My 5G fluval tank progress.

[1st reef]

Decided to start a small saltwater tank à while ago and my son got very excited so we transformed his 5g tetra tank. 

Got a little clown  and hermit crab so far. 

Made the mistake of adding aragonite sand lol. It is what it is. Light is a current orbit marine. Powershead is 240 gph and the return pump is the stock one which is 80gph I believe. Will upgrade if I need to. 

Filter media for the moment is the sponge and filter floss. I only added those to help remove all the loose dust from the aragonite. Will be removing them when everything is settled. Couldn't find bio spira to help with the cycle but I got this little bottle my lfs swears by. It's from aquaforest and its called pro bio s. 

So far water parameters are great. They were even before adding anything live in there. Seems cycled. 

Will be upgrading to a 10g when things get tight in there. 

As for food. He eats both of these. 

[banasophia]

I really like the look with the sand. Excited to follow along. May want to add a seachem ammonia badge to detect any increase in ammonia between testing. Gotta make sure that cute lil clownie is safe. 🙂

[1st reef]

42 minutes ago, banasophia said:

I really like the look with the sand. Excited to follow along. May want to add a seachem ammonia badge to detect any increase in ammonia between testing. Gotta make sure that cute lil clownie is safe. 🙂

I test daily and I have premixed saltwater on hand. Looking to add a blenny or goby to help keep the substrate healthy. ... Whichever is smaller. Lol

[1st reef]

"nemo" seemed to have had a bit of trouble with the current from the powerhead. 

Today, he seems better. He found a more comfortable spot. 

[1st reef]

Should I turn powerhead off for the time being till he settles in? 

[Ratvan]

1 minute ago, 1st reef said:

Should I turn powerhead off for the time being till he settles in? 

No she will adapt to it 

[rough eye]

try having the powerhead near the top and pointing up, so the surface of the water is stirred? you can point it partly to a side wall too so the flow ricochets a little.

[1st reef]

The return pump is pointed upwards. Im trying different positions for the powerhead. Once corals are added, won't they like flow directed at them? 

[1st reef]

Looks like I'm getting Coraline from the dry rock that had some. Excited. 

The last pic is of the rock I bought with Coraline on it. The first and 2nd  pic is the live rock I bought without any. Starting to see purple on it. 

[ReefTaco]

On 9/20/2021 at 1:40 PM, 1st reef said:

The return pump is pointed upwards. Im trying different positions for the powerhead. Once corals are added, won't they like flow directed at them? 

Depends on the coral some like high flow some like mid to low

 

• Quote

try having the powerhead near the top and pointing up, so the surface of the water is stirred? you can point it partly to a side wall too so the flow ricochets a little.

 

I wanted to keep the power head on the return side but it stirred up too much sand so I put it on the opposite side it's good now colliding with the return flow and it's also pushing a little bit of eating into the intake of the over flow for the filtration whick is good.

 

Sorry if it formatted funny I'm using mobile.

 

[Critteraholic]

Looking Good! Coraline algae is a sign your tank is doing well.

 

Green or yellow clown gobies do well in small tanks. One or the other, not both! They'll beat the crap out of each other fighting over territory. However, they are not sand stirrers. You're kind of limited with a five gallon. How about a pistol shrimp and some sand snails like nassarius and/or cerith? 

 

One note about your blue-legged hermit crab; if you get snails you will have to provide the hermit crab with extra shells so he doesn't kill your snails for their shells. You can, for now, buy snails that are bigger than him at the moment as well. Extra shells apply if you get more hermits as well. 

 

Have fun!

[1st reef]

Yeah, I have 2 empty shells in the tank. He swaps back and forth. Really like dragonet. Saw a red one today. Stunning. 

[1st reef]

Can I get scarlet crabs and blue hermit crabs? 

[rough eye]

can't put a dragonet in a tank that small, and even a larger tank needs to be very well established before introducing one.

 

i have about 10 shells in my tank. can never be too many.

[ReefTaco]

1 hour ago, 1st reef said:

Can I get scarlet crabs and blue hermit crabs? 

Of course scarlet's are one of my favorites next to a Halloween hermit

[Critteraholic]

+1 @rough eyeDragonets can eat thousands of pods an hour. Yes, an hour. Since your tank is new and small, it cannot support a large pod population. So that means buying them. And you'd go broke buying pods.(They are soooo expensive! 😔) The smallest tank I personally have seen healthy dragonets in was a 60 gallon. And only because this person had loads of good rock that was at least 5 years old. I've heard of some LFS's having trained theirs to eat frozen food, but I'd definitely have to see that one in person before buying. 😉

 

Just a suggestion - if you're going to mix scarlets (not red legs, different bigger crab) and blue-legged's, I would put them in all at the same time. That way no territories have been claimed by opposing groups. If you read around this site, you'll see that there is a divide between those that mix and have no problems and those who'd rather have them all for dinner. 😄    And you can never ever have too many shells!

[1st reef]

I rearranged the aquascaping to be able to add corals without fear of one of them trying to take over the neighbouring rock. 

 

[1st reef]

Is there something I can do to minimize the ugly tank syndrome? I cleaned the glass 4 days ago and now it's already full again. As filter media I have polyester and the poly filter pad

[ReefTaco]

See if you can get a copepod starter pack and start a population, they help with dinos.

[banasophia]

1 hour ago, 1st reef said:

Is there something I can do to minimize the ugly tank syndrome? I cleaned the glass 4 days ago and now it's already full again. As filter media I have polyester and the poly filter pad

I wouldn’t use poly filter unless there’s a reason for it, I would just use normal filter floss.
 

Algae on the glass is totally normal… you just need to use an algae scraper like a Flipper Nano or Two Little Fishies Nano Mag to clean the glass… it’s not unusual to have to do it once or twice a day and it’s a good time to inspect the tank. 

[1st reef]

I figured I'd use since I don't have a skimmer. I guess I'll keep scraping till this tank has matured. Will look into pods. 

[banasophia]

18 minutes ago, 1st reef said:

I figured I'd use since I don't have a skimmer. I guess I'll keep scraping till this tank has matured. Will look into pods. 

Yeah… you’ve probably heard the saying “you are the most important member of your cleanup crew”… I agree with that one. 

[1st reef]

Just checked params. Ammo nitrite at zero. Nitrate 5 ppm... Maybe a bit under. 

[1st reef]

New fish is always an exciting day. 

I checked the lfs water and it has a sg of 1.021 and my tank is at 1.024. Should I acclimate till sg in the bag is identical to mine? Got a watchman goby. 

[Jakesaw]

On 9/19/2021 at 5:05 PM, 1st reef said:

"nemo" seemed to have had a bit of trouble with the current from the powerhead. 

Today, he seems better. He found a more comfortable spot. 

Very normal  My clown struggled a few days after I went from HOB filter to powerhead + HOB.  They are built to swim the current in natural habitat. Just need to get on the treadmill and get that cardio up!