Native Saltwater Pico

Hello again, everyone. I have a Fluval Spec, which is a 2 gallon aquarium with a built in sump. I want to try my first reef tank in here, and I'd like to do it all native. I plan to equip it with a new LED light, built very similarly to Michael Wolfe's, except with the addition of a few blue strands to help both for color and coral growth. I plan to have a light over the sump as well to grow some macro-algae over the live rock that will be in there. I'm not yet sure what to do for livestock. All that I have planned right now is to do some simple invertebrates, as most fish will be too big for this setup. I've also been wondering if I should get a nano skimmer. I'm looking this one: https://www.google.c...ved=0CHQQpiswAA Anyways, let me know what you think!

I'm not too familiar with saltwater and I don't know about the need for a skimmer, but I must caution you that the surface to volume ratio of a tank like that is very high, even accounting for the partial cover. I tried a mechanically similar setup once in a 5 gallon tank, unheated, with only a desk lamp for light, and found I had to top off daily or the sump would empty. Some of your tropical corals may be sensitive to even that much change in salinity if carelessly done (ie a big slug of fresh water dumped in and blown directly on them by a powerhead). The problem will be worse for you since the tank is smaller and you have a ton more light.

Something to think about.

Why 2 gallons? In my experience larger is easier. If you're picking a smaller tank because you don't want to pay as much money for salt for water changes (a legitimate reason), there is another solution. It's not difficult to set up a water change free saltwater tank.

Freshwater filtration is how we clean our water, but what does that really mean? How does a filter really work? The answer is that filtration is the act of removing waste from the water, and most of what we need to remove is nitrogen waste. Nitrogen comes from the proteins in the food we feed the fish. The food degrades whether or not the fish eat it. In water, proteins get hydrogens added to their nitrogen and become NH3 or NH4. This ammonia/ammonium (in equilibrium, so, same thing really) is VERY toxic. The LD50 is less than 1 part per million (ppm). So we filter out water. We make the ammonia problem go away. How? Either with bacteria or with plants.

Bacteria convert NH3 (ammonia) to first NO2 (nitrite) and then NO3 (nitrate). The NO3 is MUCH less toxic than NH3 and that's why we can do weekly or so water changes. Removing half of the 30 ppm tank water and replacing it with 0 ppm nitrate water would dilute it down to 15 ppm. In general, 30 ppm is the cutoff for what is long-term 'safe' for most fish. So we do water changes to dilute the nitrate and keep it below 30 ppm.

Plants not only convert but actually remove NH3 from the water column. They incorporate the nitrogen in their protein synthesis when making new tissues like leaves and stems. When you trim the plants and remove the cuttings, you are removing nitrogen from your tank as surely as a water change would. Plants can also eat nitrate NO3, but they prefer ammonium NH4. Benefit: If there's an ammonia spike, for example if a fish dies, an unplanted tank wouldn't have a large enough population of nitrogen converting bacteria to turn it into NO3 nitrate immediately, and the ammonia would hang out and poison fish for the week or so it takes the bacteria to grow in population and deal with it. But in a planted tank, the plant will respond to the ammonium and eat it (and all the ammonia) in four hours. Here's table 2 so you can see it yourself. Plants remove basically any concentration of ammonia in four hours: http://www.theaquari...d_Biological...

Now, saltwater is special because the salt changes the way proteins interact with one another in water. In freshwater, a protein just hangs out until it degrades into ammonia. In saltwater, you have a third option. A protein skimmer can make the proteins foam together and you can literally manually remove the proteins as if removing the skin on a cooling milk surface. Ever had hot chocolate or thick soup that made a skin on top? You can remove the proteins from saltwater the same way as removing that skin on your soup. Then the proteins aren't present to degrade into ammonia, solving the 'filtering' problem before it exists in the first place.

My tanks always have a filter or powerhead (for water movement's sake), some plants or macroalgae (to compensate for ammonia spikes, which bacteria alone are inadequate to deal with) and potentially can have protein skimmers (if they're less cost than water changes, which for saltwater isn't a hard thing to be, long term.)

I hope that explains filtering a bit. There's rumored to be a mysterious magical N2 gas formation in deep sand beds, but I'm not convinced it happens at any significant rate. Sand beds don't bubble all that much.

