5g going on 17g Tank
 

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Here is my first venture into a reef tank. Advice welcome. I am really keen on the ADA 60-P, a 17 gallon rimless low-iron tank. However they are difficult to obtain so I've started with a 5g in the meantime. This also gives me time to figure out plumbing, sumps, ATOs and all the other bits.

Tank: 5 gallon glass tank
Lighting: Evil Par38 14k LED bulb in an Ikea fixture
Live Rock: Marco Dry Rock and misc donated pieces
Substrate: CaribSea Bahamas Oolite sugar fine (10lbs)
Filtration: Tom's Mini Internal Filter with filter floss and Marineland BlackDiamond carbon
Circulation: Vortech MP10 wes
Heater: Marineland 50w
Stand: Ikea Effectiv reinforced with plywood
Water: BuckEye Field Supply Premium 75 gph RO/DI

The tank is cycling. Ammonia just hit zero.

The stand is an IKEA office cabinet reinforced with 5/8" plywood. It is from the IKEA Effectiv line. It's pretty sturdy on its own but there was some flex when pushing down on the top. I sealed the plywood with a wood sealer and used pond liner to create a waterproof basin to catch leaks. Do you think this will hold a 17g tank with a smaller sump below?

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the ikea stand modified looks kewl!

that stand will now hold as big a tank as you want to put on it!:lol:.....sweet touch with the pond liner.....what did you use to attach the liner?...

Thanks guys. Small screws hold the pond liner against the plywood then the edge is sealed with a bead of clear silicone.

Any updates?

A new 25g tank is on order from Concept Aquatics. It turn out a 20L fits perfectly in the bottom of the cabinet so I'll rip out the pond liner and just silicone in the 20L as a sump. Picked up this guy (or girl I can't tell)...


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Otherwise the tank is looking a little ugly. Brown sand and hair algae. Any recommendations? Current animals include:

3 tiny nassarius snails
3 dwarf blue legged herbit crabs
1 stomatella snail
3 tiny asterina stars
1 procelain anemone crab

most likely due to being a new tank and the hair algae is caused by excess nutrients.

tell us a bit about your system like:

water parameters mainly nitrates and phosphates??
light schedule?
food or additives?
ro water?
water changes?
reactors?


when new tanks are set up its really not uncommon to see some brown algae usually it will dissapear in time now long hair algae is another story you need to cut down on its source of food being lights and nutrients.since you have no corals no? cut your lights for a while your crabs and snails wont mind and get your phosphates and nitrates as close to zero as possible.consider buying a small phosphate reactor or building one its quite easy and if your nitrates arent super high and you have some patience just cut back on any food being added to the tank and do some large water changes that should bring them down.it wont happen over night but will dissappear in time.

Loving this system already! The rock work is awesome!

Probably too late now but, you can sex crabs ( like porcelains) by looking at the shape of the "plate" on the bottom side of the crab..... Females will have a rounded plate and males will have a triangular shaped plate

Thanks for the detailed reply DCDN. The brown algae has lasted 5 weeks. It started just after the cycle finished (week 3) and has gotten progessively worse. Today is week 8. Hair algae started about 3 weeks ago not too bad but slowly getting bigger. How do you tell if you are feeding enough? My fear is the only way to tell is when animals start dying. I've had one stomatella snail die but I think he went through the powerhead. The nassarius snails appear to be growing.

Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate: 0
pH: 8.2-8.4
Salinity: 31
Temp: 24.3 *C
I haven't tested anything else.

Lights: 12h per day, 10am - 10pm
Food: pinch of cyptopleeze, few mL of phytoplankton every other day
Additives: a few mL of MicroBacter maybe once every two weeks
Water: RO/DI water change roughly 30% every two weeks
No reactors, just a little sponge filter and carbon.

Coral
Green star polyp
Blue cloves
Red plating montipora

Invertibrates
3 tiny nassarius snails
3 dwarf blue legged herbit crabs
1 stomatella snail
3 tiny asterina stars
1 porcelain anemone crab

Fish
none

Should I reduce the photoperiod to say 8hr/day and lower the light so the montipora gets more intensity? I'll also get a phosphate test kit.

Thanks fishytime. Maybe when I am transferring to a new tank I'll take a look. Do they reproduce in captivity?

Thanks norisphynx. I'm finding the rockwork difficult to keep looking the way I envisioned because frags come on other rock always in the wrong shape. I was thinking of trying to cut off bits of the green star poly and blue clove and get it to cover the existing rocks.

no worries glad to help so yah the brown algae is all part of establishing an aquarium and yours my friend is still very very young it should dissapear in time, i would think your problem is phosphates so buy a phosphate test kit and start testing for it. you can reduce your lights a bit but with corals you cant really cut them down a whole lot but you would be safe with 8-10hrs to help a bit. what kind of lights do you have??

remove the sponge in your filter unless you rinse it well daily it is known to just keep nutrients in your tank which is what we want to avoid in a reeftank

what are you using for test kits?



i wouldnt be feeding any liquid foods as your corals you have dont need them they feed fine from photosynthesis and dont require any supplemental feedings.


it is safe to say that overfeeding is when you add food to your tank that doesnt get eaten or builds up on the sand bed or can never find its way to your livestock, or more than a couple times a day.since you have no fish the food your feeding is probably only getting half eaten so feed just a small pinch every 2-3 days for now.crabs can be target fed with meaty foods like brine or mysis but really dont even need that they are scavengers and find food in your rockwork and sand regardless if you feed or not and a pinch every day is too much for just 3 small hermits great for fish but crabs are slow and lazy and wont hunt it down they will wait untill they come across it.



buy a phosphate test kit along with a test kit for alk,mg,and calcium.

i wouldnt buy anymore corals or any fish untill you have a handle on testing for the above mentioned and understand the basics of how they work.its quite fun actually just learning and testing.

make sure that the powerheads in your tank are not leaving any dead spots in your tank or places where flow cannot get.


any questions just ask away:) cheers

Thanks reefwars

Reduced lighting to 10 hours per day. NanoCustoms Evil 14k PAR38 LED bulb (5 x 3 watt Cree LEDS)

Removed sponge. I've replaced it with filter floss. Is this reasonable if I change it out weekly?

I've read that some zooxanthellae coral do filter feed though I haven't come across anything about GSP or montipora specifically (Nourish them and watch them grow and Is your reef anorexic). I'll stop the phytoplankton for now.


Will this be sufficient for the porcelain anemone crab? He is a carnivore filter feeder.

API test kit for pH, ammonium, nitrite, nitrate

Any recommendations for test kits are welcome. There are so many. Regular or low range phosphate test kit? How about the Hanna checkers for cost or accuracy? It sounds like the cheap API kits are good for some tests, like nitrates, but not for others, like phosphates.

Elos Aqua Test Phosphate Test Kit ($29 for 160 tests)
Seachem MultiTest pH/Alkalinity Test Kit ($14 for 75 tests)
API Calcium Test Kit ($9)
Elos Aqua Test Magnesium Test Kit ($30 for 40 tests)

Should I run some GFO or other phosphate media? Which one?