5 1/2 gal Pico planning

[wolf pup]

Got bit by the bug and dug out an old (very dusty) 5 1/2 gal AGA to bring into the office. I'm in the planning stages now but I'm figuring I will seed it off of my home tank and go from there.

So far I've got

5 1/2 gal tank
50w heater
maxijet 400

I gonna pull LS and LR from refugium at home but I'm kind of all over the place on lighting.

I'm figuring zoas, a lil xenia, and I might frag a hammer I have at home to see how it does. Might do a red stripe or a clown goby for the fish side.

Does this make sense 36watt PC lighting (http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=ESU-53124&Category_Code=Aqualight) ?

I actually was trying to keep the price way down to not take from the home budget so if anyone has any suggestions I am way open at this point.

[cwilson]

the only two things i could see being an issue is your xenia's spreading like their on crack and taking over the whole tank. but i know some grow faster than others
also, since its at your work, and im assuming a 5 day work week, you may wan tto set up some sort of auto top-of system to keep your levels ok with teh evaporation you would get over the weeken.

if you want a low budget, you could get a little LED fixture. what else is nice about the LED's is they generate much less heat, so you wont have extra evaporation.

link to light: http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_AquariumPage~PageAlias~lighting_moonlight_moon_lunar_lamp_led_taam_rio_mini_sun_lighting_fixture. html

if sure one (or two) of those would be nice for a tank as small as yours

good luck and let us know what you choose to do!

[sapphiredonna]

that's the light I have over my 5.5 nano. granted, the only things in it right now are some zoos but I'm planning on putting other softies in. I don't have any plans for lps but I know this guy has a different brand, same wattage fixture over his 5.5 and has hammer coral in it that's been growing well.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1265768

he has a current usa pc fixture and, while I like the look of it better than that of the coralife, I couldn't justify spending an extra $40 on looks. instead what I did was I bought the coralife and I bought a can of rustoleom black enamel high-heat spray paint so hopefully I'll end up with a black fixture for $55 instead of close to $100.

[wolf pup]

cwilson - the lil leds are slick but once I get two of them (and it looks that that might not be enough based on the comments at marinedepot) it seems I'm in the same price range. I figure I'll see what the evap rate is (I am going to have glass over the entire top so it should be somewhat minimized) before I start getting into ATO equipment.

sapphiredonna - sandeep't tank was the one I keept staring at that pushed me over the edge to put together a pico. I decided against the seperate fuge because I honestly have some doubts how effective such a "micro-fuge" would be. That is not based on any science, just my gut. I do love the look of the tank and how the lil area hides the pump/heater. I may eventually partition of a section for similar reasons but my plan at this point is to just put rock in front of everthing.

My plans so far include a 1-2 cup w/c 5 days a week. I figured I would buy 2 gallons of di from the local dominicks (so I can get 2 clean gallon jugs) and turn one jug into ro/di SW and one jug into ro/di top off that I could bring back and forth from home. I keep 32 gal of SW on the ready and 10 gal of FW in my sump room so It should not be a hassle. My topoff for my home tank is a 32 gal saturated kalk bucket on an ato. My goals for the work tank are to keep equipment to a minimum.

It also occured to me that I haven't really researched running any carbon in a pico. I guess I could toss a media bag in the back. I'm not sure it would make too much of a difference but as I've implied - I have no clue.

[sapphiredonna]

I was reading a thread on reefcentral a few days ago about someone moding an Aqua Clear 70 into (basically) a hang-on sump .... I have the link saved on my home computer, I'll post it once I get home. point is, you might be able to build a nano sump for your tank and put your heater, carbon, chaeto, etc. in it.

[sapphiredonna]

sorry, I forgot to post that other thread. here it is:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=601201&highlight=how+to+DIY+an

it actually looks really cool.

[sapphiredonna]

ooh, and one other thing: they now have 10 and 20 watt coralife 50/50 screw-in bulbs that fit into incandescent sockets. a single 20 watt probably wouldn't be enough over a 5.5, esp. if you want hammer corals, but 2 20 watts over the 5.5 might work .... I was planning on doing that for mine, unfortunately after shipping and buying stuff to make my own fixture (most 16 inch incandescent fixtures only have one socket) it was only about $10 more to buy the coralife pc fixture.