5.5 g with Cree XR-E LEDs

[jaesun]

 

This is my 5.5 gallon with a 1 gallon "kimchi" refugium.

 

Cliff Notes version:

 

12 LEDs (6 3W Cree XR-E cool whites on a 1000 mA buckpuck, 5 3W Cree XR-E royal blue and 1 3W kaidomain UV on a 700 mA buckpuck - 2 dimmers for each buckpuck)

6.5 gallons with Reef Crystals

10 lb live rock

1 ocellaris clownfish

2 peppermint shrimp

4 or 5 bluelegged hermits

1 small tubeworm

Red Sea Pumping Xenia

Orange Digi

Frogspawn - 2 heads

3 small zoanthid colonies

Unknown SPS - ID?

 

Long version:

 

I started with a 5.5 gallon tank and Maxi-Jet 400 from Showcase Aquarium in Wheaton.

 

I have about 10 pounds of live rock from toastiireefs and black Carib Sea Tahitian Moon Sand. A Mini-Jet 404 from Aquarium One in Rockville shoots water up to a 1 gallon glass jar which I use as my refugium. Any Korean household will have at least a dozen of these jars lying around. My Theo Hydor 25W heater and some more live rock are in the jar. No light yet. Not sure how effective it is, but I can see plenty of pods crawling on the glass. The jar sits up on a ghetto stand made of 2x4s and a poplar board, and I have three 1/2" tubes flowing down into a Wal-mart soapdish. The three tubes are because I'm paranoid about flooding. I probably could have gotten away with just two or one larger diameter tube. The cheato is from Nate, and I have to cull it once a week. There's a problem with this refugium design, and I'll modify it in the near future to get more flow with less noise.

 

I have an ocellaris Clownfish from Tropical Lagoon in Silver Spring, and a small molly who is the lone survivor from a pregnant molly that I got from Petsmart. There are 2 peppermint shrimp from Scales, and I started with 6 blue-legged hermits from Scales and Tropical Fish World. I think I have about 4 or 5 left. They killed my lone cerith snail a long time ago. The tubeworm was a freebie from Scales before they shut down.

 

For corals, I'm not doing bad at all budget wise. I have yet to spend more than $5 at a time. 2 sets of zoas from Petland are doing great. The 3rd set from rbaxley isn't doing as great, but I have no idea how it's supposed to look. There's a lot of white and not sure if the zooxanthellae was expelled or there are supposed to be specks of white. I wasn't paying attention and never actually saw the zoanthids in the original tank. No melting at all, which must be a good sign. The xenia from Nate are pulsating strongly under the light. I experimented with fragging which failed and haven't tried again. I also got an orange digi frag from Nate which is growing. I picked up a frogspawn from rbaxley along with some SPS, but not sure what they are. One is pinkish with polyps like the orange digi but the branches are thinner. Another is supposed to be a blue-tipped stag, but the tips glow more greenish under my LEDs. There's also another frag that is orange-brown with sections that glow a bright neon green. I have the smaller frags of these two glued to my live rock. The larger frags I have attached to plugs. Anyone interested in trading? Sorry that I don't know the names of these frags. They're alive and healing quite well. But remember, this is a relative assessment since these are my first SPS frags. They could be doing poorly but I wouldn't know. But the polyps are extended, especially under the lights which I have on 7 hours a day.

 

Oh, I have a 1" oyster glued to my live rock. A survivor from a dozen oysters I picked up from Maine Ave. I had barnacles too on oyster shells but the peppermint shrimp killed them off. There's a survivor clam which I pulled off an oyster shell and hid it in my live rock. It's still alive and might even be growing.

 

The overall health of my tank seems great. The corals seem happy. There are periodic clouds of hermit crab and shrimp larvae swimming at night. I have a good handle on the green hair algae, and my tests are always zero for nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia. As for other critters, I added bristleworms but haven't seen them come out since I added the peppermint shrimps. I have these tiny white calcified tubeworms all over the place, and the occassional clear flatworm. I'm just glad that Nate didn't give me his red bugs too. Haha.

 

Last but not least, my LED display. It's a near copy from Waterproof's design on nano-reef.com. Don't ask me how much I spent on it. I don't want to know. But I did all of the work myself. I had most of the soldering equipment already, but I bought a used drill press on craigslist. I have a small fan attached to the heatsink and control the speed by lowering the voltage using diodes. I tried something fancy using pulse width modulation, but I ended up getting this really annoying wheezing noise. I also have a thermometer for the heatsink and got rid of the battery by using a LM317 from Radio Shack. I still need to add the moon lights. I have the blue LEDs and all the components to control the brightness using PWM. All of the controls will be housed in a steel box that used to be a VCR. I eventually hope to experiment with an arduino controller, but I'm still learning electronics. This whole project was more about learning how to do DIY electronics than reefs. It's a good combination since I got my PADI open water scuba license last year in Malaysia and want to go back soon.

