Plans for a pico

[brandon4299]

I didn't read the first page somehow to see this was 2.5, I thought for some reason we were talking aquavase or something...hmm, need sleep. At 2.5 gallons, I recommend the C-balance dosing schedule at 1 cap monday part a, skip tuesday, wednesday 1 cap part b, skip thurs, Friday cap a, Sunday water change. It'll work like a charm, and even has room for extra additions up to 1.25 caps if it's ever stocked heavily or uses a fish in the setup (I personally think neon gobies aren't that big of a deal at 2.5 g mark. It's the smallest reef I'd ever consider using a fish, but would be much more stable for the long haul without one)

[baj]

Hello all,

 

A) WATER TESTS:

I did some tests today and here are my results:

 

1) SpGr - 1.022

2) pH - 8.2

3) NH3 - 0.25

4) NO2 - 0.0

5) NO3 - 5.0

6) Alk - 100ppm - 5.6degrees - 2meq/l

7) PO4 - undetectable

 

SpGr was measured with a deep 6, pH was measured electronically, 3,4,5&7 were measured with red sea kits and Alk was measured with a Hagen GH-KH kit (this kit and the phosphate kit are almost a year old).

 

I need to raise the Alk and I have ordered C-balance. Do i need to dose Kalk as well?

 

--------------------------

 

UPDATES AND PHOTOS:

 

1) Cyano?

I found this brownish black filament waving around in the fuge chamber amongst the chaeto today. It looks more black than brownn in the picture. Is this cyano?

 

 

Close up:

 

 

2) Tube worm?

this guy came as a hitch hiker on a live rock. The diameter of the tube is about half a centimeter. As you can see, there are red feathery stuff which floats around in the current. It reacts to sudden changes in light.

 

Open:

 

 

Retracted on suddenly turning off the light (camera flash used to take the pic)

 

 

I am not sure what kind of a tubeworm this is. Right now the part of LR that it is in is shaded by another LR, do I need to expose the tubeworm to more light?

 

3) Algae on the rocks:

 

Here are some pictures of some algae growing on the LR:

 

 

 

 

The green stuff in the first and last pic isnt fuzzy or hairy, its looks like it is more rigid, there isnt anything that waves around in the current there. Is this just green coraline or beginning of a hair algae problem?

 

4) Fuge light:

 

I quickly put together a fixture for lighting the chaeto chamber from the side with a 6700k CFL. This fixture stands vertically along the back glass near the fuge section of the tank. The acrylic seperating the display area from the fuge area is semi-opaque, so the light shining through the acrylic casts a glow on the display side, when the main display lights are turned off, kinda cool.

 

 

I need to play around with the color/white balance of my camera. It is not as bright as that at all.

 

Here is the fuge lit as seen from the side.

 

 

And here is a shot of the fixture itself:

 

 

Do I need to leave thhis light on 24 hours? Do I need to get rid of this contraption since it doesnt help to light the chaeto from the side?

[baj]

Thanks for the dosing suggestion brandon4299.

 

I am using Oceanic salt mix and I think that already is high ion calcium. I know I should really be testing for calcium before dosing, but I was wondering if using oceanic and doing weekly water changes will keep up the Ca levels?

 

Moreover, I think I have a diatom bloom on a couple of rocks, does this have anything to do with the salt mix, maybe it has more silicates?

 

How do i take care of the diatom problem? And which salt mix should i use, stick with oceanic?

[brandon4299]

