Kentech’s Comeback 5G Pico - New Pics!

[Kentech5]

I’ve had quite a few saltwater tanks up to a 90 gallon with sump, lots of coral, auto water change system, apex, etc. The 90 gave me a on of problems with cyano, aiptasia outbreaks and the like. My cat also had a fun habit of chewing through RODI tubing and flooding my basement. Eventually he managed to spray RODI water on the electronics of the RODI which messed up the auto flushing system so I had to manually bypass that. It was mounted on the wall but that didn’t stop him. Finally, less than a year after a full tank reboot I had a massive cyano outbreak I couldn’t beat. Lost everything and shut down the tank. Haven’t sold anything that still works because I know I’ll start it up again or upgrade so it’s sitting there waiting to be dealt with. 

 

Started getting the bug again about a month ago but not wanting to deal with the 90 I started thinking about nanos. My first tank was an Aquino Evolve 8 and one of my favorites was a little 1.5 or 2.5 gallon tank. I’ve had a 5 gallon tank I was using for a betta sitting next to my bed empty for a while now so I thought why not. The tank is a little Current USA Solo 5 Gallon aquarium. It’s rimless and pretty nice. Threw in some dry rock, black sand from a friend, an aqua knight light I had laying around, cheap heater, and leftover in tank style filter then started cycling. I was using filtered seawater from Petco and distilled Walmart water to start out. I’ll figure out the RODI situation eventually but with a little tank it’s not as big of a deal. 

 

After a couple weeks I grabbed two zoa frags to test the waters. Got some slides for a Seneye reef I had laying around and hid it behind the rock. I also got a little power head to throw in the back and replace the filter for flow. Finally, I set up a Smart ATO Micro to keep things a little more stable, another tank leftover. Things were still doing pretty good at this point. Zoas were open and a little algae growing. Wish I had been taking pictures through the setup process but I didn’t think to. 

 

The next week I bought another little frag (Ricordea) and a tiny cleanup crew. This is when things started going downhill. I added the frag and cleanup crew consisting of 2 nassarius snails, 2 bumblebee snails, 4 stomatella, and an asters snail. Only problem was the LFS gave me two Cerith not two nassarius and I didn’t notice til I got home. The store is an hour away so I didn’t go back to switch them out. I was also stupid and picked up a sickly looking yellow clown goby they were selling cheap. He was eating and this will probably be a single fish tank so I gave it a shot.  I worked In the tank and got things placed, did a water change, etc. That night things looked irritated but they usually do after messing around in the tank. 

 

I had also picked up a Mini Complete Tank I planned on bringing to work. I put some sand and live rock in and added a little hermit crab. I upgraded the heater to a 10 W betta heater on an inkbird temp controller. It’s a cool little tank. 

 

The next day day zoas were closed and angry, Ricordea did not look happy, and I found the yellow clown goby dead. Snails were not moving much. Ammonia was at 0. Tried waiting things out that day but they weren’t looking better. I thought maybe I had some bad distilled water. That evening I did a 100% water change with heated water and things were looking better for a bit. I transferred one zoa to the mini tank as that hadn’t any distilled water in it yet and monitored. I put hands in to tweak one more thing in the tank and things started looking annoyed again. That’s when I realized I had put some hand sanitizer near the tank and both times the tank looked annoyed I had put my hands in the tank after forgetting I had used the hand sanitizer. I normally only rinse with water before hands go in tank but I messed up.  Checked the label on the hand sanitizer and it has moisturizers in it too so yeah. I didn’t have water for another full change so I put the filter back on with a new carbon filter pack and hoped.

 

THe next day (two days ago), the tank looked a lot better. Zoas open again and snails moving around except the Ceriths which I think I am going to lose. Moved the zoas back from the mini and the hand sanitizer is now in a different room. 

 

Yesterday my my friend gave me a Monti frag and some really tiny clove polyps. Polyps are in the Mini and Monti in the main tank. Things look good except a couple zoa polyps that don’t wanna open. Switched to a tiny hang on filter with carbon to finish clearing out the water but it won’t be permanent. Considering an upgrade to an AI Hydra light eventually.  I have an order for an Octolid for the tank and I hope to get my hands on a hammer soon if things stay stable. Euphyllia are probably my favorite coral and yellow clown gobies are one of my favorite fish. A YCG was also one of my first two fish. 

