Rimless - Zen/Bonsai 5-Gallon Setup?

[won digity]

I totally agree that water changes, choosing the right organisms, etc.. Will make a tank like this work. But without a canister filter and glass pippetes, or drilling the bottom, there is no way of escaping the alien look of equipment. Equipment kills the "zen" aesthetic style aquarium. you simply cannot have equipment, and what little equipment you have needs to be styled in a manner that is aesthetically blending, it is a hard problem. Especially if you want to have a clear back and sides.

Ever seen how nice glass aquarium pippetes look? Anyways, there are lots of reasons why glass is better than plastic, aside from aesthetics and the fact that plastic has a cheap feel to it.
plus glass is a natural material, holds up better to whatever uv our lighting gives off, and doesn't scratch easily like acrylic.

Someone really needs to get on that please and make a glass protien skimmer, lol. jk.

[dapellegrini]

^I agree. This is why ADA does all glass hardware for their FW tanks, even though it can be a pain to keep clean.

Short of upgrading to a drilled tank (perhaps my next project), I think this is as close as I am going to get to minimizing the hardware this time around. I am still playing with the wires, trying to keep them in a bunch. Basically now the heater is along the bottom/back of the tank when you can't see it.





Quick angle check and I think this is a bit better...









I added a little Monti Cap frag in front of the PH in hopes that will eventually hide things a little better.

While I had my hands in the tank I decided to use some AquaMend to glue some of the rocks together - and what a PITA! I don't know if there is a secret to that stuff or what, but ugh!

Rearranging things I noticed a couple more creatures that need ID'ed - I am guessing these are sponges:



And are these good Macro Algaes, or should I rip them out? Halimeda and something else?

[Jimbo327]

Well, perhaps, you can get some seagrass or mangroves, grow it in that one corner with the wires, and hide it that way.

An all glass skimmer wouldn't do much, the microbubbles through the skimmer will still make it stand out no matter acrylic or glass. It'll just be much heavier, a pain to clean, more expensive and look the same.

[won digity]

dapellegrini,
I like the way it is looking. maybe there is a way to get that cord to sit flat against the seam, instead of waving out in the open?

Jimbo327,
Thats ok man, we can agree tthat we disagree on the topic of glass skimmers. lol.

[Slakker]

I think the mangroves are a great idea. It would be relatively familiar ground, and would work pretty nicely to conceal things.

[dapellegrini]

I am starting to see a lot of these feather like strands of algae on my rocks, glass, hardware, etc. What is it, and what will eat it?





And this brown crap on the glass seems to accompany it on its goal to conquer my tank:

[Agu]

The top algae has the right shape for halimeda, can't tell on the bottom one.

I tend to leave what grows on live rock alone unless it's positively ID'd as a pest.

[Agu]

ooops, I was responding to your previous post.

Post a pic of the feather type algae in the macroalgae forum for the best ID.

[Fish'InMN]

That appears to be bryopsis. Nothing that will fit in your tank will eat it. The only apparent solution is to raise your magnesium level above normal SW levels: Link.

You need to purchase a few other inverts for your "CUC", namely some cerith and astrea snails. Both scavenge for micro algae, detritus, and other leftovers, on the rocks and glass. I would not recommend any hermits at all, since they are more likely to eat your snails than anything else.

To be honest, you will probably not like what else you find coming out of that rock. You already have quite a bit of nuisance algae, both micro and macro, and nothing to clean it up. You will go through algae cycles: diatoms, cyano, maybe even a hair algae outbreak, and the tank will only look nice if you are diligent in your husbandry practices. At some point you'll probably see bubble algae too, which is absolutely impossible to completely eradicate. Removing algae daily will definitely get tiresome, trust me!

If you want the ADA-look with a saltwater aquarium, you will likely have to start over with a better initial investment, much as you have already alluded to. You can certainly get rimless aquariums from other sources, and there are ways to hide equipment other than a sump. (A closed-loop manifold containing a heater would be one such idea. Water movement and heating capacity with only a few holes drilled; or no holes drilled if you go over-the-back with some lily pipes )

Cheers,
Marty

[Jimbo327]

Hehe, here's where you see the pain of owning a nano, you can't fit a tang or fish that will eat that macroalgae. I personally use a tweezer for manual removal (which is brittle and spread it more), grow macroalgae, and try to use chemical removers (phosphate/carbon) to try to limit it. It really is a pain in the butt. And the brown stuff are just diatoms, all part of the initial cycle. After diatoms, expect some nasty green microalgae to take over your tank before they all die off after the cycle.

[nynex]

Fish'InMN not all hermits eat snails. Only blue legged hermits as far as I know
show any aggression and not always. Scarlet hermits are totally peaceful and do an
awesome job eating algae. Red Legged hermits are fairly decent. Same goes with
Zebra hermits too.

The blue legged hermits I have in my nanocube so far have shown no aggression
toward any of the snails in the cleanup crew and its been 6 months.

[SaltwaterChris]

I think you should look at Helfrich's 18g ADA it was July's NTOTM IT'S AWESOME.It may help you with the look your going for.AWESOME FW TANKS I've never seen one's that look that good.Sorry I looked back and you have seen it I was just trying to give a little help.

[nynex]

Updates?

