what should i do with my 5g nano? (1 Viewer)

[Guest]

it is set up with only live rock and a really deep sand bed (about 3-4 inches). it has been set up for about a month. i am not sure what i should do with it. i had thought about sea horses and pipe fish, or maybe an invert tank. i really don't know. anyone have any ideas?

 

[Guest]

Hi SpeedAngel-

Depending on your set-up, Sea Horses would be tough. Sea Horses require very little water flow/circulation. Even small pumps can overpower a 5 gallon tank. I think you will find most people that have nano’s typically do reefs with maybe 1-2 small fish, depending on the size of the nano(albeit there are some exceptions). This is because there is such little water, maintaining chemistry and water quality in such a small environment, with any notable bioload, is very hard. My recommendation is to start with soft hearty coral frags. Softies will provide nice movement. Add maybe one or two every 2 weeks. If you want a fish, I’d suggest maybe one small percula (true or false). You really can’t have much more than that. Not recommended for the fish, or for the size of the tank. Personally I would forget the fish. Put some snails in there and call it done. Best of luck to you!

Rich

 

[Guest]

do you have any kind of light yet? I would start maybe with the light then filter then work down. I wouldnt do a seahorse. in that tank you could only really do dwarf horses and from searhorse.org they need a lot or care and live food. Its your tank what all do you like?

 

[Guest]

i have a 20 watt CF light on it and i am running the filter that came stock with the tank and a tetra in tank filter.

i think that i have decided to either have a longhorn cowfish or 3 true percs. and probably a small (though it will grow) anemone.

 

[incysor]

Man, I hope you're kidding.

B

 

[Guest]

about what? if you are talking about the anemone yeah i am. i know that i don't have enough room or flow for it.

 

[Guest]

longhorn will get way to big for that tank and it can releas toxics that can kill every thing. a 5 gallon tank you can do 2 percs but not more. i would change the in tank filter to a HOB filter for more room. Fish wise think of gobies. that is going to be your only fish that will stay small. other than that you can have different zoas, softys, and maybe some lps

 

[incysor]

Yep. leaf pretty much summed it up. Any cowfish is potentially toxic, and they're all get too large to be suitable for nanos on top of it.

Two percs will likely pair up once one is significantly larger than the other. Three isn't a viable number, once two pair up, they'll attack the third. In a large tank, they've got lots of room to stay out of each other's way, in a nano the third one will almost certainly be killed.

On top of that a 5g nano simply isn't enough room for more than a couple very small fish.

You might get away with three, if you chose differently. Say one perc, one cleaner goby, and one firefish.

You're also more likely to manage it if you get rid of the two small filters and get the largest HOB filter that will fit on the back of it. Overfiltration, and regular weekly water changes are the best way to keep nanos stable.

B

 

[Bakapuma]

These guys are not kidding. On my daughters 10gal nano, she is running a 200gph on the main tank and a 100gph on the refugium, check out "ten gallon daughter" thread. Also she is running an sea clone 100 as the pump that tanks the main tanks water to transfer to refugium. Gravity takes the water back to the main tank thru pvc pipes mounted at the top of the refugium. Seems like a lot of water movement, but that is what you need with reef tanks, especially small ones. She also at the momemts tops of a quart of water a day. When we add more corals, she will do a 20% water change every week.

If you know what you are doing, you can put alot of softies in a small space. So far my daughter has two blue rics and 3 red zoos. She also has a couple of tiny survivors from a xenia frag. This is what is going in this week. Daddies cant say no:
Blue mushroom
Green shroom
Green Striped shroom
red shroom
Lavender hairy shroom
melon shroom
metalic orange skirt zoo
orange with bright green skirt zoo
clove polyp
green star pol
botton polyp
candy LPS
pink and green frog spawn LPS
carpet leather
Hot pink carnation
gold devils hand
colt coral
capnella.

We will add more cleaner critters after these guys attach and stabilize.
Fish will come last. Maybe a Perc clown and a couple of gobies. If I am not careful, she will end up with a Helfinchi

 

[Guest]

I dont necassarily agree high flow is needed unless your corals need it. nor do you need great filtration. i ran my 9 gallon tank with a 4inch sand bead 9lbs LR and a 60gph powerhead. I then did a gallon water change a week. that tank did 100 % better than when i added the filter to it. I added the filter because i didnt like the ph sitting in the tank. my 20L has one power head shooting from one end to the other doing about 60 gph then the return from the refuguim which is about 100gph, but all my flow is deflected off the glass before it hits my corals because i went with mid to low flow corals.