My first reef tank- 5.5g AGA

colin- Im not sure how many watts the lights are, they are the lights which came with my 20g hood.

rodgod20- is it alright to do small water changes while waiting for a cycle?
 
u'll be fine man, they are polyps, not bubble algae. dont stress over it, things dont die super fast, and this hobby isnt that hard to keep up. (just have lotsa money :) )


u'll be fine, just get ur lights, no stress, and let nature run its course. the less ur hands are in the water, the better it is.


my 1 advice, get more LR, put it in the dipslay. you dont need to do a water change while waiting for a cycle.... it defeats the purpose, lol.

get more LR because of its biological filtration properties. u'll be happier with it too. if you need advice, just PM me anytime.
 
Its been a while so I thought I would update my progress. I just got a new coral today. I think its a frogspawn. What do you guys think? I'm not sure how I should place it, what do you guys suggest? Thanks!

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Also, what do you guys recomend for a reflector in the hood. Would Aluminum foil work?

I also got a feather duster 2 weeks ago, but it has seemed to have died. I heard that the reapear sometimes, so i just left his tube in the tank. The tube seems to be empy. What do you guys think I should do?
 
I had a feather duster which I threw away after about a week of not seeing it come out. I thought that maybe I killed it when I had it out of the water for a second.


I now wish I had of left it in the tank for longer. They do apparently reappear. It may have popped its top off too, and is only going to come out once it has grown a new substantial one.


As far as reflectors go.... Cheap and dirty solutions include cutting a tall boy beer can in half and putting it around your lights, they seem to be the right shape. Just polish the aluminum up a bit first.


Also white paint is a pretty effective reflector and so painting the inside of your canopy would help to improve lighting efficiency.
 
if feather dusters get stressed they somtimes "lose" there feathers. they ussualy grow back. try leaving it in the tank for a little longer if you see it start to break up into peices over time and still hasnt come out chanses are its dead.
 
how are thows lights working out for you? i was thinking of doing a setup just like that for my 5.5. are you able to maintain corals? people tell me that the light looks pink. is that true?
 
The lights are great so far. They have a great bluish color. As far as the pink looking light i havnt seen that on my bulbs. My corals hav'nt been growing but ive only had my tank for about 2 months.
 
The beer can idea is better than the alum foil. I read on here somewhere that foil wasnt a good choice. what about mylar like they use on those remote control airplanes. thats pretty shiny.

Or you could check with the LFS for an old mh reflector and shine it up.
 
thanks for the help! How would i shine a beer can up? Just clean it very well or do i need to use some kind of polish
 
alright awesome thanks for letting me know about that cause i wasnt to sure about the whole pink thing i did some resaerch and found that coralife atualy have a pink bulb so maby thats what it was. it sounds like you can just polish up a beer can with maby some chrome polish and a soft cloth.
 
actualy now that i think of it, my friend try to use thows little mirrors that they sell at the doller store and he said it worked pretty good i was thinking of trying that with my 5.5 he got like 3 for each light and glued them together to make kind of like a half circle im going to give it a shot when im ready for it.
 
I dont know if it will like that very much. You can try to bury the stalk in the sand, so it stands upright... OR (what i did) you can go to Home Depot and get a $3 tube of this epoxy called "AquaMend" and cement the stalk to your rocks. Hope this helps.
 
I moved the frogspawn like MrMexReefer suggested. Thanks for the help. Here are some pics, sorry the tank is so dirty

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