Hello Arizona reefers!!

[NurseReefer]

Salutations all!

My name is Jon and I'm new to the reefkeeping hobby. I just wanted to take some time out and introduce myself as well as ask a few questions. First off my aquarist history: I started out with a 60 gal freshwater tank I inherited from a friend. The hobby quickly grew on me and I've since expanded to a 125 gallon as well as a 30 gallon tank. In my 30 I have a lone green-spotted puffer, and in my 60 I have a small school of figure 8 puffers. Those are both brackish setups. In my 125 I have a 22 inch fire eel and a wide variety of other very peaceful freshwater fish. My fire eel is very socialized and he'll pick worms out of my fingers and I can handle him in the water. He's my freshwater pride n' joy!

Now for my reef setup I took advantage of a wonderful deal off craigslist. I received an established 125 gallon system including the tank, stand, 3 Kessil A150W Ocean Blue's, a Maxpect Gyre 150, Bubble Magus Nac7, 20 gallon sump w/ return pump, CPR overflow box, carbon reactor, Phosban Reactor 150, testing equipment, fragging tools, and salt. The livestock includes 3 green chromis, 2 pajama cardinals, 1 bangai cardinal, a mated pair of b&w clowns, a flame angel, hippo tang, yellow tang, yellowtail damsel, peppermint shrimp, and a cleaner shrimp. Cleanup crew consists of about 7-8 blue legged hermits. I got all this for $300 by the way :thumbsup:. I had read that its hard to beat metal halide lighting so I also purchased a Current USA fixture that has 3 150W 20k bulbs and 4 96W power compacts on it. I switched that out for the Kessils. I recently bought a Hydor auto top-off system and as well as a kit to add baffles to a spare 30 gallon tank I have which I will then switch out with the 20 gallon that is currently my sump.

I feed the fish spirulina enriched mysis shrimp as well as a product called reef plankton, both frozen foods made by the company San Francisco Bay Sally. I'm also using Red Sea Coral Pro salt to do my water changes, and I'm using RO water from a local Water n' Ice store. Lately (as in the past 2 days) I've noticed that the tendrils on my Duncan colony have gotten thinner and more feeble looking in some places, and in others they've gotten shorter and turned a whiter color. Is this due to bleaching form the MH lights? Also what do you guys recommend I feed my corals? I've just been using the reef plankton so far, but all the research I do sends me in every direction so I can never tell what is actual testimonial from someone in the hobby and what is advertising. Also I plan on going to the auction on Saturday and meeting everyone! And sorry for the long post.

 

[TangingOut]

Welcome, and nice score on the craigslist tank. Your duncans may possibly be getting too much light. Try moving it to lower light and see how it reacts. Also what temp are you running your tank at?

As for coral food, I broadcast feed a mix of reef frenzy along with others but only when I feel like it or remember to. I also spot feed LRS and mysis to the larger LPS corals, but honestly a lot of people don't feed their corals at all besides fish poo. Just clean stable water and light.

 

[Sinocard]

Welcome, and nice score on the craigslist tank. Your duncans may possibly be getting too much light. Try moving it to lower light and see how it reacts.

+1, my duncans HATE being closer to the top of the tank, they look exactly like yours.

But in the sand they're fully extended and happy. I say move them down.

 

[NurseReefer]

Thank you for the responses! Between the halide lighting, my AC, and my heater unfortunately my temperature tends to fluctuate between 77-81. I'm trying to dial it in at 78, and I'm thinking I'm going to connect a small fan to the same timer as the lights that way there's some extra cooling only when the halides are on. I'd position that fan in the space between the top top the tank and the bottom of the lights. Currently when I have my regular oscillating fan running it blasts the tank as well as the lights and it actually drops the temperature of the tank too much too quickly and so I have to pay attention to it and regulate. I'll move the duncan down to the floor and see what happens

 

[TangingOut]

Get a Ranco temp controller for that fan and you can get your fluctuations down to +/- 1

 

[NurseReefer]

How does it work? Do I plug my heater & fan into it? I looked at on on amazon and I see it has a probe but other than that there was no description

 

[TangingOut]

Yes, I plug my cabinet fan(to blow out humid air), my sump fan, and display tank fans(for evaporative cooling) into the Ranco during the spring thru fall and switch over to the heaters in the winter. They are pretty self explanatory and easy to program. Just set to either cool or heat, set the temp you want equipment to turn on, and set the range you want +/-1 to +/-3

You can also go the full controller route with Apex.

 

[Jayreefer]

welcome to the forum. and great start.