You have provided great information to help get this along...the thing about calcium is this: you may indeed keep enough bioavailable each week from your synthetic salts to grow the coral, since we aren't talking about a sub-gallon system, but in time you may find that consistent pH support requires 2-3X weekly additions of carbonate/alk support in small amounts, and since these should be balanced additions you could drive your ca+++ levels down by adding only alk support to the system. You should test to see, just before a water change, after your system has been running the longest on it's current water column. Your rocks look clean right now, nothing strikes me as wrong in the setup. You may have seen some black or blue cyano as that waving strand, but you appear to have calcareous algae on those little green patches and it doesn't look like hair algae. You'll find that in the early stages of this reef the water params will hold relatively tight and it will begin to seem this will be the norm for the system...however, no doubt in time you will stock the system as you wish, and this will create bioload and current-altering situations that in the end will deplete alkalinity (and affect pH) more notably than it does now. As you begin to fill in the open spaces with corals and more rock walls, you change and reduce the current access to lower spots in the tank, resulting in detritus traps. If these are allowed to degrade over time, not being removed by regular siphoning, this too will add to the alk needs of the system and eventually I feel you'll be back around to dosing a two-part additive for strong coral growth. Don't trust your ph tests as an indicator of consistency usless they are done twofold in the pico reef: once in the morning before lights on, and one in the evening just before lights out. From the variances in pH between these markedly different photosynthetic periods, you can discern your needed alk support. Tiny systems relying only on water changes have a notable variance here...since yours is relatively larger in volume, I say your stocking rate and density will be directly related to your system's ability to hold tight pH and ionic parameters as you see now. This is such an impact to a system because during peak photosynthetic periods (afternoons after lights on all day) your little reef is chock full of carbon dioxide-sequestering organisms that remove ph-lowering carbonic acid from the water, driving up the pH, but then at night after lights have been off for 8 hours, and the carbonic acid levels are back up again from nighttime respiration, the pH is markedly lower until photosynthesis kicks back in and makes the gradual readjustments...your carbonate/alk levels are the buffer that impedes the variance between pH measures between night and day. They are marginally impactful in a 2.5+ with light to medium stocking, but primarily impactful on anything that's gallon or less after the stocking densities have been reached...

 

You have provided great information to help get this along...the thing about calcium is this: you may indeed keep enough bioavailable each week from your synthetic salts to grow the coral, since we aren't talking about a sub-gallon system, but in time you may find that consistent pH support requires 2-3X weekly additions of carbonate/alk support in small amounts, and since these should be balanced additions you could drive your ca+++ levels down by adding only alk support to the system. You should test to see, just before a water change, after your system has been running the longest on it's current water column. Your rocks look clean right now, nothing strikes me as wrong in the setup. You may have seen some black or blue cyano as that waving strand, but you appear to have calcareous algae on those little green patches and it doesn't look like hair algae. You'll find that in the early stages of this reef the water params will hold relatively tight and it will begin to seem this will be the norm for the system...however, no doubt in time you will stock the system as you wish, and this will create bioload and current-altering situations that in the end will deplete alkalinity (and affect pH) more notably than it does now. As you begin to fill in the open spaces with corals and more rock walls, you change and reduce the current access to lower spots in the tank, resulting in detritus traps. If these are allowed to degrade over time, not being removed by regular siphoning, this too will add to the alk needs of the system and eventually I feel you'll be back around to dosing a two-part additive for strong coral growth. Don't trust your ph tests as an indicator of consistency usless they are done twofold in the pico reef: once in the morning before lights on, and one in the evening just before lights out. From the variances in pH between these markedly different photosynthetic periods, you can discern your needed alk support. Tiny systems relying only on water changes have a notable variance here...since yours is relatively larger in volume, I say your stocking rate and density will be directly related to your system's ability to hold tight pH and ionic parameters as you see now. This is such an impact to a system because during peak photosynthetic periods (afternoons after lights on all day) your little reef is chock full of carbon dioxide-sequestering organisms that remove ph-lowering carbonic acid from the water, driving up the pH, but then at night after lights have been off for 8 hours, and the carbonic acid levels are back up again from nighttime respiration, the pH is markedly lower until photosynthesis kicks back in and makes the gradual readjustments...your carbonate/alk levels are the buffer that impedes the variance between pH measures between night and day. They are marginally impactful in a 2.5+ with light to medium stocking, but primarily impactful on anything that's gallon or less after the stocking densities have been reached...

 

kalk may work, but the immediate pH impact may be too harsh relative to the calcium/alk needs of the system after it's stocked with hard corals. Just test and see, if you drip kalk only add it in the morning and be sure and watch your end-day tests to keep that pH right about 8.3-8.4 absolute max.

 

 

Oh, I also just re-read your earlier post. You would definately not need kalk if you are using C-balance, they accomplish the same acitivites. I thought you meant instead of c-balance...if you use them together, you'll blast the pH sky-high@!

