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5gallon Crazy CADlights


uhuru

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  • 1 month later...

Well I love talking about my tank of course so here's more about the setup!

 

I use an ACJr. connected to an aqualifter pump for the ATO. I also have a float switch which connects to the ACJr. but I removed it for now. So it just drips the kalk/ro-di very slowly throughout the day. I noticed great improvement in the tank and corals once I started dosing kalk. Before that I was using Kent Tech A&B, and did not get the same results. I keep the calc at a consistent 450 and alk at about 9.2 with this method. I culture my own phyto and rotifers (thanks to starter cultures from jansen and jmanrow), which I will feed to the tank maybe twice a week. I will admit besides the crocea clam and sea cuke, I'm not sure what eats what if any of it, but it doesn't seem to HURT the tank at least. I don't feed my tonga shroom or rics anything directly. Should I be? Also, I really have more rotifers than I can handle, so if anyone wants some, let me know. Oh yeah, I also have a red goniopora that just isn't happy in my tank. Too clean maybe? Too much light? It was happier in the fuge, but I don't want to leave it there. If anyone wants a free nice goniopora colony, let me know as well. It cost me $30.

 

The fuge is a CPR aquafuge small. I painted the front panel blue, and modified it to fit an MJ900, and plumbed it to pull water from the built in overflow in the tank. It has live rock rubble, chaeto, and grape caulerpa. I don't have a problem with crazy macroaglae growth at all. No sand anywhere in the tank. My 70g will be setup the same way (BB), but I will be doing away with a fuge and macroalgae all together.

 

The skimmer is a tunze nano 9002. It is an awesome little skimmer, very well made unit and pretty much once it's broken in you just forget about it. Cleaning the unit is probably the easiest of all the skimmers because the reaction chamber is attached to the collection cup. It doesn't collect dark skimmate in my tank, just a tea colored skimmate, and not like a cup a day or anything, but that's expected since it's rated for WAY more than 5g :)

 

The lighting is a 150w Ushio 20k bulb, in a home depot work light fixture ($20). I originally had a 70w setup, but I recently switched after reading of other sps pico's having success with this.

 

I also do weekly 20% water changes, or sometimes 10% 2x a week if I did something that might have dirtied the tank.

 

Not seen in the pics are a well behaved emerald crab (my favorite!) and a sexy shrimp. I had 2 hermits but they kept knocking stuff over so I moved them to the fuge where they probably fought and killed each other. I've tried to keep fish but I have no luck. They either die by homicide or by accident. My last percula lasted 24hours before being killed by the MJ900. I have about 60x turnover in this tank so I don't know WHAT I could keep that would be okay with that kind of flow. I'm thinking of maybe just getting a cool larger shrimp, or a few more sexy shrimp. Any suggestions?

 

I'll take some equipment setup photos later and post them. Thanks for the interest in my tank! I put a lot of time and effort (and money) into it. Even though it's only 5g, the responsibility to keep everything in it healthy is the same.

 

Wow that was long. Sorry if it was more than you wanted to know!

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thanks! the coolest thing happened over the weekend. It's probably normally for most of you guys, but I actually saw it happen since I was up late:

 

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I also have a micro star hitchiker that did the same thing, only a few days before. I'm wondering what is causing this. The weather? The moonlights I added? Or just coincidence...

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  • 5 weeks later...

Update! Had a hair algae outbreak but I think it's getting under control now. I have massive flow going through this little tank, there's the koralia 1, MJ900, and a small pump on the bottom behind the rocks, so something like over 120x's turnover. I still have a pile of dirt that settles in one spot but it will be much easier to clean the bottom now. Also added a cuc and did away with the fuge as I think it caused more problems than it helped in my case.

 

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I decided to start epoxying stuff to the walls (clap)

 

DSCN2071.jpg

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I decided to start epoxying stuff to the walls (clap)

 

 

I think I am at a point that I will start doing the same to my tank. Unless of course I decide to get a bigger tank (and the budget can afford one).

 

By the way, it looks great!

 

dsoz :)

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dsoz, you should definitely do it, once they start encrusting the wall it will look crazy! here's another one I did:

 

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Too bad I'm gonna have to scrape it off somehow. This guy was selling his barely used cube at a great price so I couldn't pass it up:

 

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So I'll be selling my current setup with the CPR fuge and tunze skimmer pretty soon.

 

mister crabs, I just used the pendant, I had to run my own ballast still. I would've bought a better fixture but it was the weekend and I wanted to get my light setup asap.

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