New to the site - My 5.5 Gal Nano

[Loggerhead]

Hey Aquascapers,

New to the CanReef site and can't believe how many really cool tanks are out there and the info to be shared. Live here in Nanaimo BC and some god friends suggested the site. Glad they did too! Anyway gotten bitten by the salt water bug 2 years ago and have never looked back. This latest project I'm worken on is my new 5.5 gallon nano. Finally finished cycling 2 weeks ago and so far the its looking pretty good.

I really wanted this tank to all about the corals. I had a 8 gal biocube but had a couple bad crashes and wanted to wait a bit until got back into nano's. The tank is a stock 5.5 gal. The lighting is a Coralife Power Compact. Filtration is an Aquaclear Mini with live rock rubble with the main filter media and charcoal. I'm toying with the idea of a remora nano skimmer but some friends seem to think regular water changes are enough so the jury is still out.

About 2 inches of live sand covers the bottom with about 5ish ponds of live rock.

The cleanup crew consists of 2 blue legs hermit, 1 left knuckle hermit, 1 scarlet hermit, a emerald crab (he's awesome!), 2 cerith snails, 2 nacarius snails, and 2 bumblee snails.

Theres a large wad of red algae to help control nitrates

The corals are mostly softies. Assorted zoo's, 1 pink gargonian stalk, pulsing xenia, brown pallys, 1 voracious duncan coral, 1 small sun coral and a frag covered in babies, 1 baby flower pot coral, & 1 ping montipora.

There are 2 sexy shrimp, 1 red coral goby that looks like a really micro hawkfish, and a yellow citron goby.I have plans for a small twin spot cherub blenny too, as well as 1 more sexy and a blue llinka starfish for some color.

So thats my tank. Big thanks to my friends Chris and Chandler for all their help and advice. You guys rock eh.

Fraser

[Coincidentally]

I was looking at the red coral gobies last night at J & L's they were soo tiny. I actually went there for a couple of yellow or green gobies but they had none for sale

I want to do a nano have started cycling a 10 gal but do not know where to go with it yet. There is a snail and a crab and all macro algae I keep taking out of my other tanks so far.

[Loggerhead]

If it is a red carpet stuff then it might be red cyano bacteria which run its course soon after a few water changes. In such a small system the trick I had to learn the real hard way is to go slow I'm tryin to add small fish to start to avoid a nitrate and amonia spike again. The tank is rewarding though.

[karazy]

looks like a good start.
in my opinion you should avoid adding more fish.
let the tank mature, let the corals grow, maybe add a torch coral or something nice to the left side, and it'll look great.
if you add more fish you will increase your bioload by a lot. in a tank that small 1 fish can make a huge difference.

i think your off to a great start, and if you let the corals grow in it'll look great.