5 Gallon Minibow Nano

[Nikkoli110]

I am in the process of setting up a little 5 gallon minibow nano tank. I am going to be putting in 8 lbs of figi live rock. I was wondering if it would even be worth it to use sand, or would it be easier to keep with a bare bottom? I bought the 20 watt Coralife 50/50 screw in bulb, that goes in the normal incadescent socket. I am planning on just having some shrooms, maybe some zoa's. I was wondering what inverts would be good to keep in it? I havent seen much discusion on here about nanos. I have checked out nano-reef.com, but some of those people go to the extreme, so its hard to tell what is normal. I am going to put in a few snails and blue legged hermits, but I was trying to figure out what else I could put in. I have a few pepermint shrimp in my 29, but was wondering what else everyone likes. I know alot of people put clowns and such in nanos, but I just don't know if I want to go there. At the most I might TRY my neon goby that I have in my 29 in there, but not sure if I will. Just really looking for some tips. Thansk!

 

[Chris A.]

How about a shrimp and goby pair?

 

[Nikkoli110]

Do you think a goby would be ok in a 5 gallon? Maybe one of the tiny ones like a neon or a yellow clown goby? They don't seem to swim around much too, so maybe.... I actually just got finished painting the background on, and I actually painted the whole other parts black, I bought it as orange (Think thats why it was cheap) And it came out great. I am taking pictures of the whole set up. What do you think about the substrate? Should I just go bare bottom or would a 1/2" sandbed be ok? I just know its going to be hard to keep water params good, but if I keep it up hopefully it won't be too bad!

 

[nunofs]

Regarding the sandbed, with such a small footprint a DSB won't really be contributing much to denitrification... so that leaves bare bottom or a shallow sandbed as options (as you mentioned), and between those two I think it's mainly a matter of aesthetics... unless you intend to keep any critters that need to dig in the sand, that is, and in that case you'd obviously need some kind of sandbed, even if not very deep. Since you're considering keeping mainly softies, the typical advantage of a bare bottom (ability to have lots of flow) doesn't really apply, as softies don't need that much flow anyway.

I've never seen a bare bottom tank in person so I can't offer any first hand opinions, but from looking at photos I tend to like the look of a sandbed better, looks a bit more natural... personally, I'd go with a 1 or 2" sandbed (I think that any less than that would rapidly start showing bare spots due to flow and critters rearraging the sand).

Nuno

 

[Nikkoli110]

Thank you for the imput! I think I will go with a small sandbed about 1 inch deep. Thinking of getting a small goby now...

 

[dima96]

a yasha haze or a blackray shrimp goby shrimp pair are great for a small nano. Skipton's also has a bunch of tiny gobies and would be great for a tank that size. check the nano issuse of Coral there are some great articles about setting up and maintaining nanos.