helitaiwan963
New member
Hey guys,
I've had the tank for about 6 years now, started back in 2005. It crashed about 2.5 years into the adventure and basically the only coral the survived till I went to college last year was a frogspawn. Then while i was at school, the original power compact lighting I had died and my dad was busy with work and i was in Iowa, The tank just sat without lighting. Needless to say, everything crashed and died. My coraline seemed to bloom under these low light conditions(it's next to a window so some light was still available)
But... the tank was still kept running and my dad would top off with RO every few weeks. I got back for summer break this year and decided to start it back up. I tested the water and everything was great! I did a 50% water change and cycled it for 2 days and I added my CUC to the tank along with a Coralife 2x18watt T5 light strip with a 10k bulb and actinc. I let the tank cycle for about another week and a half and got 2 green chromis in the tank. During this time, i started dosing the tank with things like Kent marine calcium, iodide,strontium, and a seachem marine buffer to raise the pH. Since the tank was already pretty stable from so many years, I decided i wanted more fish so I got two TR gold stripped Maroon clown fish. They are still little ones and I don't think they've changed sex's yet. They fought a lot in the beginning but now they seem to get along better and hide in the same cave.
So the bug for wanting coral started again after I saw the fish thriving so I met a local reefer that gave me 2 free kenya tree frags. I did do the research and found that these coral are extremely hardy and do well under lower light conditions. Unfortunately, one of the bigger frags died, but the smaller one is now doing extremely well and I found that it dropped two branches already?! So my research began for coral that do well under lower light conditions and settled upon what i have now in the tank, and i'm looking to expand. I purchased a small rock with a pretty big colony of pom pom xenia and found that a lot of the stalks on that rock were splitting! And they were all falling over and whatnot and i was afraid they weren't going to get enough light so I did my research about fragging them. I fragged 3 stalks to trim my rock colony and stuck them on another big piece of LR in another part of the tank and another I stuck on what was left of a dead frogspawn. I got 3 pretty cool colored zoas on that piece of xenia rock too but the xenia covered one of them up and killed it. Glad to say the xenia frags all survived and are pulsing with life! Then I got a pretty decent frag of Green Star Polyps and those are doing very well too, i'm hoping they spread up and down that middle strip you see it is on right now. Then i got a Condy anemone thinking my maroons would host it but later research told me otherwise.
Everything was doing fine with the lighting I had, but I knew for the stuff I had now to really thrive, i needed more light. So today, on my local craigslist I saw someone posted a 18" current usa nova extreme t5HO fixture that was only a month old for 30 bucks so i went and looked at it. It was in new condition so i picked it up and put it over my tank and wow! It's only been about an hour and a half and the corals all seem to be super happy! The xenia are pulsing like never before! I'm kinda unhappy that the 18" light makes the center of my tank super bright but i guess i should've expected that. I'm starting my build of a canopy tomorrow so it should be better cuz i'll be hanging the lights about 4-5" above the water so the 2 fixtures should keep the tank evenly lit up and not just have the center be super bright. The current usa fixture had a 12k daylight bulb and a 460nm actinic so it's a bit more blue compared to my Coralife, but i'll be setting my timers so the coralife turns on first then the currentusa. I'm very happy with how the tank looks with the light now and it's got 72 watts of T5 power so it should be enough for my future plans with coral. My "to get'" list is a nice piece of frogspawn and some colorful zoa's and a few more mushrooms. I'm still researching if a bubble tip anemone will do well under what lighting i have.
PS: I know the substrate sucks and i'll be adding about 5-6 lbs of white sand in it soon... but i don't want to scoop the stuff i have in there out cuz it's very active and live.
Livestock:
2x Green/blue chromis
2x TR gold striped maroon clown fish
1x Lawnmower Blenny (my favorite fishto watch in the tank!)
7x Red legged hermit crabs
4x asteria snails
1x Coral Banded shrimp
2x Peppermint Shrimp
1x Hawaiian skunk cleaner shrimp
1x Kenya Tree
8x stalks of red sea pulsing pom pom xenia
1x Frag of Green star polyps
1x Condy anemone
Equipment:
-Cps style HOB protein skimmer
-Aquatech HOB filter for occasional carbon sleeves or phosphate sponges
-100 watt heater
-1x Koralia nano powerhead
-1x Aquatec 401 powerhead
-2x Aquatec 201 powerheads
Pictures!
(i did change the nova light so it sits flat now and sorry for the glare)
And just for fun, my planted 46gal tank with 4x sub-adult red belly piranhas
Let me know what you think on anything, aquascape, placement of coral etc. I'm always looking for suggestions to improve. Also, anything on if i have enough lighting for what i want to do as far as coral goes would be great... i'm currently the most iffy on bubble tip anemone's. I've read they do best under MH lights. Being a college student in the hobby, my funds just aren't there to invest so much under lighting.