 

I’ve approached this tank much differently than I have other tanks in the past. Moving faster than I normally would for sure. I’ve been reading up on reef bowls and 100% water changes so I figured I’d try doing things differently. I would never start a large tank this way but I have a lot more control with this nano. Of course I never would have considered doing a 100% water change even on a nano in the past but I wanted to try this approach this time around. 

 

Hopefully I can remember to take pictures as things move forward. 
 

2/12/2020

 

 

 

Mini Complete Tank

 

 

[Kentech5]

One zoa frag still being weird. Opens for the first half of the day but closes a few hours before lights out. It’s only midway up the tank and par is only 300 at the top so it doesn’t seem like it would be too much light but I don’t know. I feel like I have messed with this frag too many times lately as it is so I am avoiding moving it again if I can. Seneye keeps picking up the pH swinging over 8.5 too. Not sure if that could be related. 

[billygoat]

Welcome back @Kentech5! I hope the 5g ends up going well. The 100% water change regimen has certainly worked out for a lot of other reefers here on N-R.

 

I love that Mini Complete tank too! Those things are just adorable. 😁

[debbeach13]

Welcome back to reefing. Good luck with your new tanks.

[Clown79]

Hope everything bounces back soon. The carbon and large waterchange will help.

 

Zoa's like nutrients and not all like high light- 300 par is pretty high.

[Kentech5]

9 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Hope everything bounces back soon. The carbon and large waterchange will help.

 

Zoa's like nutrients and not all like high light- 300 par is pretty high.

300 is high but down where I have them should be more like 200. Im thinking they dont like the whites. The tank they came from was pretty much blue so Im turning down whites and hoping for the best. Need to get a better light I can control properly. 

[Kentech5]

Was able to get a great deal on some corals from another hobbyist about an hour away. Deals were good enough that I got backup frags to keep in a friend’s tank and Ive got some extras to trade. Sorry, pics are awful and blue. 
 

 

[Kentech5]

New FTS:

 

Tank looks pretty happy overall. New corals are looking happy and even the zoas look happier with the whites turned down. The green monti is the only unhappy looking citizen. It’s lost most of its flesh except for the edges. I’ve never had much luck with SPS anyway. I’ll wai a few months and try again unless I get a freebie to try somewhere. 

 

 

[Kentech5]

A few LPS pictures. I bumped the frogspawn in the last picture and it is pretty annoyed now. I think it will be ok?

 

[Kentech5]

Spent yesterday afternoon replacing my RODI tubing and running it through PVC so the cat can’t get to it. Just need a new membrane and filters. It is making 0 TDS water right now but the flow is slower than it should be and the filters look nasty. 


 

 

In other news the frogspawn stayed crabby all day yesterday but it’s puffed up again today. 
 

[Kentech5]

Filters are replaced and it turns out my membrane is fine. Tested the RO coming out before the DI and I am getting 1-2 TDS out. TDS going in is 65ish so I think we are good. 

[Kentech5]

Got a new set of filters and a macro lens for my phone. Hopefully some better pictures now. 
 

 

One hammer is annoyed right now. The one head is annoyed from the magnet scraping near it but the other head was already annoyed . No clue why.

 

Thinking about eventual pump upgrades. Would an Aquamai KPS do well in a tank this size?

[Kentech5]

So I did a thing:

 

 

Got an AI Prime for the Pico. 

[Kentech5]

 

 

New FTS. I’m going through the young tank uglies right now but everything is looking good. Ignore the annoyed looking euphyllia as I just finished moving a couple things around and scraping the glass so they’re mad at me. I swear sometimes these corals are grumpier than my hedgehog. Hoping to pick up a couple more astrea snails in a week or two when my new LFS gets some in. Doing water changes a couple times a week right now just to be safe, usually about a gallon. 
 

 

Got 300 plastic pipettes for cheap on Amazon as you old ones were getting gunky. Now I have more than enough for my Milwaukee digital refractometer which is my backup salinity checking device. I got some empty glass bottles with droppers built into the lid too. I only really needed one for some RODI to calibrate the Milwaukee but they came in a pack. I am sure I can use the rest for something. 

[Kentech5]

New FTS:

Nothing has changed really. I just wanted to finally get a shot with the frogspawn happy and open. 