 

[NurseReefer]

Yes, Apex is certainly the dream but I can't afford all that right now and I still want to get my base system to where I want it before I add all the bells & whistles. The next big purchase I want to do for the tank is a high-output LED fixture. I found some used AI hydra 52's for a decent price, but I'm just not sure how I'd attach them while still using my current fixture.

 

[AZBigJohn]

Looks like you're off to a great start, with a great deal!

Lots of great folks here, so it's always nice to get new folks to the area.

I happen to be another "nurse reefer" and also happen to be named John. Welcome!

 

[Mael]

welcome to the group, sounds like a nice setup and great start for your system there. Ill be at the auction as well, cant beat the coral there.

 

[NurseReefer]

So I made a mistake last night. I only had 40lbs of live sand in my tank so I wanted to add 40 more. Specifically I'm using the oolite aragonite from CaribSea. I didn't rinse it because its live sand, and so sure enough when I placed it in the aquarium a dust armageddon occurred. All my fish made it the first time I placed the sand with no issues. But when I woke up this morning, I found my yellow tang dead in one of the bottom corners. Sigh, I'm frustrated with myself because I should have looked up a better way of placing sand in an existing aquarium and then I would've known about the method using pvc piping. Now I've lost my first marine fish, and my large plate montipora had an angry white spot on it that doubled in size overnight. So now my question is what do I do about the monti? The two pictures are before & after adding new sand.

 

[Frick]

Welcome to the group!

 

[full sinthetik]

Sounds like you got yourself a really nice setup. Love me some Kessils

 

[NurseReefer]

Thanks guys. I look forward to the auction on Saturday. Is their a recent thread on here that compares the high-output LED fixtures? I found some of the old threads but none included the newer line of Kessils and so I'm not sure which route I should go. I plan on heavily stocking my tank with lps, sps, and a couple clams as well. It's my only reef setup so I'm wiling to spend the $$$ necessary and well as put in the time.

 

[full sinthetik]

You should be able to keep most of those corals under the Kessils. Lots of folks are now adding T-5 supplemental lighting along with their LEDs. I Use 2 Kessils 350s, I 250w Halide and 4x 24w T5s on my 100g setup. Its a little overkill but so far its seems to be working.

 

[NurseReefer]

Well I actually sold 2 out of the 3 Kessil fixtures on ebay and made back everything I initially spent on the tank. I kept one of them to use on my quarantine tank I have yet to setup. I thought about keeping them, but they're the older models and so I can't use them with a controller nor change the spectrum or the intensity. I'm willing to spend the extra resources and get something I can adapt to mine and my corals liking. I was talkling to one of the guys at Aquatouch and he's actually not a fan of the high-output Kessil fixture, the ap700. He recommended going with the AI 52 or the Radion instead. I'm leaning more towards the AI

 

[full sinthetik]

If you ever find yourself on the East side of town shoot me a message. Will give you a few frags to play with..

 

[kjonulak]

So I made a mistake last night. I only had 40lbs of live sand in my tank so I wanted to add 40 more. Specifically I'm using the oolite aragonite from CaribSea. I didn't rinse it because its live sand, and so sure enough when I placed it in the aquarium a dust armageddon occurred. All my fish made it the first time I placed the sand with no issues. But when I woke up this morning, I found my yellow tang dead in one of the bottom corners. Sigh, I'm frustrated with myself because I should have looked up a better way of placing sand in an existing aquarium and then I would've known about the method using pvc piping. Now I've lost my first marine fish, and my large plate montipora had an angry white spot on it that doubled in size overnight. So now my question is what do I do about the monti? The two pictures are before & after adding new sand.

Have your corals improved any after adding the live sand?

 

[NurseReefer]

If you ever find yourself on the East side of town shoot me a message. Will give you a few frags to play with..

Thank you, I really appreciate that!!

Have your corals improved any after adding the live sand?

I think its too early to tell, and further more I'm a coral newbie so aside from obvious signs of distress, overall color, & size I don't really know what I'm looking for. I've had this reef tank for all of 3 weeks now and that's the extent of my saltwater & reef experience. I have the book The Conscientious Marine Aquarist by Robert Fenner so that's where I'm sourcing my marine husbandry practices. I'm looking into getting a book on corals and their care, I've heard that literature by Julian Sprung is excellent. The tank I purchased was off craigslist so it was already well-established with ample live rock covered in coraline algae. I got the live sand because the Fenner book promotes its use, however I went the oolite aragonite route (also promoted by Fenner) which I'm now regretting slightly because the grain size is so fine and my Gyre pump blasts it all over the place.