Lo-tech Marineland 5G Pico

EchoPear

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Greetings!

This is my first ever saltwater tank. Why in the world did I choose the hardest size to start with (pico/nano)? Well my aquarium stand is rated for a 75 gallon, but it is holding a 37G freshwater planted cichlid tank and so space wise I am pretty limited in length. This Marineland was my late betta’s tank and I thought, “hey if I can cut it on a 5 gallon I’ll be confident I can handle something bigger”. As this is my first one, I’m going for cheap as possible while still being nice to enjoy.

Okay, enough preamble. On to the build. As you know this is an AIO tank but the design sucks and half the water bypasses the filter caddy. Had I know about the in tank acrylic drop in, I would have just gotten that. But instead I knocked out the AIO wall back when it was a FW tank to make room for a sponge filter.

For filtration I wanted a cheap HOB that could provide flow headroom so I didn’t have to add wavemakers. Petsmart sale to the rescue, tetra IQ 30 for $16. Bought 2, have a backup now (also needed it for another thing). Up to 175gph or 35x turnover. Great!

I went back and forth on the light for many days. I really wanted to get something that could sustain life and be reliable and have good controls. But alas this is a cheap build so pick 2 of the 3, I went with the Hygger 30W on Amazon. I really liked the lens, and how many diodes they had in there. $40

Also picked up a 10lb box of Carb-Sea life rock from Petsmart, and a 5lb bag of ocean direct sand.

For heat I have an older Eheim jager 50W that never turns off connected to a Bayite thermostat (which is great I might add) all carried over from the FW phase of the tank. Picked up a 50W nicrew heater as a back up heater.

Using reef crystals and distilled water from the grocery store. ATO is a gravity fed Amazon thing with some black airline tubing and an Evian 1L bottle. Works pretty dang good and never worry about electronics. Remember, simple and cheap!

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EchoPear

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Started a cycle with Dr Tim’s (purple bottle? Said for reef tanks) one and only and an uncooked shrimp. After some testing hiccups with old FW test trips, got the tank to start producing nitrates after about a couple weeks or so. I made the mistake of having filter floss in during the cycle. Then I made the second mistake of adding another rock on top of my arch. Then I made the third mistake of impulse buying a yellow clown goby

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EchoPear

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I did a 100% water change before adding the goby, even dumping the water in the filter. But I suspect I threw out a lot of bacteria when I tossed the original floss, and also the new rock didn’t help. Since then, I have had nitrites and some ammonia again. I have been dosing Prime/Stability combo every day since, and it appears now I am inadvertently doing a fish-in cycle. Named the goby Mango.

Running the HOB at middle level flow is low enough that the Goby comes out and perches on the rock work. Anything higher and he darts down and wedges himself in a spot between the glass and the rock on the sandbed. Was tough getting him to eat, LFS was feeding mysis and I bought the same thing they were using. He couldn’t care less. With a sunken belly I picked up some Omega one flakes. After a few days, with one two day trip in the middle, he is now eating crushed flakes.

Want to add some pods next to help supplement the gobies diet, and help with the ugly phase. I got bored of no lights and decided today I’m going to start running the lights and begin taking PAR readings with a rented PAR meter from my LFS. Still haven’t decided if I want to dose phyto live or dead (like Seachem phyto). The dead is so much cheaper I will probably do that. But worried about excess nutrients in such a small tank. Either way, will dose for the pods. Would like the nitrate reducing benefits of the live pods as well. Let me know what you recommend!
 
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