Tank of the Month - October 2007

i'm running 624 watts t5 on my 210 but my coral are not as colorful as i'd like. because my parameters testing good, i think i have the wrong amount of atinic to 11K. they are evenly distributed a 1 to 1 ratio. i notice a loss of coral color going more to pastel colors. i'm in the process of downsizing to a 90 and will use 6 t5's but will use 2 atinic, 2 blues and possibly 2 - 11K or 1 - 11K and one ati procolor (i think that's what the ati bulb is called all others are gieseman bulbs. what do you think of the bulb selection?
 
Corals can and do change color. The same coral under 65k bulb will tend to be browner. This is an actual color change in the tissue diue to the zoanthellae and concentration of natural pigments.

Actinics have a sufficiently high enough wavelength that they cause the pigments to fluoresce, notable the blues and greens. They do not really lead to fluorescence of the pink-red colors though.

Nutrient levels in the water will also affect coral coloration...not just the perceived color.

I have purchased many brown out corals. They are brown when they go into the tank and take a month or so to color up. I have also bough colored corals from people as frags only to see them change quite drastically in my tank compared to theirs.

so yes...corals do change color depening on the light, the intensity and the nutrients in the tank.
 
After reading you TOTM issue you stated that you no longer have hermits or snails, what then do you have as a cleanup crew and approximately how many? IMHO, i think the room you have the tank in and the cabinetry is also beautiful, if possible I personally would put a dining table in there and of course have the head of the table facing the tank, my seat :D. It would make a great dining experience.
 
THat's nice to know that brown-out can change. I just put my new 14K HQI's in last night and altho nice it didn't alter the color much on my sps's. The Diver's Den pics had all these nice colors... now they're brown. So... what do you mean by nutrients.. specific stuff (food, Ca+, trace elements?).. or just in general?

What do you use for sps glue? Do you use anything to stick rock together?

By 3:1 do you mean wattage or just the # of bulbs?
 
Reefs:

There was a table in that room:
heres a pic from before I added the false wall:
tank-quarterfull.jpg


and this was the room before I added the tank.
diningroom2.jpg


The room itself has yet to be furnished. I intend to make a bar the same as the cabinetry of the tank to fit into a bay window. Add some book cases and a large (LARGE) leather couch.....what more could a guy ask for.
 
AS far as snails and hermits go....I do not have any. I dont have a clean up crew at all. The only things that could be considered as such would be the two conchs, the cucumber and a red serpent star.

Paul.
 
wattage, or number...its the same.

I use superglue gel glue.

As for nutrients, any protein, phosphate or nitrate in the water can lead to loss of color. --as can too low Ca or Alk.

Paul.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11311187#post11311187 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pwhitby
AS far as snails and hermits go....I do not have any. I don't have a clean up crew at all. The only things that could be considered as such would be the two conchs, the cucumber and a red serpent star.

Paul.
Click to expand...
Same here.....I don't think after all this years i find snails /hermits to be a necessity in my reef tank .
 
I'm sure all the people who sell this stuff would be very unhappy to hear that. I hardly have had any in my tank for a few years now. Maybe it's mostly b/c we're talking about really well established tanks. But I also had some crabs eating some of my yellow colonial polyps. Probably another sign that I didn't need them since there wasn't much for them to eat. I also read that crabs wait for you to put fresh food in and don't take care of much waste. Some snails are good... never had a conch. Right now I have a few sandsifting snails, sand star, and a big black cucumber. They all clean the sand for me well.
 
Clean from what? Algae, detrius, excess food? Algae is always a constant fight.. off and on. Clean the sand to get rid of the rest. Keep nutrients down, run a refugium to combat algae. The cucumber I have cleans the sand all day. Sand sifting snails comes up out of the sand everytime I feed to clean up. I just put some new sand in so right now it's ultra white and clean. I'm still working on how to keep it that way myself. But over time it does seem to accumulate too much for the tank to get rid of. I cleaned it up, took out some, put in a small bag of live sand.. good as new. My old sand was about 3-4 years old.
 
i really dont do anything to keep the sand clean.

Remember I have a pretty good skimmer, so Im guessing it removes most of the nutrients before they have time to settle and cause algal blooms.

The conchs stire the sand I guess, but that is it.

Paul.
 
Do you do 100 hour burn-ins when you get new bulbs? Sorta like QT'n your lighting.

I was also wondering when I changed my HQI bulbs out... I didn't have any new actinics on me.. should I change the actinics too? I've read about how 20K bulbs aren't really useful to corals much. Is the main reason we use 20K actinics is just to simulate dawn/dush.. or do clams or something really use it? I also wondered if I'm reading about how sps's don't really use 20K bulbs of any type for growth then why are they all over frag tanks? THat's what I remember reading. Maybe they are useful but you just get more growth with 10K.
 
i dont use MH, so there is no requirement for a burn in.

actinics do provide a useful color spectrum for growth. I have seen many tanks with just 20K bulbs that have great growth.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11327463#post11327463 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pwhitby
i dont use MH, so there is no requirement for a burn in.

actinics do provide a useful color spectrum for growth. I have seen many tanks with just 20K bulbs that have great growth.
Click to expand...

What Giesemann T-5 bulb are you using the Aqua Blue+ and the Actinic+?
 
What do you use to glue your corals to rock? Hopefully it's an underwater solution. Did you use anything to glue rock together too?
 
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