Ryan’s Acropolis 2.5g

[Sprinter70]

Filled this with water and started the fishless cycle around June 1. Got some of the first inhabitants fragged in my other tank and built the controller and lights over the weekend! A perfect storm to get it started.

 

Tank:

Aqueon rimless 2.5 gallon

 

Aquascape:
Aquascape is 3D printed and was designed in blender.
 

Lighting:

Lights are diy with 5 independent channels and can hammer the surface with up to 800 PPFD of fairly white light, around 10000k from my guess, but need to get a submersible light meter to figure the bottom. To start, I am running it at about half power.
 

Flow and Filtration:

I have a 3D printed overflow box in the back corner with the pump out of the base around the back of the scape. The pump closer to the surface and front of the tank runs for 5ish seconds every 15ish seconds against the prevailing flow.
 

Substrate:

It is bare bottom (for now) and the aquascape is not anchored but appears to stay put.
 

Livestock:

Added a few corals once everything got set up including a garf bonsai and a green anacropora as well as some something I think is a psammocora (but I’m likely wrong).

 

Other Toys:

Custom ATO, dosing for All for Reef and Kalk at through the night.

 

[Woodini]

Neat little tank! 
I still question the printed rock, but I hope it works out for you!

[Sprinter70]

6 hours ago, Woodini said:

Neat little tank! 
I still question the printed rock, but I hope it works out for you!

So far so good, my other tank has had acropora for 4ish months and the tank is approaching 7 months old (my oldest tank) and the first additions are encrusting. I feel like growth is definitely slower, but I’ve been changing my dosing strategy (slowly) to try and compensate for the small water volume and trying to attain chemistry stability as the corals consume. The rock is the least of my concern with the pico approach for now, I suspect they allow a greater water volume compared to typical solid rock which may be haloing me out a little. What is your main concern with the plastic rock?

[Lebowski_]

This looks awesome. Will be following along.

[Sprinter70]

.

[Woodini]

11 hours ago, Sprinter70 said:The rock is the least of my concern with the pico approach for now, I suspect they allow a greater water volume compared to typical solid rock which may be haloing me out a little. What is your main concern with the plastic rock?

It’s just a new concept to me. Obviously lacking the biofiltration and diversity… also doesn’t it want to “float”?

It does look good! Always, best of luck!

Ray

 

 

[Sprinter70]

52 minutes ago, Woodini said:

It’s just a new concept to me. Obviously lacking the biofiltration and diversity… also doesn’t it want to “float”?

It does look good! Always, best of luck!

Ray

 

 

It is a little light on the bottom and is fixed to the bottom in most of my tanks. Tanks where it isn’t anchored down can have some drifting occur. Still stuff to work out!

[Sprinter70]

Frags are just about ready to move over, can’t wait to get the frag rack out of my main tank!

[wuzzo]

31 minutes ago, Sprinter70 said:

Frags are just about ready to move over, can’t wait to get the frag rack out of my main tank!

Ooooo! Can’t wait to see this tank grown out, the idea of an acro dominated pico is so neat!!

[ml86743]

The idea of maturing acros in this pico make me think of those crystal grow kits I had when I was a kid.  #excited.

[Sprinter70]

7 hours ago, ml86743 said:

The idea of maturing acros in this pico make me think of those crystal grow kits I had when I was a kid.  #excited.

I don’t like those odds for success, but I’m going to give it a shot anyway!

[Sprinter70]

On the topic of success, I feel I need to provide inputs to the tank for the corals to thrive. When I can, this is best done with a fish and infrequent coral feeding. I’m this tank I will be relying solely on coral feeding for these inputs. For coral feeding, I have been using BRS Reef Chili, but have noticed that this leads to a higher phosphate level in the tank (0.5 to 0.75) while the nitrate hardly exceeds 0. From my reading, it seems these dry coral foods have this (I’m going to say negative) effect on the water chemistry. Does anyone have a recommendation for a coral food that will maintain a more desirable Nitrate to phosphate ratio along the lines of 7-10pm nitrate and 0.5-0.75ppm phosphate? I know chasing isn’t great, but just want to avoid having higher phosphates than nitrates to avoid finding out how that kills stuff in the tank.

[Jaren45]

Powdered food will always have a lot of phosphates, most of them use it as a preservative.

 

Frozen food will probably give you better results, but still use it in moderation obviously. If you can find rod's frozen near you, they make a really awesome frozen coral blend

[Sprinter70]

I got stixxxx! Couple names ones like Green Goblin Anacropora, TNT Anacropora, Garf Bonsai, Star Fire. A couple unnamed one looks like a tort and the other looks like a beefier version of little red Ferrari, but we will see how they color up! Most are getting polyps out, but some I got from RAP are still recovering from my exhaustive search for 10-15$ Acro frags. Also picked up a white zombie Zoa for 10 bucks! Let me know what you think!

[Sprinter70]

Well, went ahead and tested the water, had a dKh of 11 (I was shooting for between 7 and 8 ). Glad I caught it, turns out I had hooked up the dosing pumps for the all for reef and kalkwasser backwards! I do kalkwasser at 1/8 to 1/4 tsp per gallon, so I was overdosing all for reef overnights and under dosing kalkwasser in the morning and afternoon :(…. Everything looks great, but it is going to mean I have to re-stabilize the parameters, though I think the alk was steadily climbing for a few days as I got things going ahead of getting the tank planted. I want to hold at 11 but my fresh Salt has a dKh of 8, so I’ll just slowly return to my target.

[ml86743]

At least it wasn't a huge spike in a small amount of time.  I think you'll you be fine !