B

[brandon4299]

oceanic is fine, I know people that don't like it and people that use it in nano cubes just fine. I attribute your diatoms to either new-tank cycling or an indication of pH swing between night and day photosynthetic activities. I'm not sure why diatoms are linked to this phase. Still, in my reefs above if I skip a couple days dosing just being lazy I'll get a brown film on the glass...it goes away when I resume good ion support like we've discussed. I don't think much will stop it other than manual removal if it's due to typical new tank cycling

 

B

[schaadrak]

Leaving your light on 24 hours is fine. It'll help keep your pH down by having your chaeto using CO2 constantly. You could also put it on a "reverse photosynthetic period" which is basically the fuge light comes on when the main lights go off. Putting a reflector in the box or painting the inside white would help direct more light back there, too.

 

Another thing, try moving the power head to the other side of the tank and direct it so that the flow hits the HOB output. It'll create more turbulance and vary the flow patterns which will keep things from settling as much.

[baj]

Hi,

Attached below are new layout shots. I got rid of the old clunky rocks and I must give credit where they are due. I traded the rocks with Mark Peterson of Wasatch Marine Aquarium Society (WMAS), Mark is a great guy who has done a lot to advance the hobby. I am grateful to him for helping me out with the trade, for the free frags and for sharing with me his immense knowledge and experience. Thanks Mark!

 

The new rocks are full of life - pods, bristleworms, polyps, feather dusters, coraline, etc. I also got 2 ceriths, 2 margaritas and a hermit crab, some halimeda and more live sand.

 

I also got a bumble bee snail (shell is black with yellow stripes running along the width), the LFS told me that these are reef safe, is this true?

 

Here is a full tank shot as of today, the brown mass near the overflow is just some brown seaweed which is floating around:

 

 

Here is a close up of some zoo and star polyp colonies, a mushroom and some yellow polys (far left) can also be seen:

 

 

And here is another FTS from an angle:

 

 

Here is an edited version of one of the top pictures, where I have played around with the colors to highlight all the individual rocks and how they are placed in the tank:

 

 

Thanks for looking and as always suggestions/comments/opnions and advice are gratefully appreciated.

Tomorrow, I will be upgrading the lights on the tank. I will be cramming in 2 18w Sunpaq bulbs (1 dual daylight and 1 dual actinic) and will be installing fans for the canopy. My shipment with goodies from marine depot also comes in tomorrow...

 

regards,

-b

[aquaman7]

I also got a bumble bee snail (shell is black with yellow stripes running along the width), the LFS told me that these are reef safe, is this true?

 

Yes, they're reef-safe.

 

You're set-up is looking excellent. I agree with your decision to trade-in the larger rocks. I personally like to have more open space in a tank... it helps with water flow as well (especially in smaller tanks when it's harder to fit in any additional pumps or position them better).

 

...the brown mass near the overflow is just some brown seaweed which is floating around:

 

No big deal, but I'd probably remove it if it's dead. You don't want it to decay in the tank

 

Once again you're set-up is looking good. Keep an eye on the water parameters though with the new livestock and any possible die-offs from the rock. Best of luck.

[baj]

Yeah, thats a piece of kelp thats floating around, I like it I'll anchor it to some live rock this evening.

 

Thanks for your input aquaman7.

[schaadrak]

Looking good, man. Keep it up.

[baj]

Thanks schaadrak

 

The tank is doing good and I am happy that its stable. As of today the parameters are:

 

1)SG - 1.023

2)pH - 8.2-8.4

3)NH3 - 0

4)NO2 - 0

5)NO3 - 0-2ppm

6)PO4 - undetectable

7)Ca - 440-410

8)Alk - 130-100

9)temp - 25.5-26.5C (~78-80F)

The ranges above are AM-PM variations (except temperature, which is an hourly variation).

 

SG:

I used to get quite a bit of SG swing earlier, from 1.023-1.024 at the end of the day due to evaporation. The amount of evaporation is variable and depends on ART, humidity, and factors beyong my control. I have a drip type auto top off that empties about 200ml (@ 9ml/hr) in the tank in 24 hours. I have observed my evaporation rate to range from 100ml to 300ml in 24 hours, so with the top-off I am off by about 100ml in either direction, at most. This causes the specific gravity to change by .0005, which is ok I think.

 

Temperature:

I have a fan that comes on for an hour and stays off for an hour and repeats the sequence for as long as the lights are on. With this the temperature slowly builds up by a degree at the end of an hour and vice versa. This is of course dependant on the ambient room temperature as well, but I think using this periodic on-off type procedure prevents the water from going too hot/cold progressively.

 

Nitrate - The variation is probably user error or test error. I get 0 with Aquarium Pharma. and 2.5 with the Red Sea test kit.

