ACBlinky
Premium Member
My parents have shown a sudden interest in keeping a reef (with my help), so we're thinking of giving them our 65g and starting fresh with a 90g tank. It would give them a tank that's up and running quickly, and allow me the opportunity to learn more by designing my first drilled tank with a sump/fuge. If we do this, I plan to run the new tank fishless (or possibly with one fish, a Talbot's damsel I don't really want to give up) for six months to a year, adding frags slowly over the months once the tank is fully cycled. The first time around I rushed things. This time 'round I'd like to see a tank develop slowly without grazing fish or too heavy of a CUC, get the pod population up to rediculous proportions and eventually keep only a few small, reef-safe fish (a Talbot's damsel and maybe a clown pair are on the short list).
The reason I'm posting this in the zoa forum is this: while I was thinking about the possible design of this tank, I tried to imagine the corals I'd most like to keep (so I can choose appropriate lighting and not have to upgrade later). Over and over, I came back to the zoas. If I could only keep ONE coral from the 65g it would be my small pale pink and silver/white colony. They came as hitchhikers, just two little closed polyps, and have grown into something really beautiful -- it doesn't hurt that pink is my favourite colour, I'm a girly girl, what can I say?
So... I'm thinking of doing the tank with nothing but zoas. I really only like the small polyps that sit tight to the rockwork, with the exception of yellow polyps, but I may not include them because they'd look different from all the others (shape). I'm envisioning what I'd end up with; hopefully it would look like a field of wildflowers. I'd love to have as many colours as possible, and eventually see a riot of colour in the tank.
Ideally I'd like to light the tank with 2 x 150W MH (10 000K or 14 000K) and T5 actinics. I'd run skimmerless for the first months, then add one if it seemed necessary (with the tank fishless or nearly so, and essentially unfed, I'm not sure it will be needed at all and might actually remove beneficial phyto/rotifers etc.) There will be a fuge full of chaeto, a DSB -- my aim is to keep the tank very natural.
Thoughts? I'm open to suggestions or opinions
The reason I'm posting this in the zoa forum is this: while I was thinking about the possible design of this tank, I tried to imagine the corals I'd most like to keep (so I can choose appropriate lighting and not have to upgrade later). Over and over, I came back to the zoas. If I could only keep ONE coral from the 65g it would be my small pale pink and silver/white colony. They came as hitchhikers, just two little closed polyps, and have grown into something really beautiful -- it doesn't hurt that pink is my favourite colour, I'm a girly girl, what can I say?
So... I'm thinking of doing the tank with nothing but zoas. I really only like the small polyps that sit tight to the rockwork, with the exception of yellow polyps, but I may not include them because they'd look different from all the others (shape). I'm envisioning what I'd end up with; hopefully it would look like a field of wildflowers. I'd love to have as many colours as possible, and eventually see a riot of colour in the tank.
Ideally I'd like to light the tank with 2 x 150W MH (10 000K or 14 000K) and T5 actinics. I'd run skimmerless for the first months, then add one if it seemed necessary (with the tank fishless or nearly so, and essentially unfed, I'm not sure it will be needed at all and might actually remove beneficial phyto/rotifers etc.) There will be a fuge full of chaeto, a DSB -- my aim is to keep the tank very natural.
Thoughts? I'm open to suggestions or opinions
