Safe to add a BTA now?

[Tautoga]

I posted this in the New section and I cant get an answer so I am going to try here.

Id like to know if it is safe for me to add a BTA to my 75 gallon tank.

Here is the description of the tank and its progress

Tank set up in Sept 2015: salt water mixed using ro/di water; 4 bags of live sand and about 70 lbs of dry base rock added

Oct: diatom bloom started and lasted about 2 weeks or so

Oct 16: 3 inch melanurus wrasse added (I know it's not acceptable to cycle with fish now....a lot has changed since I was last paying attention in the hobby).

Weekly Nutrient testing in Oct - mid Nov: NH3 0, NO2 0, NO3 0, PO4 0. API tests which I now know can be inaccurate.

Nov 24: H2O testing still NH3 0, NO2 0, NO3 0....tank not cycling? Wrasse being fed 1/8 of a mysis cube per day.

Nov 28: added 2 inch tomato clown, 2 inch diamond watchman goby, 3 small hermits, 2 conch about 1.5-2 inches increased feeding.

Dec 4: add one 10 pound piece of live rock for additional seeding.

Dec 8: NH3 0-0.2, NO2 0, NO3 5, PO4 0

Dec 12: 10 gallon water change

Dec 13: H2O testing
Temp: 78, sg/sal: 1.026/35 ppt, pH: 8.1
NH3: 0, NO2: 0, NO3: 5
KH: 10, CAL: 520, Mg: 1540
K: 455, Fe: 0, Iodide: 0.06

Equipment
10 gal sump, 125 gal cap protein skimmer, fluval 405 canister filter (100 gal cap/300+ gph), 2 1200 gph powerheads on each end of the tank, 1 800 gph powerhead pointing behind the larger rockwork, 200 gal rated heater (now in the sump), chiller, 48 inch Fluval sea marine and reef 2.0 led.

Soon to be added as soon as it arrives (should arrive today): 48-60 inch Current USA Orbit Marine Reef led.

The canister has 4 chambers. The lower 2 have biomedical (ceramic pieces) and the top 2 have the carbon and silica remover mix (forget the name at but they are small round black and white particles).

Skimmer is producing mostly white/slightly off white foam. It's been operating correctly for a few days. It wasnt foaming until I connected an air pump to it.

I do still have some Diatoms here and there on the rocks but nothing major, it comes and goes.

The live rock came with 1 mushroom coral that is still alive so far. I may have to dial back the current for it a bit. When I turn off the pumps to feed, it seems to expand more than when they are on. It does curl up at night a bit when the lights are off.

I feed 1 cube of mysis a day (half in the morning and half at night), a pinch of marine flake for the clown who seems to like them in addition to the mysis and a couple pinches of tiny pellets for the goby to sift from the sand.
*(Note as per recommendation in the other thread this food will be cut in half)*

The wrasse and hermits also eat some of them. So far everyone eats well and looks and acts healthy and happy and no signs of disease so far.

So if you're still with me...lol

I would like to get a bta for my clown after I get the second light fixture on it. The tank seems to be done cycling.
Would that be acceptable or is it still too soon? I want to get the nem before any corals so it can move around and find its spot.

Thanks for reading.

 

[TrevorHenry]

Id add a small one, and go from there. If you have had parameters that have been stable I'd go ahead with it.

 

[shifty51008]

To be honest those lights are not very good, even with both on the tank i wouldnt try an anemone until you get better lights. Youll be fine with softies.

If you can return the orbit marine light and buy 2 marsaqua lights off ebay, cheap but more powerful than what you will have.

 

[Tautoga]

UGH!!! Lighting is so frustrating!!

I am a bit leery of Chinese products that don't have a UL listing because of the low to nonexistent production standards over there. Seriously, these are the people that use lead paint on toys.... I really don't want to burn my house down with shoddy lights. There is no good product description on those lights on Ebay so how do I know what I am buying will work any better than what I've got?

The 165 watt marsaqua is only 15 inches long so even two won't adequately cover the tank (?) The 300 watt is 31 inches long so 2 of those don't cover the whole tank either..

Is there nothing sold in the U.S. by a U.S. company with a safety rating that will fit on a standard tank and work without me having to remortgage my house to buy?

Thank you for the response

 

[rffanat1c]

Safe to add a BTA now?

I've got two marsaqua 165. They cover a 90 gallon just fine. And the black box LEDs sold in the US are just Chinese ones repurposed or built with better fans or heat sinks I believe.

Hardly anyone makes a 48" light. Even with ecotech radions you need two for a 4' tank

 

[Zane24]

I have a large rbta in my biocube with stock lighting. It's grown really fast and has split into 2. I would recommend waiting a few months. I lost 2 btas early on. I thought the tank was ready and stable, but they really need a mature tank to help ensure success.

 

[lifeoffaith]

I would wait until a year to be safe, but you could do it a little earlier as long as things are stable and you have decent lights.

 

[Zane24]

I agree with 9 months to a year. You'll have much better success that way

 

[shifty51008]

I agree i wouldnt trust certain things either, everyone has stuff they dont trust.

If you wanna keep setup costs low you could do a 6-8 bulb t5 retro if you have a canopy, or you could do dual 175-250 watt mh's, you can find setup's for a cheap price. I run dual 250's on my 75 gal and the bta's do great.