If you do it just right, you can have a large tank and not have to pay for salt for water changes because nitrate never accumulates. I know quite a lot of reef keepers who have nitrogen balanced tanks and just top the water off when it evaporates.

Well, I know that bigger is better, but I have this tank as an extra, and I wanted to make some use of it. I will have a tight fitting lid to prevent too much evaporation. I think I will get that protein skimmer. I'm mostly looking for livestock/coral suggestions.

You could have seahorses. Hippocampus zosterae is native to NC and easy to breed, provided you don't have hydras. Don't use levamisole hydrochloride on them to kill the hydras; it'll give them seizures and they'll die in a few hours.

I documented my quick fling with seahorses here: http://forum.aquatic...=1429&start=120
They were expensive.

I would like to try seahorses, but I don't think I could maintain enough copepods in the tank. Does anyone have any native corals to suggest? Also, what about my clean-up crew and invertebrates?

You don't have to feed them copepods. You can feed them microworms and newly hatched baby brine shrimp. Vinegar eels would probably also work.

You can see my seahorses eat microworms here:

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but Zoanthids and Ricordea would be native corals? And they also seem to be fine in nanos, correct?

Yes, depending on the species in question, they could be native. And they will do fine in a 2 gallon nano, if you do find native species they will be cold tolerant, subtropical not tropical. I've been keeping a 2 gallon marine nano for the past 2-3 years now having kept native invertabrates, small mantis shrimp, a limpet and other snails some hermit crabs, tube worms and macro algae of course the mantis shrimp was by himself. I keep mine uncovered and the evaporation rate is tied to relative humidity, ie. in the winter, drier air, I'm topping off about every two days, in the summer every 3-4. As salt doesn't evaporate I top off with freshwater. I use a small preset heater that keeps the water 2-3f above ambient and a small one or two watt led fixture. In my opinion a skimmer would be overkill on a system this size, just balance it out with macro algae and animals. Research small gobies from the northern Gulf of Mexico and from Georgia north and you should be fine temperature wise, and most gobies are quite sedentary. The Catalina Goby, Lythrypnus dalli, is often available at fish stores and is often kept under tropical conditions, but is in reality a cool water goby from California; you could probably get away with one in your nano. Good luck.

Is there a kind of Mantis Shrimp that would do well for life in a 2 gallon?

Okay, I've reevaulated my options, and this is now the plan:
2 Gallon: Macro Algae (Native Suggestions?) and Sea Horses (H. zosterae)

5 Gallon:Reef with a Mantis Shrimp (Native Species?)

Almost all stomatopods will out grow a two gallon aquarium. You may get by with a Neogonodactylus wennerae, rock mantis shrimp, in a 5 gallon; they top out about 7-8 cm. They are often hitchhikers on live rock from the gulf, or if you're in Florida they are easy enough to find around rocky jetties or hard bottom reefs. I've found them from 6 feet to 60 feet. For native macros: http://live-plants.com/ .

I had a few naked gobies in my 38 gallon reef tank a few years ago and spent a good portion of my time on that tank looking for the gobies and wishing I had put them in a smaller tank where they'd be more visible. They are definitely pico sized fish.

I had a few naked gobies in my 38 gallon reef tank a few years ago and spent a good portion of my time on that tank looking for the gobies and wishing I had put them in a smaller tank where they'd be more visible. They are definitely pico sized fish.

You've just come up with the name for a new sport. Picofishing!

Ha! I might give them a try. First I just need to get the tanks cycling.

I don't know man, I understand the idea, but that goby seems like more of a µfish to me .

I've gotten a good bit done on my projects. First, on the 2 gallon, I made a number of modifications;

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I covered half of the overflow to create better skimming action.

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I covered the lower inlet for the same purpose.

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I drilled holes in the outlet for more even, indirect flow for the benefit of the seahorses.

Then there's the 5 gallon. I still have to paint the sides. I set up an in-tank sump that fits a MaxiJett 1200.


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There's purposely extra space at the bottom; it is for a DSB.

I've gotten a bit more done! I painted the back and the sides of the sump, drilled a hole for my pump, anf started a bit of scaping.
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I've gotten some more base rock, set it up, and am now about ready to set up the tanks. Take a look!
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Did you see the video of my seahorse tank? It's macroalgae based. I hope you have a lot of caulerpa prolifera in the tank.