2.5gal sps pico-reef

[aquaforlife]

OK, some quick FTS of my 2.5 gallon sps tank. Sorry about the micro-bubbles... They come and go, but will be gone for good when I get the filter sock installed, and reorganize the sump in the next couple weeks. Until then, they are a slight annoyance, but nothing more.

Front


Left side


Right diagonal


Oh, and the colors are better than they look (even when they look pretty good). Like the little pink stylo in the middle is a little bleached, but is definitely coming back, but the picture makes it look totally white. I'm still trying to get my camera skillz down, and I hope to figure out how to use The Gimp image editor over this holiday break.

Jared

[aquaforlife]

fixed the pic links

[rleechb]

lol, with all that sps, i hope those corals don't grow! Nice lookin tank.

[fragaholic]

WOWSERS!! good job Jared! thats a crazy sps nano, smallest I've ever heard of. its good to finaly see it done and have frags, Ive heard a lot about it.

Did you buit everything yourself? What do you got for flow in there?....lights, etc......? A mag 5 i think you told me. anyways, see ya at aqualife.

[aquaforlife]

Actually, the idea is to see growth. I've been pretty careful in the placement of the frags so as to avoid too much direct conflict as they grow in. Still, the major problems I foresee in my design are cleaning the glass and avoiding chemical warfare between the colonies. The glass issue I'm trying to keep under controlled by plenty of daily cleaning with a Nano mag cleaner (the Nimble Nano). The chemical warfare I hope to avoid by keeping the circulation high (about 700gph currently), frequent water changes, and good skimming.

Of course, I will be fraging things a lot (intentionally or not, lol!) to keep things contained.

Thanks for looking,
Jared

[rkl303]

Hmm 500 gallons /hour / 2.5 gallons = One hell of a T/O.

Do you have any issues with water splashing over the sides with that kinda water movement.

[aquaforlife]

Nope... I do have a salt creep issue right now do to the very slow but bubbly inlet form the elevated refugium... I need to do a bit of redesign on that plumbing to reduce bubbles, and add a splash guard there... other than that no splashing. The return water (about 300gph of it anyway, therest is diverted into the refugium) comes intot he main tank via a Calfo style horizontal manifold with three outlets. Then there is the closed loop, which is a Mag 3.5 going through a SCWD, and out two Loc-Line Outlets (1/2") with Y fittings on the ends so there is tons of water movement, and lots of turbulence, but no real sharp continuous streams of water.

Jared

[Phyl]

Great looking tank. I'll be interested in seeing the progress pics of it. Should be interesting. I wonder if you can get a ReefGadget for a mag that small. That would solve your glass cleaning woes!

I'd love have a nano tank! How often and how much water are you changing? I like the way the nozzles are integrated into the rock work to make them less noticable.

[Chaotic Reefer4u]

pretty cool nano sps reef you have there aquaforlife. i've been to your store a couple of times already in the past couple of month's when i went out there on business for my job. nice setup.

[damienkee]

interesting!
btw, what "light" you are using now? any problem you facing to?

[surprise]

Simply awsome! How frequently do you do water changes?

[aquaforlife]

I am using a 70 watt MH on this tank, with an Astralux 14K bulb.

I do WCs at least weekly, sometimes more if needed to controll detritus buildup in the refugium (lower flow).

Thanks all!

Jared

[aquaforlife]

New pics to come soon... For now, here's a stock list:

The identification of all specimens below was done to the best of my ability using multiple published and online resources. At the very least, All IDs should be accurate to the Genus.

SPS tank

Fish
1 – Eviotea sp. Goby, red and white w/ blue eye markings
2 – Trimma sp. Goby, solid red

Inverts
3 – orange turbo snails
1 – astrea snail
2 – tricolor (dwarf blue legged) hermit crabs

Corals
1 – Acropora sp., neon yellow w/ neon green tips and polyps
1 – Acropora sp., bluish-purple w/ blue polyps
1 – Acropora sp., “Chip’s Acro�
1 – Acropora sp., (stag) blue/purple
1 – Acropora sp, gold/green w/ purple tips and brown polyps
1 – Acropora millipora, green/yellow
1 – Acropora sp., brown w/ yellow polyps
2 – Acropora valida, "tricolor" (cream/purple/green with yellow polyps)
1 – Montipora capricornis, brown/lavender
1 – Montipora capricornis, orange
2 – Montipora digitata, green w/ orange polyps
1 – Montipora digitata, purple
2 – Montipora sp., encrusting, green
1 – Montipora sp., encrusting, purple
1 – Pociloporra sp., pink with green polyps
1 – Pseudopterogorgia bipinnata (possibly Muriceopsis flavida), purple plume gorgonian
2 – Seriatopora hystrix, pink birdsnest
1 – Stylophora pistillata, pink

Other
Cladophora prolifera

Refugium

Inverts
1 – astrea snail
numerous bristle worms, bivalves, tunicates, and other hitchhikers

Macro Algae
Ulva lactuca
Caulerpa scalpelliformis (possibly C. serrulata)
Padina pavonica
Gracilaria sp.
Scinaia sp.
Halimeda sp.
Chaetomorpha aerea
Dictoyta sp.
Avrainvillea sp.

[Wiskey]

That is really sweet, please keep us updated on this tank, how it grows, how you handle CA/ALK usage and any tips you may have for somebody trying to do the same thing. I love nano reefs, and this is the first time I have seen a pico SPS tank.

Waiting for the updated pics,
Whiskey

[ccc]

Cool tank Jared, let me see some pics when you have some growth.

Good luck

Shane