5 gallon tank setup

[LordJoshaeus]

Hi everyone! I need your thoughts on a tank setup I came up with;
Tank; Standard 5 gallon
Filter; Most likely a 160 GPH internal filter (though I haven't ruled out an airlift powered filter to encourage the proliferation of copepods). Chemical media (purigen?) will be placed in the filter chamber, while a filter bag/sock (with about 100 micron mesh) may be placed over the intake and filled with polyfil.
Heater; 50 watts, will be set to 82 fahrenheit
Light; TBD, 7 hours a day
Maintenance schedule; Two 1-gallon water changes a week. The sand will be blasted by a turkey baster daily. Top offs with deionized water will be performed as needed.
Sessile life; Macroalgae. Not sure if I want corals for this tank...
Non-sessile life; Apocyclops and a pair of some small fish I want to breed (exact species is TBD)
Setup plans; Tank will have its light on from the first day and be fed daily; I will also dose seachem stability daily for the first month. After that, the copepods and maybe macroalgae will be added. I will wait at least another month before adding the fish
Miscellaneous questions; Would there be any benefit to keeping the salinity a bit higher than the usual 1.022 SG? Maybe around 1.026? Also, would it be better to do two water changes or one 2 gallon water change? I understand that the latter method would remove more waste, I just was wondering whether that method would stress anything out.

What are your thoughts on all of this? Thanks

 

[Sosuke]

5 gallons is pretty small for most fish, what were you thinking? I keep my main tank at around 1.022 but most people suggest 1.025 - 1.026, on my old 5 gallon tank I did 1 gallon water changes weekly. Topping off such a small tank I would drip the top off water in to avoid any rapid changes

 

[LordJoshaeus]

5 gallons is pretty small for most fish, what were you thinking? I keep my main tank at around 1.022 but most people suggest 1.025 - 1.026, on my old 5 gallon tank I did 1 gallon water changes weekly. Topping off such a small tank I would drip the top off water in to avoid any rapid changes

Something along the lines of a small goby or blenny species most likely. I was going to use plastic wrap as a lid component (similar to my freshwater 5 gallons) to reduce both evaporation and kamikaze-esque leaping

 

[Udest]

I have a 5 gal That I've been running for about a year my maintenance schedule is pretty lax even though I have some corals along with some macro algae in there along with a single damsel. Though if you wanted to breed fish many of the smaller clown gobies should workout well.

 

[Sosuke]

Sounds pretty good, when I first started the hobby 3 1/2 years ago the guy at Petco told me that a 5 gallon with a damsel, royal gramma, and scooter blenny was a great idea lol

 

[Udest]

Lol I knew better than to throw more than one fish in that tank would have been a battle Royale , I just got one fish to make it easier to monitor the tank.

 

[Sosuke]

Thats what happened in the long run, it ran for 2 1/2 years before I upgraded.

 

[Udest]

Yeah planning to upgrade to my spare 29 Soon as I can buy everything for it , gonna try to run an experimental budget build on that one too , Funny thing is that those Wally world led day light bulbs will grow corals under em.

 

[Sosuke]

Nice, that's the tank I upgraded to after my 5, I am surprised a light bulb can grow coral!

 

[LordJoshaeus]

Yeah planning to upgrade to my spare 29 Soon as I can buy everything for it , gonna try to run an experimental budget build on that one too , Funny thing is that those Wally world led day light bulbs will grow corals under em.

I am using some of those bulbs for growing houseplants and vegetable seedlings Were you able to find how much PAR they were adding to your tank?

 

[Udest]

Nah I couldn't find any exact numbers I just eyeball it and watch growth had some former experience with plants under them so I figured since it wasn't too deep wouldn't loose much spectrum

 

[Udest]

When I do the 29 I'm going to be using some of those outdoor 5000k flood lights I've seen on Amazon and see how those work out see if I don't burn out my eyes with those in the house.