First Reef: Dorm Room Fluval Spec V [dry goods all bought]

So I'll be attending UT Austin for the next 4 (possibly 11) years and their dorms allow "fish" (coral) in tanks under 5g. So I went ahead and picked up one of the new Fluval Spec V 5g units.

I'm still gathering materials so what I have are right now:

16w Blue and White LED light
5lb of Aragonite
22lb of Seachem Reef Salt
D-D Refractometer
Powerhead
Heater


I have in the mail:
API Reef Master Test
Red Sea Pro Magnesium test
HM TDS 3 meter

Planning to buy:
Elos Phosphate kit or Red Sea phosphate kit
Some Carbon
Oyster feast

I'm planning to stock this as a small mixed reef with tons of carbon and...no fish and maybe a peppermint shrimp and some worms.

I've spent a good time doing planted tanks and stuff so hopefully that'll help me along. I did a fowlr a few years ago too. More info and stuff later.

School starts in ~ 1 month and I still have to fill my 6g jugs with water and find my cooler for transferring LR.

I still have lots of reading to do too. I'm about 1/4 way through reading Eric Bourneman's Aquarium Corals. Really great book...although he sometimes goes on tangents it seems.

 

Congrats on your admission to a great school. I've heard Austin is a great city to live in; lots to do. It sounds like you may be entertaining the idea of medical school, so I wish you all the best with that. Sounds like you're off to a good start.

 

great thread

 

Congrats and I can't wait to see this tank set up ;D

 

Today was a great day today. Received my package and I've also callibrated my refractometer to some home made 35ppt solution consisting of 3.65g of NaCl to 96.35g of H2O.

I'll have pics of the goodies today.


One quick question: Will live rock keep for more than a day wrapped up in newspaper in a dark cooler?

 

Subscribed.

I might bring my 10g with me to college - haven't decided yet.

 

Finished all the shoppping. Instead of getting the phos kit I just got a bottle of GFO. I figure if I just change it regularly it'll be cheaper even in the long run to run gfo all the time on this tank.

So today I got:
Seachem Matrix Carbon
Coral Frenzy
PURA Phoslock GFO 150g (13 dollars and came with a nice velcro micron bag)


It feels really great when you have everything waiting together.

 

So as for stocking I'm thinking:

1-2 small peps
1-2 pom pom crabs if I can find them
2-3 snails

And for sessile inverts I'm looking at:
Zoas
Shrooms (isolated on a rock on the sand)
GSP(Isolated on the sand)
Xenia(Small small xenia for the sand)
Frogspawn and hammer
May grab some favites idk yet. Still reading through the coral book to see what'll work.

I might get 2-3 sps next year.