Hi all,
I'm having issues with my chinese blackbox lights, and although they have served me well for the first year of my tank, I think it's time for an upgrade. Tank is a little over a year old.
Given the 30 inch height, I'm looking to get a bit more light penetration than my black boxes, and less red spectrum.
My budget is going to make you laugh, I'm trying to get away with only spending $400 at once so that the wife doesn't kill me. I'm totally aware that I'm trying to squeeze blood from a stone.
So let me know what kind of ideas you have!
Inhabitants are as follows:
Coral 4 LPS frags
a large zoa colony
2 zoa frags
1 fist sized rock covered with palythoa.
Inverts
1 Cleaner Shrimp
3 Peppermint Shrimp
5 Emerald Craps
3-4 Trochus Snails that were sold to me as Mexican Turbos
5~ Nessarius Snails
5~ Astrea Snails
1 Neon Blue Leg Hermit
1 Fist-sized crab that I can't identify. Sold to me as an emerald crab, and I think NOT. Also I think he's eating my coral, any ideas on how to get him out would be great. I baited a net for him and he dragged the net back to his lair, which he has dug out under some rocks. Smaller fish are also going missing.
1 RBTA
3 Pink Urchins. They ruin everything.
Fish
3 Black Chromis with gold tails
1 Yellow Tang
1 Dragon Goby
1 Lawnmower Blenny
1 Six Line Wrasse
2 Clarky Clowns
Sidenote (maybe should be a different post?), the following creatures went completely missing with no recoverable body, and I have looked all over the place.
1 Sleeperheaded Goby (my first fish!)
1 Shark Head Goby - So tiny, I'm willing to believe that he may have adventured into a powerhead.
1 Tridacna Derasa whos shell I found empty, just outside the lair of the demon crab.
1 Lyretail Anthias. Had him for a few months, and he just disappeared.
1 Toaster-sized rock completely covered in beautiful pulsing xenia has been picked completely clean. Decline did not begin until after the Six Line Wrasse and RBTA were added, but I've never observed him nipping at anything, and the lives on a different rock.
Setup
4 Hydor Koralia powerheads pointing at each other, with one slightly angled upwards to move surface scum towards....
1 Octopus HOB 2000 Skimmer - Pulling nice dark skimmate out. Probably took a month to tune.
1 HOB overflow box from Aqueon. It's garbage, and I'd love ideas on what to replace it with as well, because I don't think my tank turnover is high enough, and it's being limited by this box, not the pump.
1 BRS 2 stage Carbon & GFO reactor. Currently not running GFO, Phosphates are already reading undetectable by the API kit (I know I should have a better one!)
1 Ebay Algae scrubber, lit by a standard worklight that clips on the inside of the stand. Seems to be working great, lots of the algae occurs only in the sump.
1 Brand new RO/DI resin from RO Buddy, TDS reads at 0.
2 70 watt heaters in sump
1 Filter Sock - rotated on a 3-4 day basis, sometimes I forget and it goes a week.
2 Mars Hydro Chinese Black Box lights that were clearly made for growing something besides coral.
I don't think I'm forgetting anything, but feel free to jump in if it sounds like I've missed something completely
Parameters have both Nitrates and Phosphates undetectable for about a month now on my API kits. PH floats between 7.9-8.3, I dose Kalk when I see it dipping too low. I dosed vodka for a month and it did wonders. Unfortunately a lot of my coral is just not happy, and I've had some fish die off and I'm not sure what to do.
Any help with either that or my light situation would be much appreciated!
I'm having issues with my chinese blackbox lights, and although they have served me well for the first year of my tank, I think it's time for an upgrade. Tank is a little over a year old.
Given the 30 inch height, I'm looking to get a bit more light penetration than my black boxes, and less red spectrum.
My budget is going to make you laugh, I'm trying to get away with only spending $400 at once so that the wife doesn't kill me. I'm totally aware that I'm trying to squeeze blood from a stone.
So let me know what kind of ideas you have!
Inhabitants are as follows:
Coral 4 LPS frags
a large zoa colony
2 zoa frags
1 fist sized rock covered with palythoa.
Inverts
1 Cleaner Shrimp
3 Peppermint Shrimp
5 Emerald Craps
3-4 Trochus Snails that were sold to me as Mexican Turbos
5~ Nessarius Snails
5~ Astrea Snails
1 Neon Blue Leg Hermit
1 Fist-sized crab that I can't identify. Sold to me as an emerald crab, and I think NOT. Also I think he's eating my coral, any ideas on how to get him out would be great. I baited a net for him and he dragged the net back to his lair, which he has dug out under some rocks. Smaller fish are also going missing.
1 RBTA
3 Pink Urchins. They ruin everything.
Fish
3 Black Chromis with gold tails
1 Yellow Tang
1 Dragon Goby
1 Lawnmower Blenny
1 Six Line Wrasse
2 Clarky Clowns
Sidenote (maybe should be a different post?), the following creatures went completely missing with no recoverable body, and I have looked all over the place.
1 Sleeperheaded Goby (my first fish!)
1 Shark Head Goby - So tiny, I'm willing to believe that he may have adventured into a powerhead.
1 Tridacna Derasa whos shell I found empty, just outside the lair of the demon crab.
1 Lyretail Anthias. Had him for a few months, and he just disappeared.
1 Toaster-sized rock completely covered in beautiful pulsing xenia has been picked completely clean. Decline did not begin until after the Six Line Wrasse and RBTA were added, but I've never observed him nipping at anything, and the lives on a different rock.
Setup
4 Hydor Koralia powerheads pointing at each other, with one slightly angled upwards to move surface scum towards....
1 Octopus HOB 2000 Skimmer - Pulling nice dark skimmate out. Probably took a month to tune.
1 HOB overflow box from Aqueon. It's garbage, and I'd love ideas on what to replace it with as well, because I don't think my tank turnover is high enough, and it's being limited by this box, not the pump.
1 BRS 2 stage Carbon & GFO reactor. Currently not running GFO, Phosphates are already reading undetectable by the API kit (I know I should have a better one!)
1 Ebay Algae scrubber, lit by a standard worklight that clips on the inside of the stand. Seems to be working great, lots of the algae occurs only in the sump.
1 Brand new RO/DI resin from RO Buddy, TDS reads at 0.
2 70 watt heaters in sump
1 Filter Sock - rotated on a 3-4 day basis, sometimes I forget and it goes a week.
2 Mars Hydro Chinese Black Box lights that were clearly made for growing something besides coral.
I don't think I'm forgetting anything, but feel free to jump in if it sounds like I've missed something completely
Parameters have both Nitrates and Phosphates undetectable for about a month now on my API kits. PH floats between 7.9-8.3, I dose Kalk when I see it dipping too low. I dosed vodka for a month and it did wonders. Unfortunately a lot of my coral is just not happy, and I've had some fish die off and I'm not sure what to do.
Any help with either that or my light situation would be much appreciated!