[dapellegrini]

I will take some pics tonight and post an update.

[Rosseau]

Originally posted by SaltwaterChris
I think you should look at Helfrich's 18g ADA it was July's NTOTM IT'S AWESOME.It may help you with the look your going for.AWESOME FW TANKS I've never seen one's that look that good.Sorry I looked back and you have seen it I was just trying to give a little help.

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1159026

[dapellegrini]

I had no idea how cool Live Rock is. Seems like I am perpetually discovering something new. A lot of my time online is now spent research various things I have found in my tank and I am currently working on improving my night viewing as this seems to be when almost everything decides to come out...

I must have dozens or more feather dusters:





That last one actually has two heads that come out of one tube - sorry for the blurry pic - it is just about center frame. Also countless pods, bristleworms and other odd things. My orange ball anemone has now killed two snails, errr..... he may be next on my hit list. Bad picture of him here:






Here is my new hang out spot after work:





I moved the ballast over to the shelf and got all of the wires out of sight:




A few quick shots of the whole tank:






...

[dapellegrini]

After the initial addition of the mini nassarius snails (the white ones) I put in an order from a more diverse group to help graze through the dying algae that had more or less infested the tank and the glass. So in went some Nerites, Onyx Nassarius and a couple of Cerith snails. Of the bunch I think the Nerites and the White Nassarius are my biggest assets. I also added a Scarlet Hermit after a lot of research and feedback on this being the most docile HC, and the least likely to call open season on my snails. Final addition to the CUC was a few micro brittle stars (really tiny things) to help my bristleworms in the tight spots.

While they have been doing a phenomenal job keeping most things clean, including the glass, I still have a ways to go before all I see is coraline. Just the same, the Bryposis is completely died away - now just brown dead junk, and most of the hair algae has also subsided. All parameters test 0 on multiple test kits (NH3/4, NO2, NO3), but I am not convinced that my NO3 is truly at 0 as I do still see some bad algae that is not yet dead. Trends is in the good direction though.








This was one of my worst rocks (uncured fiji), used to be covered in muck, now fairly clean with coraline coming in spots




This was another bad spot with bleached coraline and hair algae. Some of the algae is obviously still there, but it is getting better and the coraline is filling back in nicely:






And finally my last "bad spot" but also doing better with good coraline growth:

[dapellegrini]

The two corals that were gifted to me are doing great. The Monti Cap has put out little heads all over its surface and seems overall very healthy and two small zoanthid plugs (now glued to LR) have thrown at least 4 new heads since they have been in the tank that were definitely not detectable when I got them.

[Eklikewhoa]

Nice looking tank!

[dapellegrini]

My little SW is VERY slow to change - but while I have been focusing on this new little reef tank, my others have suffered from a bit of neglect - with plants overrunning them. I ended up ripping out the carpet plant in the smaller tank because it had gotten to be about 5-inches thick and invited a bad dose of hair algae - just replanted a few pieces which should form a new carpet over the next several weeks. Still have a bit of hair algae on the dwarf riccia, but you get the idea... These pics are from about 5 minutes ago...








More on the big tank here (lots of critter pics, etc)

http://aape.naturalaquariums.com/forum/ind...hp?topic=1942.0

[Slice of Ocean]

Your tank is looking good.

[nano reef boy13]

If you never done saltwater before, i wouldnt recomend you starting off with a 5.5 gallon. the reason is, is that there is toooo many possibilities of things going wrong. you would have to check the salinity really often, and you would have to get your water checked almost every other day because of the such small mass of your tank...it wouldnt be a good idea to put any swimmers in there either. the most you can put in there is a couple of zoo's and probaly a couple of leathers but not too many. if your up to the challange than you should try, but im not guarenting that nothings going to die.... good luck!!!

[SaltwaterChris]

Any updates on all your tanks?

[dapellegrini]

Sorry for the delayed reply - this week has been very busy.

I have added a number of new corals, 2 Pom Pom Crabs, a Blue Porcelain Crab and a sexy shrimp. The tank is going great. I also changed out the 13k AB halide with a 14k (very blue) Astralux. It took a bit of getting used to, but I like it now.

I will try and post up some new pictures tonight.

[dapellegrini]

Here are some pictures from about 10-days ago, before the new light, but well after most of the newer additions:


These were sold to me as "Rare Uber Blue" - not my favorite and more of a purple under my light:



And these were sold as "Rare Blueberry Fields" - more black and green in my tank - I think they may actually be "Purple Puddles":





These little ones I got from a hole-in-the-wall LFS - I really liked the bright yellow/green ones. The orange was mixed in. I think these are "Bumble Bee" and an "Orange Delight"



These were gifted to me from a friend at work who did not know what they were. I can't figure it out either



Here are a couple more of this poor little polyp that I picked up. I am guessing some kind of Clavularia sp. I would like to swap this one out for a more colorful version, but have yet to find a good source...





Here is an accidental shot. I was trying to get a starfish and ended up getting an ok picture of one of my more common feather dusters. I must have at least a dozen of this sort, along with about 5 other varieties. You can see some of the yellow sponge coming back off the top of the pic



And a completely washed out FTS (full tank shot), with the various new frags arranged a little bit better:




I will post up more recent photos under the new light a little later...