My 55 gallon mix reef tank

T

tony53176

New member
Ok here is my 55 gallon tank, its been up and running for about 5 days now.

all the rock is dry pukani rock purchased from BRS and the sand is all live sand, I added about 4 pieces of live rock to seed the tank.

so far my last test has shown:
Ammonia - 2.0ppm
Nitrite - between 0.5 and 1.0ppm
Nitrate - between 0 and 3.0 ppm

I would like to keep this thread going as a sort of journal and will post more pictures in the near future.

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Looks nice.
I have a 55 as well that is about 3 months old.
Nice job with the aquascape, I know it can be a PITA in the 55.
Subscribed!
 
Thanks!
Yeah I'll tell ya I got a lot more rock than I expected and it was a PITA to fit it all in the tank but I thought over all it came out looking fairly good.

Right now I'm pretty much just playing the waiting game :D
 
thanks guys.

While I'm at it, could anyone take a look at the pictures and tell me why the hump of sand on the left side of the tank is two different colors? The top layer is lighter than the bottom layer.
 
tony53176 said:
thanks guys.

While I'm at it, could anyone take a look at the pictures and tell me why the hump of sand on the left side of the tank is two different colors? The top layer is lighter than the bottom layer.
Click to expand...

That's just a matter of how far down the light penetrates into the sand. The light part is where the light can get to, and the bottom part is beyond its reach for the most part.

It surprised me as well - I thought it would be more of a gradual change, but it seems so abrupt.
 
CRC88 said:
That's just a matter of how far down the light penetrates into the sand. The light part is where the light can get to, and the bottom part is beyond its reach for the most part.

It surprised me as well - I thought it would be more of a gradual change, but it seems so abrupt.
Click to expand...

so I guess thats good then that my lights can penetrate into the sand about 1"?
 
tony53176 said:
so I guess thats good then that my lights can penetrate into the sand about 1"?
Click to expand...

It doesn't really matter.Light can only travel in a straight line, so the depth it penetrates is fixed based off of sand particle size. It has nothing to do with the intensity of the light really.

Better indications of your lights are what types of corals / algae your lights grow. That's a much better indicator rather than how far it penetrates into the sand.
 
CRC88 said:
It doesn't really matter.Light can only travel in a straight line, so the depth it penetrates is fixed based off of sand particle size. It has nothing to do with the intensity of the light really.

Better indications of your lights are what types of corals / algae your lights grow. That's a much better indicator rather than how far it penetrates into the sand.
Click to expand...

gotcha, good to know
 
tony53176 said:
similar!? Almost identical LOL

How long did it take for your tank to cycle? My LFS tells me that I'm close to done but I'm not buying it.
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Im not quite cycled yet. Just added a piece of live rock last week to hopefully get things going. Still registering around .25ppm ammonia.
 
tony53176 said:
similar!? Almost identical LOL

How long did it take for your tank to cycle? My LFS tells me that I'm close to done but I'm not buying it.
Click to expand...

Good for you!

It's your tank so you stay in charge of things. You're the one that has something to lose not the LFS.
 
Looks like you're off to a great start! I like the aquascaping. It looks like there's lots of room for fish to weave in and out of the rockwork, and lots of places for all the little critters to hang out during the day. What kind of fish are you planning to add?
 
Zappo said:
Looks like you're off to a great start! I like the aquascaping. It looks like there's lots of room for fish to weave in and out of the rockwork, and lots of places for all the little critters to hang out during the day. What kind of fish are you planning to add?
Click to expand...

Honestly I haven't given livestock much thought, my daughter asked me to put an ocellaris clownfish (nemo) in the tank so that will most likely be our first tenant, I would like to have a bubble tip anemone but that won't be put in until at least a year after the tank has been running, a carpenter flasher wrasse, a bi-color blenny and an algae blenny is about all I've come up with so far but to be honest thats probably all I'm going to be putting in there for a while, I would like to have a mandarin but I know that the tank has to be well established to have one of those. I'd also like to have a regal tang and yellow tang but I know that my tank is too small to house those guys, what about a kole yellow eye tang? I'll also have mostly softies and LPS for corals as I don't think that my lights will support SPS.
 
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