 

Calcium - I get a variation of about 30ppm during the day. I found that adding 0.5ml of C-Balance Ca part raises Ca by 20ppm in my tank. I raise Ca to 420ppm with my nightly water change and have added about 0.5ml of C-Bal. to the top off water(total volume: 750ml DI water).

 

Alk - ditto as above with the Alk, I add 0.5ml of C-Bal alk part to the water with every water change and add 0.5ml in the auto top off water. 0.5ml raises Alk by about 15ppm in my tank.

A word about Ca and Alk - After every water change the Ca is 400 (Salifert) and Alk is at 100ppm (Hagen).

 

Water change - I perform about 1/2g of water change every night, I use Oceanic in DI water mixed to Sp Gr of 1.023. I perform a 2g water change every weekend. This way I turn over about twiuce the tank volume every week. I use a rolling water change, i.e. I pour water in at about the same rate it is being emptied so water levels in the tank are fairly constant during the water change. An article in reefkeeping had a rudimentary model on waste diultion with water changes. This method of WC is not entirely efficient (about 10% less effcient than if I'd pulled out the water and filled it back during the WC), however, since I have such a small tank volume and some of my corals are near to the top, this WC method suits me.

 

Another change since my last update is the lighting. I now have 2x18w PC in addition to the 2x13w PC. The 18w bulbs are dual sunpaqs, 1 dual actinic (420 and 460nm) and 1 dual daylight (6,700k and 10,000k)

Here is a full tank shot:

 

and here is a shot of the rocks and inhabitants:

 

 

A high resolution shot of the above pic is here

 

A small piece (2 heads) of the Zoas on the sloping rock separated for some reason, I stuck them in the right most rock and they are doing well there.

[baj]

Hi all,

I am looking to increase my coral population in the tank and I'd like to take sugggestions on what I can keep in there. I am wondering if I can go ahead with some hard corals now. In terms of wattage I have plenty on a 2.5 g, like 62w, but I am not sure I have a lot of intensity since thhey are only PCs. So I am looking for suggestions on what else I can put in there.

regards,

-b

[brandon4299]

I've been watching this thread develop and I wanted to say it looks great. You've made some neat changes to your approach, showing variations of dosing and water change that are working well and that type of consistency should keep your system running indefinitely. It was very handy for me to read your specific incremental increases per that volume of water, that helps from now on when working with 2.5's. I say yes it's ready for LPS and even SPS frags up high and in a good flow area. Don't expect to keep radical colors on the SPS, mine are blue on the tips but brown every where else and I am zapping them with heavy PC light...(relative to spacing from the light) The SPS will grow and plate, so for me that's well enough considering this amount of water and the fact no one would have agreed to it 5 years ago. Growth is growth, color preference is another avenue of valid debate...but in my picos I only want health and consistent growth.

 

I've kept most kinds of LPS (that were small enough frags) and I feel very confident your system will grow them just fine. Have fun, great pics!

 

 

 

Your water change frequency should play down the soft coral warefare angle...as long as they don't touch. I don't even have problems with that and I've got a few soft corals along with my stonies who don't get water changes as often as yours. I'm sure you could keep small favites brains, monitpora, birds nest (expecting brown color remissions eventually) hammer corals, candy coral caulastrea, small frogspawns, basically anthing that could fit and not sweeper sting any neighbors.

 

When you get fully stocked, consider the idea of a polyp blocker. I make mine from barbie doll packages (or any other toy package with clear lexan plastic encasing the toy) by cutting away a small wall, curved as needed to fit the rockwork and particular frag being blocked, and then place superglue gel along one ridge of the plastic polyp blocker lexan wall. Glue it in place near the offending coral, and route his sweepers elsewhere as needed with experimentation-the plastic wall is invisible underwater and physically restricts the sweepers at night or during the day. Also consider flow directions...I have kept my hammers right next to candy corals, as in 1/2 inch away at full extension, just by having a laminar directional flow off a powerhead or rock-wall jetty flow over the candy coral first and then over the hammer coral second. Even when the hammer grew, it couldn't sweep into the current so this worked very very well.

[baj]

Hello All,

I finally got some time to snap up some pictures of my updated setup.

