though.

[Poison Dart Frog]

I moved the green toadstool to my 20 gallon tank. Now the leather that was next to it and the xenia are fluffier.  

[Poison Dart Frog]

Pom pom crab hanging out in the leather coral.

[Poison Dart Frog]

I got a Dwarf Spotted Filefish for my 20 gallon tank. Apparently it is aquacultured and only gets to a max size of 3". I love filefish but I always they got too large for my little tanks so I was thrilled to find this little guy. 

[Ratvan]

6 minutes ago, Poison Dart Frog said:

I got a Dwarf Spotted Filefish for my 20 gallon tank. Apparently it is aquacultured and only gets to a max size of 3". I love filefish but I always they got too large for my little tanks so I was thrilled to find this little guy. 

Cute! I love Filefish they have such characters

 

Following for this little one

[Poison Dart Frog]

I got some new rock flower nems. I put one in my bowfront tank and the others in my 20 gallon. I also got a purple ribbon gorgonian and a "corky sea finger" that looks like GSP (it hasn't opened yet) as well as a frag of purple plating sponge for the new tank. It's not much to look at yet but I'm chipping away at it. 

[banasophia]

Tanks are looking really great... enjoyed reading through your journal especially checking out your spec 5 since I’m just about to get my evo 5 wet tomorrow night... will also be doing dry rock and BioSpira.

[Poison Dart Frog]

51 minutes ago, banasophia said:

Tanks are looking really great... enjoyed reading through your journal especially checking out your spec 5 since I’m just about to get my evo 5 wet tomorrow night... will also be doing dry rock and BioSpira.

Thanks. I've used biospira and dry rock on my last two tanks and they actually started getting coraline algae much sooner than the first tank where I used seasoned live rock. My 20 gallon is only a couple months old and has coraline algae already. The other thing that has seemed to help is to buy the largest turbo snails I can find. Two of them do the work of about 10 smaller critters when it comes to keeping algae off the rocks and glass. 

 

Also, it'll be interesting to see how adding the powerhead to your evo 5 works out. I've been getting by with just an upgraded pump but the low flow is a challenge to make everyone happy. Another thing that has helped is using carbon and phosguard mixed in a small bag, just using a couple table spoons of each and changing them out with each water change. If you've seen Susan Nichols's nano tanks on youtube, she mentioned doing this for all her tanks and they all look amazing so it's probably a good thing to emulate since I've had a lot of algae growth (likely due to high phosphates that don't show up on a test due to being taken up by algae growing). I've noticed a decrease in green algae and an increase in coraline since starting that.