5.5g pico (pics)

This tank started in a rather strange way. I had a few bits and pieces of LR and corals that needed some TLC (mushrooms attaching, rescued corals, etc) and no place to put them where they wouldn't be bothered. I filled a 5g bucket with SW, added an airstone, put the rock and corals in and covered the bucket with glass and a little fluorescent fixture. I ignored it, other than topping off, and everything did really well for ages - I was quite surprised.

So I decided to put everything in my 5.5g; the water volume was comperable, and I'd get a chance to look at everything! I had recently replaced the light fixture on my nano so I transferred the 80W PC to the 5.5g, which lives inside the 30g stand. I used an old HOB filter and stole a little sand from another tank, and though it wasn't anything to look at it was a nicer place for the corals to live.

Weeks went by, and while I was happy the inhabitants were doing well, the tank was really not interesting to look at. So yesterday I took a trip to the LFS and spent WAY too much on a few pieces of 'premium Pagona' LR (I chose it because I liked the shapes), bought some Aragonite sand, and got ready to re-do the tank.

Today I emptied and cleaned the tank out (but tried my best to preserve the coralline algae), threw away the 1/4" of dirty sand, put in 1" of fresh new sand and the 8lbs of (cured) LR, glued the coral frags down and I'm really pleased with how everything came out. This is my first skimmerless tank, but in all other ways it gets treated just like the others - water changes every week or two, regular additions of phyto, the LPS corals are fed meaty meals a few times a week. There's a nice, fat little green clown goby at work that I may buy for this tank if he's still there - I think any other fish would probably be too much for a 5.5g, but a 1" clown goby should be okay since they're not much of a bioload or very big swimmers.

Here are some pictures...

This is the tank about a month ago, when I was just concerned with housing the LR and corals and not looks:


Here's a FTS from tonight, it's only been a few hours since the overhaul and all the corals are still very upset.


Actinics only:


A different angle, you can see the little HOB. There's a small sponge inside that's covered in 'Q-tip' sponges and pods, but otherwise it's just for circulation.

Mysis, no airstone - I think you're seeing the bleached coralline (it bleached out when it got dry during the overhaul)

Dave, you cheeky monkey I'm actually considering making a teeny fuge from an AquaClear 50, but for now I've just got a wad of Chaeto stuffed into the corner

The tank has some fishy inhabitants now. I bought a green clown goby that's been at work for three weeks and is eating really well, figured he'd be the perfect fish for a tiny tank. I also bought some clowns for the 65g, and then got them home and realized just HOW small they are - my angels would eat them alive. I'm working on setting up a 10g growout tank for them but on Sunday I had to come up with a fast solution so I added them to the 5.5g. I'm doing large water changes and keeping a very close eye on the parameters, but so far so good. They'll be out soon (I wanted to give them at least a week to settle before moving them again) but for now... look how cute they are!

Sad news
Despite all the parameters being just fine (NH3/NO2 0, NO3 <5, PO4 <0.1, 8dKH, Ca 380ppm) and daily partial water changes, I lost one of the clowns. He just refused to eat, nothing I did could convince him. His tankmates are fat and happy: the goby is exploring and the clown is now acting like a clown - attacking the MagFloat and feeding tube, staring back at me, sleeping and playing in his brain coral... so I attribute the little guy's demise to stress - not just from being housed in a small tank, but he also went through a plane trip from the Phillipines (where they were bred), a stay at a LFS with less than perfect water quality (I know this, I test it weekly) and another trip home.

The bizarre thing is he was alive at lights-out last night, and just... gone this morning. No trace. I checked all around the tank to see if he jumped, there was no body (our cats aren't in the bedroom overnight so I would have found him). I checked beneath the rocks, inside the filter, everywhere - no body. There are four tiny Nassarius snails and two hermits, one small and one slightly larger, they must have finished him off last night. Parameters were fine this morning but I did a water change just in case there was anything left under a rock somewhere.

Here's a picture from today - I caught 'Mikey' (named after the Life cereal kid because he's a picky eater) as he was waking up:

Thanks guys, so far he's doing very well. I went into work today for the first time since last Sunday when I brought the clowns home, I noticed that a lot of the baby os. clowns were gone - we don't sell them that quickly, I have a sneaking suspicion that many of them didn't make it but the manager wasn't there to ask.

Add --> Freddy, what you need to do is buy a damaged coral or something that your fish might pick on (later say you didn't know); the goal here is to need a new setup in order to save this thing's life. Get a bucket or Rubbermaid bin and make up a temporary 'tank' for it, let them get used to having that in the house. Then continually call them in to see how well it's doing, let them complain that they can't see it very well. Hint that maybe a small tank would allow you to gauge its progress better and allow them to see it, then find a little setup for sale in the classifieds on a forum. Insist that you need to get it NOW, before someone else snatches it up, let them get caught up in the moment and buy it for you (maybe as an early birthday present or something if it's the right time of year...) Once you have it set up, subtly complain that the lighting really isn't what it could be and that more live rock and a protein skimmer would keep things healthier, and repeat above method in order to purchase some lights and other equipment from another hobbyist or on eBay.
Baby steps, my friend - this is how I went from a FW 45g with one T8 fluorescent strip to having three SW and one FW tanks, loads of light, protein skimmers, new powerheads, etc. etc... I bought it all little by little and my poor husband had no idea what hit him. Of course, this is also the way he managed to sneak four computers and about five thousand games into the house