 

Equipment updates:

I got the powerhead out of the main display area and crammed it into the fuge area and added a return over the overflow. I initially wanted to drill the acrylic divider but then gave up on it, but am wiser when I design my next tank. I then added a 2nd powerhead, a MaxiJet 400 and am running it externally. In the pics below the black intake in the left corner of the tank can be seen (I rigged a snail guard by cutting off a small piece of the plastic guards that come with the maxijet, I also drilled a few holes above the intake, as a failsafe). The two white return lines can also be seen behind the intake, I drilled a small piece of acrylic that sits sungly on the inner tank frame, I then passed the return lines through these holes. This way I can turn the returns any way I want to maximise flow in an area, and not worry about the return lines popping out of the tank (I am using soft tubing and those things dont like being bent at awkward angles). Again for my next tank design I will use PVC pipes, connectors and bulkheads, but for now this will do. The total circulation in the tank is now provided by the 160gph MJ, the 80gph rio 50 and the 80gph ACmini.

 

Here is a full tank shot:

 

This is a closeup of the "cliff" and the "beach", the blasto at the foot of the cliff isnt doing so well, I suspect it was dying from the time I got it. The caulastrea sp. seems to be doing ok.

 

 

Here is a close up of 3 of the 4 SPS I got from reptoreef (WMAS member, sells some really great frags), the 4th, a plate monti, is behind the slimer and cant be seen:

 

 

And I will end with close up shots of all 3:

 

 

 

 

 

I am a SPS newbie, so any advice or opinions in their care are appreciated. I perform daily water changes of 1g and a weekly water change of 2.5g. All water changes are rolling water changes. I have begun adding DT's phyto, about 5 drops every 2 days, Alk/Ca to maintain levels and dont dose anything else.

[baj]

eh? no one keeps sps in their pico?

[CRAVIN CRITTERS]

I must say thisis the best first tank i have seen from anyone especially a pico. As for sps most people wait till there advanced hobbiests till they keep sps and very few keep sps picos.

[baj]

I must say thisis the best first tank i have seen from anyone especially a pico.

Thanks for the kind words CC.

 

The sps are still doing fine, they've still got their colors and havent browned up or anything. I am not feeding them anything special, the only thing I dose is DT's phyto plankton, about 1ml every 3 days. I also moved my WC schedule to 2g once every 2 days now. There's been an explosion of bristle worms since I started adding DT's, is that a reasonable correlation?

[baj]

I've been watching this thread develop and I wanted to say it looks great. You've made some neat changes to your approach, showing variations of dosing and water change that are working well and that type of consistency should keep your system running indefinitely. It was very handy for me to read your specific incremental increases per that volume of water, that helps from now on when working with 2.5's. I say yes it's ready for LPS and even SPS frags up high and in a good flow area. Don't expect to keep radical colors on the SPS, mine are blue on the tips but brown every where else and I am zapping them with heavy PC light...(relative to spacing from the light) The SPS will grow and plate, so for me that's well enough considering this amount of water and the fact no one would have agreed to it 5 years ago. Growth is growth, color preference is another avenue of valid debate...but in my picos I only want health and consistent growth.

 

I've kept most kinds of LPS (that were small enough frags) and I feel very confident your system will grow them just fine. Have fun, great pics!

Your water change frequency should play down the soft coral warefare angle...as long as they don't touch. I don't even have problems with that and I've got a few soft corals along with my stonies who don't get water changes as often as yours. I'm sure you could keep small favites brains, monitpora, birds nest (expecting brown color remissions eventually) hammer corals, candy coral caulastrea, small frogspawns, basically anthing that could fit and not sweeper sting any neighbors.

 

When you get fully stocked, consider the idea of a polyp blocker. I make mine from barbie doll packages (or any other toy package with clear lexan plastic encasing the toy) by cutting away a small wall, curved as needed to fit the rockwork and particular frag being blocked, and then place superglue gel along one ridge of the plastic polyp blocker lexan wall. Glue it in place near the offending coral, and route his sweepers elsewhere as needed with experimentation-the plastic wall is invisible underwater and physically restricts the sweepers at night or during the day. Also consider flow directions...I have kept my hammers right next to candy corals, as in 1/2 inch away at full extension, just by having a laminar directional flow off a powerhead or rock-wall jetty flow over the candy coral first and then over the hammer coral second. Even when the hammer grew, it couldn't sweep into the current so this worked very very well.