Led's imo are not for beginners as there are to many things that you can mess up, with spectrum, par, ect so unless you have access to a par meter so you cam adjust them properly they can be confusing to some people.

 

[Tautoga]

The frustrating thing is the fact that you can't get a straight answer looking at products. I've come to the conclusion that half the reviews are BS. So many say something like: "just put one on my tank month ago, my LPS and SPS and BTA all LOVE it....." or "this light can grow corals, blah blah blah...." Of course the companies dont help with their product naming. The problem is I am not familiar with the current technology enough yet.

I'm not new to aquarium lighting/light in the aquatic and marine environment. I grow tropical trees under lights indoors (slightly different animal I know). I have a fresh water planted tank for 10 years that is overgrown with very happy plants. I worked in Seagrass science for a few years and used PAR meter to measure light in the bay. Unfortunately I don't have access to it anymore.

 

[Jeff4777]

Think the lighting is a bit low. Also looking at the timeline of your tank, seems as though the tank is still settling and a relatively new system.

 

[Tautoga]

Think the lighting is a bit low. Also looking at the timeline of your tank, seems as though the tank is still settling and a relatively new system.

Yes. I'm learning the lights will probably be too low for anything but soft coral and maybe LPS. Def too low for SPS and BTA. Wish product descriptions were more detailed and up front....I could have saved some money. :furious:

Now I'll have to wait til I can afford better lighting or give up on nems and almost all corals....

And yes the tank has been up for 3 months

 

[Jeff4777]

Yes. I'm learning the lights will probably be too low for anything but soft coral and maybe LPS. Def too low for SPS and BTA. Wish product descriptions were more detailed and up front....I could have saved some money. :furious:

Now I'll have to wait til I can afford better lighting or give up on nems and almost all corals....

And yes the tank has been up for 3 months

yeah man the lighting cost some $$$ and the wives usually aren't happy about that. lol

 

[Tautoga]

I have a large rbta in my biocube with stock lighting. It's grown really fast and has split into 2. I would recommend waiting a few months. I lost 2 btas early on. I thought the tank was ready and stable, but they really need a mature tank to help ensure success.

Mind sharing the specs on your cube?

I'm thinking about maybe setting up a smaller nem only tank. 40 gal or so maybe.

Thanks

 

[Dkuhlmann]

I have the Chinese black box LED and love it. It's more light than I need on my 40b. I only have one so I've got shading on both sides about 6" each. But this works out well for me having a mix of corals SPS, LPS and softies/leathers. I run them at 100% blues and no more than 50% whites as they're too bright above 50% Can't beat them for $83 including shipping

 

[Bogue Chitto]

Based on my experience with bubbles, You probably need to wait a while yet. Mine looked good for a few days then started moving around and finally got smaller then died.

 

[Tautoga]

Yeah I decided to wait and figure out what Im gona do.

Since my hitchhiker mushroom has been doing pretty well, I went to the LFS and bought a couple of cheap frags (a mushroom and some kind of purple large polyp coral - caulastrea or lobophyllia) just to see how they do in my tank. Might just concentrate on soft corals and LPS in the 75 which the lights I have should handle.

I also got a couple of skunk cleaner shrimp.

I am actually contemplating a second smaller tank (around 30-40 gallons) to make a nem only tank with a clownfish. Thinking of changing my setup to link both tanks into one system with a larger sump. Pretty sure my chiller is rated at at least 125 gallons or more (I have to check, but I usually buy equipment over the needs of the current system). My protein skimmer is rated for 125 and if I need to I can just get a second one.

A smaller nem tank would allow me to get a smaller light fixture which would be cheaper to buy. Besides the tank, stand and light all I would really need is a larger sump a pump and the PVC to do the piping. I did a setup where I worked over 10 years ago with 2 125 gallon tanks together on one system. It wasnt hard to do and it ran good.

Adding the tank and bigger sump would require going through the wall behind the current tank to my soon to be fish room. I have a sink and area where I can move my RO/DI to and have my make up water container all close by instead of in my furnace room now. I just have to convince my husband to let me put a 6 inch by 6 inch hole in the wall for the plumbing...lol. Not sure how thats gona go yet.

 

[edinphilly]

I agree that it's too soon for the nem, but I disagree on the lights. I have the smaller Current and a fluval reef strip light over a 29 and have kept LPS, RBTA, and "beginner" SPS successfully. As in 1-2 years and getting good growth.

 

[Bogue Chitto]

What a switch, most husbands are trying to convince their wives to let them do things...haha!

 

[Tautoga]

What a switch, most husbands are trying to convince their wives to let them do things...haha!

lol....this is what happens when the wife is a marine biologist and as much a fish head as the husband. He never kept fish tanks but he has been an avid fisherman his whole life. We go fishing together every weekend in the spring, summer, fall and Ive kept fish tanks for most of 30 years. Ive had mostly freshwater fish tanks up until now. I have a 44 gallon freshwater planted tank that has been running for at least 10 years. I am expanding my horizons so to speak and exploring keeping corals.

He thinks its cool that the current tank has lots of things going on in it now. He particularly seems to like the hermit crabs I have in there. He checks the tank several times a day to see whats going on.

I mentioned my thoughts to him on the second tank and so far I got a "We will have to look into that"....lol