My 5 gal

[rideit6578]

So this is my 5 gallon, also my first saltwater tank. I've been a freshwater guy for about 10 years and have 9 tanks set up in the house....this one has become my baby and obsession. It's been set up for a while so I'll just post the progression up until now.


It will soon be a 20gal and I will do that thread as well.:Up_to_som

 

[JeremyXXX]

good to see that I'm not the only freshwater guy giving saltwater a shot haha. from Long Island too!

 

[deo glass]

sweet tank! yet another long islander indeed! what kind of lights you use on that 5g?

 

[xxxAngeloxxx]

what kind of lighting are you using on the 5G?

 

[rideit6578]

Hey thanks guys, sorry I haven't posted here in a while. The first few shots are with the Marineland Double Bright Led. I had good luck with that on zoas and star polyps and then the rest of the pictures were taken under an Odyssea T5 fixture as I was preparing to upgrade to a 20gal. The 20 is up and running for a while now with the 5 gal as my QT/experiment tank. I have a few frags in there but nothing serious. Surprisingly my zoas and polys and mushrooms did really well under the double bright.

 

[deo glass]

Hey thanks guys, sorry I haven't posted here in a while. The first few shots are with the Marineland Double Bright Led. I had good luck with that on zoas and star polyps and then the rest of the pictures were taken under an Odyssea T5 fixture as I was preparing to upgrade to a 20gal. The 20 is up and running for a while now with the 5 gal as my QT/experiment tank. I have a few frags in there but nothing serious. Surprisingly my zoas and polys and mushrooms did really well under the double bright.

those fixtures are actually pretty awesome for softies.... expecially with a small tank such as a 10 or 20g.....i was thinking about converting my 10g nano (softies only) to led, since i only use 1 15watt 50-50 reef sun bulb.

 

[rideit6578]

well in the current 20gal with the odyssea t5 fixture I've got a ton of stuff growing and all showing good growth, except the sps because I've just added it recently but we'll see. People were so afraid of the 5gal when I told them about it because they didn't want to do the water changes but being a freshwater guy with 9 tanks in the house I'm used to weekly changes. So I tell people, if you can stay on top of the water changes on a tiny tank it will work.

 

[jcdeng]

I am a fresh water guy (4 tanks) trying out the salty side also, I have a 5g QT tank that I am thinking about turning into a nano, mind telling me how yours was setup up? filtration, lights, equipment?

thanks

 

[rideit6578]

Sure, and only 4 tanks? Come on man you need a few more! The 5 gal I have a small Whisper HOB that I had lying around the house and does a pretty good job; I just kind of modded the intake tubing because it was too deep for the tank. I used 5lbs of live sand and a couple pounds of LR, Marineland Double bright fixture fits perfectly and is good for softies and some easier LPS and finally I used Nutralive seawater to jump start it because that stuff is great and cycled just watch out with the salinity, it often runs high so I cut it with RO.

Anything else dont hesitate to ask.

 

[jcdeng]

Thanks for the info, what did u use for the flow? What corals were in the 5 gal?

 

[rideit6578]

On such a small tank the filter created enough flow. I imagine you could use a nano pump if you really wanted. I had a cyano patch for a little but it was because I as topping off with treated fresh water instead of or RO. I had zoas, shrooms, rics, star polyps, a frog spawn torch and hammer, and some acan frags.