Hypnox

I've been considering for a bit now to put together a pico tank for work. So this weekend I started off on this grand adventure of making a 2.5g reef tank. Right now I only have the tank, sand and filled with water so it can cure and give the sand some time to settle down.

I have a 100gph powerhead, 7.5 watt heater and 18w PC light on order. They should be in later this coming week.

Current plans for stocking this tank will be as follows:
3-4 lbs LR
4 astrea snails
2-3 nassarius snails
1 peppermint shrimp
Various zoanthids, branching frogspawn.

I'm still debating on putting in a very small goby like a clown goby as they only reach a maximum size of 2 inches. This is entirely dependent on how stable the parameters can be kept.

Pictures of the tank settling down:

Hypnox

So doing some thinking and i'm leaning towards dropping the pepp shrimp and going with 3 sexy shrimp and staying fishless.

Hypnox

Update, put in the rest of my rock this morning. Pretty happy with it overall. There is about 2.5-3 lbs of it in there and it should make a great surface for all the zoas and paly's I want to grow in the tank.

GreenMan13

Looking good.

travie

Looks good. How much evaporation are you experiencing with it, if any? You would be better off going fishless especially if its at your place of work, since I am assuming you don't work on the weekends.

Lucy

Your tank is really starting to look good. It'll be interesting to see how it progresses.

Hypnox

I'm likely going to stick with the sexy shrimp because I normally don't work weekends, although it has happened it is rare.

Honestly not getting hardly any evap thanks to the glass top. I am getting some weird salt creep on the outside of the glass top though, going to have to get a chunk of plexiglass and cut it so the cords aren't causing the salt creep anymore.

I'm hoping to have a really awesome zoa tank.

travie

Good planning. I've noticed in my 29g that a powerhead if placed in a certain way, will cause a wave to splash water in between the black lip of the tank and the glass of the cover.

Hypnox

Update time:

I re-positioned the powerhead so that it isn't blocking the light as much. I cut a plexi-glass top with a couple notches in the back corners that let the cords out without propping it up and also allows me to clip the light onto it. So far everything is working out great, not getting any salt creep anymore and not seeing any noticeable evaporation.

Jess

Enjoying watching you build this new aquarium. I'm new to salt so I appreciate your step by step process. : )

Hypnox

Thanks Jess.

Update, I tested my water today as this is the second week the tank has been cycling.

ammonia: .5 PPM
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Nitrates: 10-20 ppm
pH: 8.2

Definite improvement.

au01st

Looking good!

I'm trying to convince myself that I need a 10 gallon next to the 75 for "quarantine" purposes, lol...my girlfriend is not buying it, she said I'm crazy and have enough tanks.

Hypnox

There is no such thing as "enough tanks"

Hypnox

Diatom explosion. Tonight i'm getting my CUC and making final livestock decisions. In another couple weeks i'll be ordering my zoa pack and maybe a ricordea.

Hypnox

Final update on this project. I was forced to break this aquarium down due to lack of funds and lack of cubicle. Here is what it looked like before it was taken down, I had removed the powerhead and replaced it with an AC20 that was going to be filled with LR rubble. Also added a 100w heater set to 78 and LED lighting, the tank never deviated from 78 after that. I was going to add a 5 pack of zooanthid frags to it next week.

morganrules

lol are those staplers i see. thats awesome improvising is always the answer lol. i love the look of it

Hypnox

haha, yea. The staplers were temporary till I could build a hood and stand I had planned for it.

morganrules

i would keep them just in case your filing documents lol