Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of this tank. My other pictures are stuck on a hard drive in a dead laptop and I haven't had the time to pull them off.
Anyway, I wanted to quickly describe this tank, how it was run, and things I learned about caring for such a small tank.
Design & Setup:
This tank was designed to be super simple and only house some easy corals. I started off with a 7.5g Mr Aqua cube, a Duetto Mini Filter, Vida Rock, dry sand and a heater. I soaked the Vida Rock in fresh water for about 2 weeks before I added all new water and the salt. One issue I have found with the man made rocks is that I fight diatoms for MUCH longer than normal. I was hoping that soaking the Vida Rock in some fresh water for a little bit would help this process. As you can see from the picture, which was taken about 6 weeks after setup, I was fighting diatoms still.
Filtration:
I quickly pulled the Duetto filter out of the tank and tried two or three other powerheads. The Duetto was weak and constantly had air bubbles that led to annoying micro bubbles in the tank. It was one of the worst purchases I have made in this hobby. I opted to use a Vortech MP10 that I had from my 40g Breeder setup. It was a great choice! I could turn it up to about 25% and let it provide more flow then I would ever need. I also raised the rock up off the sand with some small chunks of Vida Rock I had laying around so I could get as much flow over the sand as possible. By raising the rock and exposing more sand to the moving water, I had better filtration going on in my tank. When you only have ~5 gallons of water, keeping things in check can be a lot of work as I found out.
One thing I wish I would have done with this tank was to go bare bottom. Live sand was nice and all but I think it caused way more problems then it solved. By going with no sand in the tank my water changes would have been MUCH easier and the tank would have fared better in my opinion. During water changes I had to master the fine art of sucking up detritus while not getting any sand and learn how to dump water in VERY slow as to not disturb the sand either. It became a constant struggle at water change time and that was once a week for me on this tank.
Water Changes:
For this tank I decided that water changes would take care of water chemistry and nutrient control. Therefore, I changed about 50% of the water once a week. This really wasn't all that bad because I only had to make up 2.5 gallons of water each time. I would simply get out my water change buckets and get things mixing. I would heat the water up with a small heater and try to get as close to the tank as I could. I didn't worry if I was off by a couple degrees because I added the water very slowly to the tank and still had a couple gallons to even things out. Not to mention my heater was over sized and warmed the water up pretty quickly if needed.
I used and still use ESV B-Ionic Salt because it is the best salt I have ever used for my tanks. Please click here for my full review.
Lighting:
For this tank I had originally used a RapidLED PAR38 bulb for the first few weeks. It was a good bulb and worked well but was too bright for my creatures and I couldn't stand the disco ball effect on my sand. For those not familiar with the "disco ball" effect, it is an effect where the light from the LEDs is separated and you can see the separation on your sand. You get flashes of blue, yellow, orange and whatever other colors of LEDs you use. Some people don't mind it, but I DESPISE it! Nothing looks more artificial and fake to me than that in our tanks and trust me, I am not a "naturalist" when it comes to this hobby.
Once I got word from Ecoxotic that they would be releasing the EcoPico arm as a stand alone item---I had to have one! The day they released them to the public I got online and ordered the arm with 2 additional strips, a power supply and the necessary splitter. This way I could run just blue LEDs for my dusk/dawn application.
These little lights were great! The arm made the tank look so much better than it did with the Ikea hanging solution I came up with. For my full review on the EcoPico LEDs please click here.
Lessons Learned:
I learned a few valuable lessons from this tank and hope others can learn from my mistakes. One of my biggest issues with this tank was having to top off my water at least once a day but most times I had to do it twice. It became a major chore for me and I just didn't have the time for it. By not staying on top of topping off my tank, my salinity swings could really be noticed. I don't know how the swings really impacted my corals but I am sure they like a more constant level.
The second thing I learned is to never use sand in such a small tank. Sure, there are lots of people out there running pico sized tanks with sand and having success. I am not saying you won't have success with or without sand. The sand simply became a nightmare to take care of for me. The system I used by changing so much water is better suited to having no sand in the tank to fight with. You can also provide more flow for the tank when you aren't worried about sand storms occurring.
In the end this tank was just another stepping stone in this great hobby. I learned a lot about how I like my tanks and what to improve on future setups.
