New 2.5 pico and new to the forum.

Alex808 · Jun 14, 2019

What’s up everyone. My name is Alex and I’m just getting into saltwater aquariums. I’ve been messing with planted freshwater tanks for almost 2 years now and have had great success running stable tanks that flourish with 0 water changes or dosing. (Think walstad dirt tanks) After a while I wanted something different and decided reefing was the thing. Given my job, I have to set up tanks that are low maintenance and easy because I could end up away for several weeks at a time. Seems counter intuitive since tanks demand some level of maintenance but taking what I’ve learned and never stepping down from a challenge. I decided to set up a Pico Reef that would be stable and not demanding in such a way that it would crash and burn if I was away for long.

This is my 2.5 pico.
Filtration is an Aquaclear 30 with the stock sponge. A fat layer of Seachem Matrix and 100ml bag of Purigen that only partly captures the flow in the filter meaning a lot of water bypasses the Purigen.

Tank is a simple 2.5 gallon from petco sale. Ripped the top plastic rim off for a DIY rimless look (yeah right) and razor bladed a lot of the excess silicone from the top.
On top of the tank is a DIY cover made from the plastic sheeting that you can get from a poster frame at Walmart. Down side is that it’s brittle.

Heating is a little Topfin 10w betta tank heater and it does the job. Could have probably gone with slightly smaller heater since the flow in the tank is somewhat high and it’s 2.5 gallons lol.

Light is the Fluval Sea Nano. On the auto setting with mostly white light and off during the night. Not sure what ideal light settings will be But white at around 30 percent is plenty for the little tank right now. Going to change and adjust as time goes.

Started it with Live rock and live sand.
2 zoanthids, 1 on a plug and 1 small rock with several spores spread across it. 1 branching frogspawn, 1 red mushroom, and a nice piece of green star polyps isolated on its own rock.

Tank has been going for a little while now. Water has been testing perfect and steady and will hopefully stay that way as the cover I DIY’d should control evaporation and keep top off far between.

Glad to be here on the forum. Thanks for checking out my post.

Devaji · Jun 14, 2019

nice! I do love small tanks I think they can be just as fun as the big ones.
that a lot of filtration on that little tank but then you dont need extra power head in there!

JDnKY · Jun 14, 2019

Welcome to r2r! Glad to have you on board. Nice lil tank.

Alex808 · Jun 14, 2019

Devaji said:
nice! I do love small tanks I think they can be just as fun as the big ones.
that a lot of filtration on that little tank but then you dont need extra power head in there!

It’s plenty filtration and yes it provides all the flow I’ll ever need. I’ve tried different things to modify the flow and I’ll probably do something here soon to the change the direction. Hot glue and the same clear plastic from poster board I used to make the cover leaves room to get creative. I don’t have a picture but I did add a little square of plastic at one point that turned the flow into a small water fall but I found the water to be too turbulent and not really a “flow”. I’ll post a thread soon on my filtration mods.