 

Brandon,

I completely missed replying to your post. Thanks for your input, you can see that I took your advice and added a few SPS and a couple of LPS. I must say the tank is still going strong and its been more than a month now. I took out the AC mini and am only running the two powerheads, I may put it back if I need to run carbon through the system. The reason I took it out was that there was a lot of surface turbulence and microbubbles in the tank. The surface turbluence is generally good but I was getting saltkreep into the plexiglass cover and it was blocking out some light. The SPS have all their polyps extended, and I think they are doing good, the pink digitata is still pink. I guess having good flow is everything. The calustrea lost some of its zoxanthelae when I first introduced it into the tank, but its doing great now. I even feed it brine shrimp occasionaally when its stubby tentacles are out. The chaeto is doing a great job of nutrient export, I remove softball sized clumps now, from what started out as a golf ball size of chaeto. The only ting I lost was a margarita snail, but I think the hermit crab is the culprit, the guy was eating it. I had to reaarange the tank mainly because the ncrusting gorrgonia was threatening to overrun the tank. A new discovery in the tank is a purple porite with green polyps that sprung out of the live rock... hope it does well.

[baj]

Hi, just wanted to share with you all some new pictures of my 2.5g.

I also have a question, I have been observing some growth on a piece of live rock, it is a purple encrusting base and some green polyps extend from it. It is unlike a GSP, encrusting gorgonia etc, ie. the polyps are not tubelike at the base. I was wondering if it might be some form of a porite? Here is a picture:

 

Here are some full tank shots followed by some individual pics. I just did a full water change before snapping the pics so not all polyps have extended, and some are unhappy with the water change procedure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[brandon4299]

dang baj, your reef looks amazing for sure, I hope to replicate that at work sometime soon at tax return day! Really, I have always like the wall-aquascaping look and when someone replicates that in a pico then it's even more appealing. You have many phyla in there and your diversity is a testament to good stocking choices. Your SPS are holding color better than mine did, and even if they do brown out a little in time as long as they're growing I say all is well. New biomass is new biomass, the coloring is the just the fine-tuning of your feeding/service regimen and I say keep going. Dang good job

B

[baj]

dang baj, your reef looks amazing for sure, I hope to replicate that at work sometime soon at tax return day! Really, I have always like the wall-aquascaping look and when someone replicates that in a pico then it's even more appealing. You have many phyla in there and your diversity is a testament to good stocking choices. Your SPS are holding color better than mine did, and even if they do brown out a little in time as long as they're growing I say all is well. New biomass is new biomass, the coloring is the just the fine-tuning of your feeding/service regimen and I say keep going. Dang good job

B

 

Thanks brandon4299, yeah I am very pleased with the turnout so far. The SPS are doing really well, and havent lost color. I am seeing a lot of growth on the monti cap.

I just love the pulsing Xenia, this morning they stopped pulsing, I checked the water levels and I had lost 200ml to evaporation, I filled it back up, still no pulsing, checked the alk, it was 0.5meq/l less than what I maintain, dosed it back up and within a minute the xenia extended all its polyps and was pusling away as before. Awesome coral.

I got rid of my planted tanks and am collecting equipment to start a nano. I am very attached to the pico though, but I might have to take this setup down when I start the nano. That will be a both a sad and happy day for me

[aquaman7]

any updates??? just wanna say again the tank looks great.

[baj]

Hello all,

yes the update is that today I took the tank down, it didnt feel good but I had to do it. The reason is that I got bit by a bigger tank bug and have moved everything to a 20H tank. The 2.5g gave me a whole load of experience with keeping a small system, when I have time (and money) I will start keeping a pico system again, but for now the 20H will be my only tank. I will post pics of my new tank soon. Thanks to all for their nice comments and thanks for all your help, advice and opinions.

regards,

-baj

[schaadrak]

Cool and darnnit at the same time, baj. To see this tank progress so well has really been great and I can't wait to see your nano. You need to post a link to your new thread when you start it so I don't have to go looking for it.

 

GL on the new tank.

[baj]

schaadrak, I surely will! The 2.5g was real fun, and I am glad I could make it work. The only death I had was of the hydnopora. I was pretty sure it was glued in well, but the hermit still managed to punt it into the bottom right corner below all the rockwork. Otherwise, I got great growth on all the corals, the cap has almost doubled its size in the past 2 months.

The 2.5g isnt junked yet, I think I'll bring it in at my workplace and make it a sunlight pico or something, with some palys and macroalgae. Eitherway, I'll update soon.