Livestock in a 5g pico reef?

[The Ng Thing]

Thats a good call with the Catalina Goby, I completely missed the temp. requirement.

On the other note, if your going to feed fish, you might as well feed NPS corals

 

[Bao]

How about Two skunk cleaner shrimps and 2 Hermit crabs ( one blue, one red) ?

 

[Edward]

NPS corals are too much work for me right now. Partly why I broke down the 29g. I want a low-maintenance tank for now. And I would go all inverts and corals, and basically I am. But with such small fish I wanna keep that produce such little waste, adding one shouldn't make any difference as long as I have a CUC to keep up with it.

I have had a 20H and now am a few months into my 5g...I'd say keeping this 5g stable is much more work than my 20 was fully stocked...

 

[Ruge13]

I like the invert route. I have an arrow crab who is really cool and some porcelain crabs. They would be fine in a nano. Couple hermits of different colors, bumble bee snails, purple or red Rock anemone etc. Then go drop $400 on a single polyp of some recycled Paly over on R2R as a centerpiece or I can just stick a polyp of green buttons up tight to my lights and when the color morphs I'll sell it to you 50% off... only 200. I'll even include shipping

 

[STiTCH87]

If i'm gonna spend almost $1,000 i'd set up a 120 gallon. Lol. I don't want bumble snails as when theyre hungry they attack other livestock. Arrow crabs get very big. porcelain crabs also get pretty large. IDT people understand just how small a 5g is especially when full of rock. I'm gonna just go with cheap nice softies and a few LPS.

What in your opinion makes having a stable 5g more difficult than your 20H?

 

[PasstheTorch]

When I kept my 4 gallon the hardest part of keeping it stable was the salinity. After that I only had one fish and a bunch of coral and just never missed my water changes. It did very well.

 

[Ruge13]

Arrow crabs get very big. porcelain crabs also get pretty large.

Huh, neither of mine have not grown at all while other crabs I have have more then doubled. I guess I have duds This is true though, you go heavy on the rock and then no space.

 

[STiTCH87]

Yeah the only reason I went heavy on the rock was I figured better filtration for a healthier reef. But now i'm looking at it going hey, where the heck do the corals go? Lol. I'll find a way i'm sure. And yeah some peoples livestock doesnt grow while others go nuts.

You know the green citron clown gobies? Usually they dont exceed an inch and a half in size and even thats big. Welp at my LFS once they had one that we measured in at three inches long!!! We have NO clue how it happened but he was a mutant!

 

[Edward]

Well, you need to be on top of water changes first off. I wouldn't even be saying this if I didn't mean you had to be habitual. I was doing a 25% every week with fish but I'm cutting that to 10% a week now that I have no fish. Evaporation is absurd, I am in my apartment most of the time so I can manually top it off always but I have marks on the sides of the tank with the salinity readings the tank will read at various given water levels. Also, inverts and small fish dying happens all the time in larger tanks and we just never see them again, but in a tank this small you need to be on top of it right away to remove anything. I had 1 fish die in my tank, I removed it and did a 50% water change and set my skimmer up right away. It took my tank 3 days to stabilize to the point I was comfortable not taking readings every few hours. I've been lucky so far with deaths and spikes, they've only caused a minimal amount of loss, but it has been a learning experience for me.

Honestly, I took up a 5g knowing it would require more attention than something larger.

 

[STiTCH87]

Yeah I am going to do a 25% waterchange every single weekend religiously for sure. I too have to mark where certain SG levels are at to make sure it stays stable. and with me only planning to have one fish and a few inverts, it should be easy to notice if something dies in there.

 

[Edward]

My other suggestion is only add one thing a week, you'd be surprised how susceptible the tank will be to spikes before it is well established (I'm still waiting for this day to come for me -_-)

 

[STiTCH87]

I would assume yo mean including corals as well? Yes I plan to add one coral a week tops. Or one fish, then a coral the next week, etc.

I ran my 29g that same way. In fact I usually never went within 2 weeks with adding things on the 29g. It's just the most stable way since, as you said, things can get messed up bad when you rush.

My main concern is that I will be gone for 8 days in June and IDK how well I trust my parents to maintain the tank. =\ I may have to hire Mike (Yanni) to check up on it here and there. I know they can keep up with top-offs since that's simple and someone is always home, but feeding, eh. And it'll need a water change while i'm gone and that scares me, lol. Unless I do a water change on a friday and then one week later on a sunday? Do you guys think that'd be safe?

 

[Edward]

I'd wait on stocking it too much until then, just due to the size and potentially not having reliable help looking after the tank. 5 months from now for a new tank is still on the cusp of where I would feel safe leaving a tank this size alone for a week fully stocked...I'd want at least a tank that has been stable for six months. That's just me though and that is just how I've done things with all of my tanks.

 

[STiTCH87]

Well the evaporation has been virtually non-existent over the past week, and salinity has been at exactly 1.026 since last Sunday. And that's readings from a refractometer. So I've been keeping things pretty damn stable thus far.

 

[reeferpj]

id get a nice tang or 2 but thats just me lol

 

[STiTCH87]

Lol uh oh here comes the tang police!

Hahaha I knew it was a matter of time!

How about I just get a nice fiddler stingray?
Or maybe i'll just go all out and get a whale shark?
He can live in the cave. Lol.

 

[gadolinium]

3 sexy shrimp and a small pipe fish. Superman or other encrusting monti at the top. A few nice zoos mid level. Bottom brain coral or favia and a nice ricordia shroom. Some slow growers that would fill the tank well in 1-2 years.

 

[STiTCH87]

I DEFF want a few ricordia for sure. I'd like to go the monti route or more so chalice actually, but I dont feel as tho my current LED setup is strong enough personally. I do plan to get 2 or 3 sexy shrimp tho for sure.Brain and favia like to be on the sandbed which I barely have any so thats kinda not an option unfortunately plus I already made that specific sandbed area free for an orange plate coral ive been waiting 2 years to get.

 

[inverted]

I DEFF want a few ricordia for sure.

I do plan to get 2 or 3 sexy shrimp tho for sure.

You may want to do some research on that. SS are often reported to pic at certain corals, especially ricodia for some reason.

 

[STiTCH87]

Edit: Just did some research and would rather not chance it then. They say long as you keep them well fed daily to bi-daily they'll be fine, but I don't wanna rely on that. Plus in a pico I wanna keep feeding at a bare minimum.