Anyway, I wanted to quickly describe this tank, how it was run, and things I learned about caring for such a small tank.
Design & Setup:
This tank was designed to be super simple and only house some easy corals. I started off with a 7.5g Mr Aqua cube, a Duetto Mini Filter, Vida Rock, dry sand and a heater. I soaked the Vida Rock in fresh water for about 2 weeks before I added all new water and the salt. One issue I have found with the man made rocks is that I fight diatoms for MUCH longer than normal. I was hoping that soaking the Vida Rock in some fresh water for a little bit would help this process. As you can see from the picture, which was taken about 6 weeks after setup, I was fighting diatoms still.
Filtration:
I quickly pulled the Duetto filter out of the tank and tried two or three other powerheads. The Duetto was weak and constantly had air bubbles that led to annoying micro bubbles in the tank. It was one of the worst purchases I have made in this hobby. I opted to use a Vortech MP10 that I had from my 40g Breeder setup. It was a great choice! I could turn it up to about 25% and let it provide more flow then I would ever need. I also raised the rock up off the sand with some small chunks of Vida Rock I had laying around so I could get as much flow over the sand as possible. By raising the rock and exposing more sand to the moving water, I had better filtration going on in my tank. When you only have ~5 gallons of water, keeping things in check can be a lot of work as I found out.
One thing I wish I would have done with this tank was to go bare bottom. Live sand was nice and all but I think it caused way more problems then it solved. By going with no sand in the tank my water changes would have been MUCH easier and the tank would have fared better in my opinion. During water changes I had to master the fine art of sucking up detritus while not getting any sand and learn how to dump water in VERY slow as to not disturb the sand either. It became a constant struggle at water change time and that was once a week for me on this tank.
Water Changes:
For this tank I decided that water changes would take care of water chemistry and nutrient control. Therefore, I changed about 50% of the water once a week. This really wasn't all that bad because I only had to make up 2.5 gallons of water each time. I would simply get out my water change buckets and get things mixing. I would heat the water up with a small heater and try to get as close to the tank as I could. I didn't worry if I was off by a couple degrees because I added the water very slowly to the tank and still had a couple gallons to even things out. Not to mention my heater was over sized and warmed the water up pretty quickly if needed.
I used and still use ESV B-Ionic Salt because it is the best salt I have ever used for my tanks. Please click here for my full review.
Lighting:
For this tank I had originally used a RapidLED PAR38 bulb for the first few weeks. It was a good bulb and worked well but was too bright for my creatures and I couldn't stand the disco ball effect on my sand. For those not familiar with the "disco ball" effect, it is an effect where the light from the LEDs is separated and you can see the separation on your sand. You get flashes of blue, yellow, orange and whatever other colors of LEDs you use. Some people don't mind it, but I DESPISE it! Nothing looks more artificial and fake to me than that in our tanks and trust me, I am not a "naturalist" when it comes to this hobby.
Once I got word from Ecoxotic that they would be releasing the EcoPico arm as a stand alone item---I had to have one! The day they released them to the public I got online and ordered the arm with 2 additional strips, a power supply and the necessary splitter. This way I could run just blue LEDs for my dusk/dawn application.
These little lights were great! The arm made the tank look so much better than it did with the Ikea hanging solution I came up with. For my full review on the EcoPico LEDs please click here.
Lessons Learned:
I learned a few valuable lessons from this tank and hope others can learn from my mistakes. One of my biggest issues with this tank was having to top off my water at least once a day but most times I had to do it twice. It became a major chore for me and I just didn't have the time for it. By not staying on top of topping off my tank, my salinity swings could really be noticed. I don't know how the swings really impacted my corals but I am sure they like a more constant level.
The second thing I learned is to never use sand in such a small tank. Sure, there are lots of people out there running pico sized tanks with sand and having success. I am not saying you won't have success with or without sand. The sand simply became a nightmare to take care of for me. The system I used by changing so much water is better suited to having no sand in the tank to fight with. You can also provide more flow for the tank when you aren't worried about sand storms occurring.
In the end this tank was just another stepping stone in this great hobby. I learned a lot about how I like my tanks and what to improve on future setups.