5.5g Ecoxotic build

[stephaniegarcia06]

Been working on this one just a little bit. Going to make a valiant effort to take it to work and keep it hidden in a little nook I've made in my office. We shall see how long it lasts.

Specs:

Tank: 5.5g Ecoxotic Cube
Lighting: Maxspect 420R Nano 60w 10K
Water flow/filtration: deep sand bed, Aquaclear 50 with 'Fuge mod and small bag of carbon in tank. 6ish lbs LR in tank. Recent addition: Dragon's breath picked up from another MAAST member. Currently in Aquaclear along with a net in tank until I can get the 28g I bought up and running. May add a small powerhead though this tank seems to get a lot of flow just from the AQ already.
100 watt heater, JBJ digital temp gauge.

Also bought a Reefkeeper Lite for it since it's going to work, but have yet to hook anything up. I don't plan on doing that until I build a stand for it.

Need to build: Stand and either a sump system to hide all the filtration and heating, or some sort of hang on the back sump/fuge etc. Haven't thought too terribly much about it at this point.

Inhabitants:

5-Blue leg hermits
Turbo snail

All Frags:

fruit loop zoas (thanks FSU!)
clove polyp
pulsing xenia
neon pineapple
taylor's tree coral

Still Fiddling with the lighting setup to simulate dawn/day/dusk and getting everyone where they like to be. My neon pineapple is royally ****ed at me at random points throughout the day. At one point it looks fine, then slumps over. I'm moving him tomorrow to see if he likes it better higher up on the rock. The Clove polyps are in and out all day, seem happier now that I've moved them out of direct light and into a lower flow area. The tree coral is doing great halfway up in the rock. The xenia is doing great and the zoas are perfectly content at the bottom of the tank.

Water parameters:

1.025
8.1 pH
< 5 nitrates
0 phosphates
400 calcium
can't remember what the last alk reading was today but was well within normal.

Some pictures before I build a cabinet to house all of this and a sump for all the equipment. I need to wait as I have a 28g I have to get ready for a clownfish pair coming next week, but after that I should have some spare time to build a nice stand (or buy a 10g stand and mod it a little) for the 5.5g to get the filtration and heater off the rim. All I want on there is the lighting and the temp probe inconspicuous in the background. I'm also putting a 180g together for the new house, so updates may be few and far between.

Maxspect Nano 420R 10K.



Tank right after LR added. Once I get the filtration moved to an under tank deal, the lights will clip on the back and that's all you'll see.



Zoas:




****ed off neon pineapple. He hasn't been happy since putting him in there. Looks like a wrinkled..well nevermind. Fairly certain it's acclimating to the LED's though they were under halides before I got them.



Doing this one with the JBJ, but that will be fairly bare for a while. Until I get bored. Then I'll start in on that with the rock, lights etc. The photon clowns going in it are going in my "man" cave/library so it needs to be decent looking. I think based on size I'm going with AI SOL's. Everything I own will now have a controller on it, so might suck up and splurge for the Apex Lite when I get to that point, just to try it. Build thread for the JBJ and muy grande (the 185) coming later. I'll update this one as I go along.

[footballdude2k3]

Love those zoas, good luck!

[stephaniegarcia06]

Upgraded a bit on this. Why not? I've spent a small fortune getting back in between this tank, a 29g JBJ and the 185g (build threads on those soon.)

Pictures will be up as everything comes in.

Was reading on nano-reef.com and Micro reefs has made a pico sump for nanos. I had to test it out (and honestly didnt want to deal with making my own and having to add everything like q fuge light to it.) I want everything but one powerhead out if the tank and HOB would just clutter things up as well. The powerhead is because I am having a hard time controlling cyano outbreaks even with regular water changes. I just cant get enough flow with the Aquaclear on the sand bed. Its a 50gph submersible and small enough to conceal in a back corner behind rock.

So the pico sump should be in next week. I bought an eshopps nano HOB overflow (the only HOB item I will have) and am going to try out their nano skimmer in the sump as well. Sump can be seen here: http://micro-reefs.com/sumpsskimmers.html?

Same livestock save for now there is a pair of yasha gobies and "their" red banded snapping shrimp that I almost never see in there. They make an appearance when I spot feed their hidey holes making sure they have enough to eat. They will move in to the 29g as soon as it finishes cycling. They will be in there with a pair of photon clowns that should be here next week as well.

So equipment wise I have:

5.5g pico
Maxspect nano LEDs
Micro reef sump/fuge - this has a return pump but I may replace it depending on what it is
Eshopps nano overflow
Eshopps nano skimmer
Bought a fully submersible 25w heater for sump - current heater not submersible
Small 50gph powerhead

I am going to add some more to it coral wise after I get everything in and this moved to the new house (which is hopefully happening next week.) I have a crap ton of mushrooms from the 75g I bought (and GSP and xenia and rics) so will probably just add from there. Thought I'd take this to work but now would rather just enjoy it at home. Which means I need to find/create a nifty stand for it and the sump to go in my home office.

Sorry for no pictures. I'm just up with the new kiddo and figured I would update. Hope to have some this next week!

[stephaniegarcia06]

Took this one down and put everything in tbe 75 for the move. Just coukdnt dedicate enough time while packing and moving to water changes.

I did buy something else for it though - a micro sump from micro-reef. 2.5 gallons of cool. No, I dont think it needed it but I wanted it. So its here. I have an eshopps HOB overflow but thinking I may drill this one as well!

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