 

I still have the PAR meter. When am I supposed to return it? I should take better measurements, but I usually end up knocking over my frags when I do. I don't know if my ocellaris is getting sunburnt from the LEDs or getting darker at the topside from the new diet. But my SPS are getting about +350.

 

I got the stand on craigslist for $20. It's a crappy TV stand not all that stable which got me paranoid again. This time it was about hanging anything like a pendant, so I have my LED setup directly attached to galvanized steel piping. It's solid, and I can swing the heatsink around to have full access to the tank.

 

It's still a work in progress, but I'm happy with the results so far. I'll probably add a tang or 2 next week. Thinking a mandarin too the next time I see one. Where's the best place to get a maxima clam?

Edited August 14, 2009 by jaesun

[capsfan]

The tank is looking great!! You did a great job. However, I would advise against a mandarin unless you have a larger tank to move him into once he eats everything in there. How long have you had this up?

[extreme_tooth_decay]

From someone who owned a fat mandarin for years in a tank with basically no pods (see pic), a small tank is great for one. Almost no tank is big enough to supply them with the natural food they need, so that doesn't matter in almost all cases.

 

What does matter is getting them eating prepared foods.

 

Mine went crazy for PE mysis.

 

Nice looking tank.

 

tim

 

[extreme_tooth_decay]

dupe

Edited August 14, 2009 by extreme_tooth_decay

[jaesun]

I've been inspired by tanks like this:

 

 

 

 

These are from someone's trip to Hong Kong on nano-reef.com.

 

hong kong LFS (local fish STREET)

 

BTW, I'm totally kidding about adding a tang or 2 into my 5.5 g. Or even a mandarin. Although I was tempted with a scooter blenny the other day before I realized that it's also a dragonet. Please don't call the ASPCA. I don't even know how I got on their mailing list. Is someone is watching me?

[Hilary]

BTW, I'm totally kidding about adding a tang or 2 into my 5.5 g. Or even a mandarin. Although I was tempted with a scooter blenny the other day before I realized that it's also a dragonet. Please don't call the ASPCA. I don't even know how I got on their mailing list. Is someone is watching me?

 

 

Sweet little tank, and I really like the kimchee refugium idea!

[Nate]

Looking good Jason! It's about time you got pictures up.

[capsfan]

I'm really looking foward to this tank. Following along.

[jaesun]

The tank is looking great!! You did a great job. However, I would advise against a mandarin unless you have a larger tank to move him into once he eats everything in there. How long have you had this up?

 

I started the tank in late april, and I had a molly after the cycle. Scales closed in late May which is when I added the last of my inverts. I didn't add the xenia until June. I had a desk lamp until I finished the LEDs in early July, which is when I added the orange digi. The fuge is less than a month old, and I've had the clown for about 3 weeks.

 

I'm probably not going to add any more fish in there. The molly fry only eats algae but I'm more than willing to donate it to anyone who wants to live feed. And I'm hoping that more of the hermits fight each other off to the death. I had always thought that it was the mother molly leaving the large strands of poo, but now I realize it's coming from either the hermits or the shrimp. I'm guessing it's more likely the hermits.

[capsfan]

Out of curiosity, are you going to paint the back of the tank?

[jaesun]

Out of curiosity, are you going to paint the back of the tank?

 

I thought about it for aesthetic reasons, but if I really wanted to make my tank pretty, first on my list is to get rid of that soapdish from wal-mart holding my cheato. I probably will make big changes in my next upgrade. I consider this tank my learning project. But for now, I'm going to leave the back glass as is and see how much algae and coraline can grow on it.

 

I still have to finish my LED and controller box. I have wires all over the place.

Edited August 24, 2009 by jaesun

[capsfan]

I was just asking because it seems like a solid black background really makes the colors in a tank pop. I kind of lose the colors in the transparency of your tank. To tell you the truth, I don't even notice the soapdish.

[jaesun]

I was just asking because it seems like a solid black background really makes the colors in a tank pop. I kind of lose the colors in the transparency of your tank. To tell you the truth, I don't even notice the soapdish.

 

Colors popping hasn't been a problem as of yet. My better half has been complaining that its too bright. I will definitely have some sort of a background in my next tank, unless it's a walk-around cube... But I have to finish my current project first! And hope that I don't kill my livestock, especially the pair of tangs that I just added this past weekend. I'm joking!