 

[Kentech5]

Added a few more astrea snails today. Hopefully they can drive back some of the algae I can’t reach. 
 

Really tempted to tear the rock out. Smash it up and use some bond to totally redo the scape but on the other hand everything seems to be doing really well. I really prefer a long shallow tank but I already have a lid coming for this one and it fits the space well. Not really sure how I would even redo the scape so for now I am waiting for inspiration to strike. 

[Kentech5]

Finally got tired of scaling the wall or climbing a ladder to use my RODI. So I finally used some more PVC to run tubing down to valves in a box that I can easily reach. Yay for easy RODI and membrane flushing. 

 

[Kentech5]

Finally ended up redoing the scape. Tank is still settling now so I will do a pic tomorrow. Pretty happy with it now. Less wasted space in the back. Might need to reposition the hammer in the front as it is awfully close to the glass but everything else is placed about where I would like. Swapped the circulation pump for a smaller dymax one and I have a Hydor Pico pump I will also be adding. Made a good bit of room that way too. 

[Kentech5]

Stirring up the sand and everything seems to have made my tank uglies even worse so pardon the algae. Looks kind of like frankenrock with all the different colors but I like it. 
 

[Kentech5]

Today’s update: Everything seems to have adjusted to the new scape and opened back up. In other news I finally got a yellow clown goby. 








This was the only picture I could snag of him. He likes to sit right where it is hard to see him but he has been swimming about a bit. Put some my sis and cyclops in today and I am 90% sure he was eating. Definitely darting at food particles so a good sign with one of these picky eaters. 

 

[Kentech5]

New Frag Alert!!

 

Got my auction winnings from High Tide Corals. Some of these guys are already opening and look awesome! Of course the ones I am most excited for, the Gatorade Zoas, haven’t opened up yet but I can see some hints of orange and can’t wait to see these beauties. Here’s hoping everything does well. Lights are set to acclimate for a couple days and all my frags are on a rack halfway up the tank. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

[A.m.P]

Those frag plugs appear to be covered in dinoflagellates and I think I spotted some in your system as well, not 100% sure though.

[Kentech5]

The pictures were shortly after a glass cleaning and water change. Whatever is on the plugs is probably from my tank. Could very well be dinos I suppose. Algae actually seemed like it was dying down some but with the clown goby I am feeding daily and trying to find that sweetspot. Still waiting on my nitrate and phosphate test kit so in the meantime I am doing my usual watch and adjust slowly take on things. I know Dino’s are often a low nutrient tank problem which I don’t really think I have right now but I am not sure. I definitely have tufts of hair algae growing in there. 
 

Astrea snails have been unphased so far as well. 

[Kentech5]

Coral are about the same today. Everything opened up except the Gatorade Zoas. They did have stuff on them so I blew it off. Hoping it isn’t dinos but it doesn’t really look like cyano to me so it probably is dinoflagellates. Really hoping my Red Sea nitrate kit comes into the LFS soon. I think they do carry Sera so I will grab one of those if I must. I figure I will have a better idea of the approach I need to take once I know if my nitrates are too low (don’t think its likely) or high. Most frustrating part right now is not knowing if I am too dirty or not dirty enough right now. 
 

In other news the Dymax pump I have in the back near the bottom trying to elimnate dead spots has annoying tendency to rattle loudly. This tank is a couple feet from my head when I am sleeping so I gotta fix this. The pump is actually smaller than my hydor pico so what in earth can I get that’s this small but better made? Or should I try for a single controllable pump of some kind?

 

 

On the upside my yellow clown goby is doing well and eating. No name yet, I like to wait, but I haven’t had one of these little guys in years and they are one of my favorites. 

 

Ugly algae pictures:

 

Yes this is a mostly dead monti. It is my only coral casualty so far and it’s been like this since long before these algae issues. 
It has had the same 2 polyp nub hanging on for the last couple weeks. 

[A.m.P]

Those are definitely dinos.

I recommend getting some bottled Nitrate and Phosphate and dosing up to 15 and 0.1 respectively, adding some pods, running lots of carbon and trying to manually-remove some through filter floss. Abstaining from water changes for a while should help as well, Clown79 had allot of luck with dosing phytoplankton. Sometimes Dino's are part of your ugly-phase/cycle, but thats a pretty bad outbreak.