dl5 Posted November 22, 2005 Share Posted November 22, 2005 hey guys, well this is my first time in the nano scene. just wanted some opinions on anything about it as i'm very new to this whole thing. the tank is an ocean free 1.5 gallon that i purchased from petco. the original filter was ditched for a red sea nano filter that i had purchased about 4 months ago because the original was just extremly loud and poorly made. the lighting is provided by a coralife mini unit. i'm monitoring the temperature with a lifegard thermometer. there is 1 pound of fiji rock, 1/2 pound of some cheaper live rock, 1.5 pounds of sand and a handful of seeded sand from a friend's tank. i didn't notice until last night that there were some polyps on the smaller piece of LR and i was wondering will they make it pass this cycle? i also saw a little aptasia on the smaller piece of rock also, how devastating can this problem become? i'm planning on getting a heater tonight, i know it might be overkill but will will it be bad if i stuck a 100w visitherm in there? thanks a lot! ^ when i first got everything up and running at about 7pm last night, nov. 21st ^ 12 hours later and now everything is has cleared up quite a bit. thanks for looking! Link to comment
oDEoLAo Posted November 22, 2005 Share Posted November 22, 2005 Im running a 1.5 ocean free also....i have the coralife mini 18 watt light and a whisper filter i had laying around with live rock rubble in it...as far as my temp goes, it fluctuates from 77-80 deg F throughout the day without a heater...so i guess depending on where u live, if it gets really cold in the room your keeping the tank in, then maybe a small 50watt heater would do the trick....i think 100w is overkill given its such a small tank...i do about a 15% water change once or twice a week and do small top offs everyday....so as long as you keep up with the water changes and keep your temp. in check, you should be off to a good start. ps. im no saltwater pro and have jus gotten into the hobby recently , so im sure other people can give u more advice..just wanted to share my experience so far with the ocean-free. here are some pictures of my pico... Link to comment
Fishfreak218 Posted November 22, 2005 Share Posted November 22, 2005 When i was looking through the Liverock tubs i found something that didnt quite look like LR..so i got it...turns out it was some Favites..aka Favia...aka brain coral.....anyway they livedthrough the cycle and are still alive and well...also had some mushrooms that made it through the cycle on my LR....and some zoanthids....(ugly zoanthids at that but...still zoanthids) everrything is alive...but one of the mushrrooms did die..it like opened and then dissolved and left like 4 fragments of itself which are growing back now....pretty cool....and also that is some nice rock you got there Link to comment
dl5 Posted November 23, 2005 Author Share Posted November 23, 2005 well hey, thanks for the comments! your tank looks sweet odeolao! makes me wonder if i should throw some more rock in there hmmm. yeah so far the tank swings from 74.5 degrees at night to about 77-78 degrees during the height of the day with the lights on. i'm probably going to have to invest in a small heater. fishfreak, thanks for giving me some hope about the polyps! i was also told that i might try putting a couple of ghost shrimp in the tank to clean things up a bit, and maybe help the cycle along? what do you guys feel about this? thanks. Link to comment
MadTownMax Posted November 23, 2005 Share Posted November 23, 2005 50W heater max - you want your heater to *only* keep your tank at it's maximum temperature - that way, if the control fails, the tank will max-out at say 86F, if you get an oversized heater, you run the risk of cooking the tank if the heater fails. If you're really paranoid, you can get two heaters that can each handle 1/2 the load - so failure poses less of a risk - but I'm not sure there is a heater that small on the market. Link to comment
dl5 Posted January 10, 2006 Author Share Posted January 10, 2006 well i felt like giving you guys an update. i've finally ditched the 1.5 and upgraded to a 2.5 because i got a deal i couldn't pass up. so i added some different live rock, a bit more sand. i also got an AC20 and ran it w/ the sponge and filter floss for a week to clear up the water. as of now, it has the sponge, a sac of purigen, and some live rock fragments. the AC20 is running at about 3/4 its full strength, i turned it down because it would move quite a bit of sand. i'm still running the 18W Coralife PC unit, and due to heat issues, i had to add a computer fan hooked up to a 9v adapter. there is a 50 watt marineland heater in the tank (weakest i could find during the sale), to keep the tank warm when the lights are not on. the temp ranges from 79.0 - 79.7 degrees f. at one point i was about to give up entirely but then this 2.5gal, i found for really cheap, due to it being used for a couple of days, came along and resparked my interest. livestock: 5 shrooms 1 small colony of zoas 1 hitch hiker feather duster 2 dime size aptasia, will kill when i get some joe's juice 1 small colony of recovering yellow polyps 1 scarlet hermit crab that does nothing all day 1 yellow tail damsel i had the 1.5 running for about a month, and this set up has been running for about 2 weeks now, and i'm very pleased with it. let me know what you guys think. thanks! oh and i'm planning on switching out the damsel for another fish, any reccomendations? thanks alot! oh and i apologize for not cleaning the tank/room before i took the pictures Link to comment
Fishfreak218 Posted January 10, 2006 Share Posted January 10, 2006 I think the tank looks GREAT!!!!! also i think the Dmasel looks nice... leave him in there... Link to comment
dl5 Posted January 10, 2006 Author Share Posted January 10, 2006 thanks fishfreak! well he's going to be there for about two more weeks, just so i can be sure that the tank has settled. i just boiled some R/O water in the microwave and injected the aipsaia, a good part of it is withered down quite a bit, hopefully its dead! Link to comment
aqua_aaron Posted January 10, 2006 Share Posted January 10, 2006 dl5- lookin good so far oDEoLAo- is that a hammer coral on the right?? Link to comment
robmacy Posted January 10, 2006 Share Posted January 10, 2006 nice trio of tanks. my person fav is the 2.5 Link to comment
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