Thanks
Eric
I've had the tank for about 6 years now, started back in 2005. It crashed about 2.5 years into the adventure and basically the only coral the survived till I went to college last year was a frogspawn. Then while i was at school, the original power compact lighting I had died and my dad was busy with work and i was in Iowa, The tank just sat without lighting. Needless to say, everything crashed and died. My coraline seemed to bloom under these low light conditions(it's next to a window so some light was still available)
But... the tank was still kept running and my dad would top off with RO every few weeks. I got back for summer break this year and decided to start it back up. I tested the water and everything was great! I did a 50% water change and cycled it for 2 days and I added my CUC to the tank along with a Coralife 2x18watt T5 light strip with a 10k bulb and actinc. I let the tank cycle for about another week and a half and got 2 green chromis in the tank. During this time, i started dosing the tank with things like Kent marine calcium, iodide,strontium, and a seachem marine buffer to raise the pH. Since the tank was already pretty stable from so many years, I decided i wanted more fish so I got two TR gold stripped Maroon clown fish. They are still little ones and I don't think they've changed sex's yet. They fought a lot in the beginning but now they seem to get along better and hide in the same cave.
So the bug for wanting coral started again after I saw the fish thriving so I met a local reefer that gave me 2 free kenya tree frags. I did do the research and found that these coral are extremely hardy and do well under lower light conditions. Unfortunately, one of the bigger frags died, but the smaller one is now doing extremely well and I found that it dropped two branches already?! So my research began for coral that do well under lower light conditions and settled upon what i have now in the tank, and i'm looking to expand. I purchased a small rock with a pretty big colony of pom pom xenia and found that a lot of the stalks on that rock were splitting! And they were all falling over and whatnot and i was afraid they weren't going to get enough light so I did my research about fragging them. I fragged 3 stalks to trim my rock colony and stuck them on another big piece of LR in another part of the tank and another I stuck on what was left of a dead frogspawn. I got 3 pretty cool colored zoas on that piece of xenia rock too but the xenia covered one of them up and killed it. Glad to say the xenia frags all survived and are pulsing with life! Then I got a pretty decent frag of Green Star Polyps and those are doing very well too, i'm hoping they spread up and down that middle strip you see it is on right now. Then i got a Condy anemone thinking my maroons would host it but later research told me otherwise.
Everything was doing fine with the lighting I had, but I knew for the stuff I had now to really thrive, i needed more light. So today, on my local craigslist I saw someone posted a 18" current usa nova extreme t5HO fixture that was only a month old for 30 bucks so i went and looked at it. It was in new condition so i picked it up and put it over my tank and wow! It's only been about an hour and a half and the corals all seem to be super happy! The xenia are pulsing like never before! I'm kinda unhappy that the 18" light makes the center of my tank super bright but i guess i should've expected that. I'm starting my build of a canopy tomorrow so it should be better cuz i'll be hanging the lights about 4-5" above the water so the 2 fixtures should keep the tank evenly lit up and not just have the center be super bright. The current usa fixture had a 12k daylight bulb and a 460nm actinic so it's a bit more blue compared to my Coralife, but i'll be setting my timers so the coralife turns on first then the currentusa. I'm very happy with how the tank looks with the light now and it's got 72 watts of T5 power so it should be enough for my future plans with coral. My "to get'" list is a nice piece of frogspawn and some colorful zoa's and a few more mushrooms. I'm still researching if a bubble tip anemone will do well under what lighting i have.
PS: I know the substrate sucks and i'll be adding about 5-6 lbs of white sand in it soon... but i don't want to scoop the stuff i have in there out cuz it's very active and live.
Livestock:
2x Green/blue chromis
2x TR gold striped maroon clown fish
1x Lawnmower Blenny (my favorite fishto watch in the tank!)
7x Red legged hermit crabs
4x asteria snails
1x Coral Banded shrimp
2x Peppermint Shrimp
1x Hawaiian skunk cleaner shrimp
1x Kenya Tree
8x stalks of red sea pulsing pom pom xenia
1x Frag of Green star polyps
1x Condy anemone
Equipment:
-Cps style HOB protein skimmer
-Aquatech HOB filter for occasional carbon sleeves or phosphate sponges
-100 watt heater
-1x Koralia nano powerhead
-1x Aquatec 401 powerhead
-2x Aquatec 201 powerheads
Pictures!
(i did change the nova light so it sits flat now and sorry for the glare)
And just for fun, my planted 46gal tank with 4x sub-adult red belly piranhas
Let me know what you think on anything, aquascape, placement of coral etc. I'm always looking for suggestions to improve. Also, anything on if i have enough lighting for what i want to do as far as coral goes would be great... i'm currently the most iffy on bubble tip anemone's. I've read they do best under MH lights. Being a college student in the hobby, my funds just aren't there to invest so much under lighting.
Thanks
Eric
