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Having a bit of an issue with my 24g AP.. I added a small frag of red zoanthids, small frag of pulsing xenia, a coco worm, and a nassarius snail on the 2nd. When I got home from work the day after that, I noticed that both nassarius snails in the tank are at the very brim looking like they're trying to get out, and my GSP is completely closed up. The GSP came back a bit the next day, and was looking like normal this afternoon. Within the last hour, though, the GSP closed up again and the snails made the trek back to the brim of the tank. When the GSP closed up, I noticed that my largest hermit was crawling on it, so I suspected that it just closed up because of that, but the snails at the top again worry me. I tested the ammonia, nitrate, and phosphate levels -- all 0. I'm going to pick up a pH test kit tomorrow. Perhaps it is swinging too wildly throughout the day and pissing off the tank inhabitants? If that is the case, should I use a buffer or adjust the lighting duration (or both)? Any other ideas? edit: the zoanthids don't seem affected, but the xenia closed up this time. my frog spawn also closed up a little bit as well.
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Feb 7, 2009 05:17
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Psimitry posted:If you have a glass thermometer, check to see if it's cracked. No glass, two digital thermometers. Heater is plastic as well.
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Feb 7, 2009 18:01
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optikalus posted:GSP problems After much observation, it appears that my hermits are pissing off the GSP. One hermit in particular (the largest one in my tank) will cross over the entire patch until its all closed up. I can't see it physically attacking it, but something is obviously happening as the GSP doesn't want to open back up right away. What should I do about rogue hermits?
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Feb 13, 2009 18:09
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Hood Ornament posted:Eagerly awaiting critters from LiveAquaria today. Have you bought from them before? I'm curious as to how well the stuff do in shipping from them. I bought from Drs. Foster & Smith before and shipping was amazing -- >100lbs of stuff for like $16 shipping. I've currently got 2 sexies in my 24, but wouldn't mind a few more -- they're so awesome. I figure that they're hard enough to get that I'd hold off on getting any more so that other people can have their fun. How do you plan on feeding your pipefish and seahorses? Are you going to dose copepods regularly or ? I'd love to have a 6g pico with a seahorse or two.
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Feb 17, 2009 20:18
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Vitae posted:So far so good on our 20 gallon saltwater tank, we've had 1 casualty so far and thats the peppermint shrimp.. we have no idea what happened to the shrimp except he disappeared. Deja vu from a couple pages back in this thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2867783&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=7#post353313282 As far as the peppermint shrimp is concerned, if you have a decent amount of rockwork, they'll hide either between, around, under or inside of your rocks, especially after they molt.
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Feb 22, 2009 23:04
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Psimitry posted:If you absolutely must have crabs, keep it to hermits. And then, only to scarlet hermits. They're the most reef and fish safe of the bunch. What do you suggest in place of hermits? I've not been that fond of mine ever since the first few days I put them in the tank and they removed the outer 1/8" layer of rock from all my cured liverock -- I can only imagine they had a reason for that, but I don't know. Now I see one of my largest hermits trampling my GSP (which I actually like and allow to take over a large portion of my tank) FWIW, I trust my arrow crab more than my hermits heh. I kept a very close eye on it when I added it, but he doesn't touch the shrimp or fish. He has eaten two hermits -- but no idea if they were already dead or not (I think I had too many hermits anyways)
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Feb 26, 2009 02:12
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VyperRDH posted:Chiming in on the emerald crabs not being entirely reef safe. I have no fish missing but the other day I caught my emerald plucking my mushrooms and zoanthoids off their rocks. He didn't eat any, just popped them off and watched them float away. haha what a dick. I caught my peppermint shrimp eating one of my mushrooms the other day. It sucks when you see that poo poo, but what can you do?
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Feb 26, 2009 04:39
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Psimitry posted:As far as hitchhikers, I have to admit that I'm kinda chuckling with that. You're pretty much implying that you're terrified of them and the potential hostile organisms you may be introducing to your tank, and yet you're willing to "risk it" with a known hostile species of crab. The only hitchhickers I worry about are fireworms or mantis shrimp, and even then, they're not a big concern (and an arrow crab fucks up fireworms so no big deal). I don't think he's realizing that hitchhikers or their eggs can come on coral frags just as easily as live rock. I've got my share of worms and snails from all sources. Even the fireworms are arguably beneficial -- they'll eat detrius and other poo poo on the rocks / sand. Even if you happen to get a sundial snail, I can't imagine that they'll destroy your zoos faster than you can react to them. However, I will say that half the reason I got an arrow crab was to keep the fireworm population at bay, but I haven't actually seen it touch them. I haven't seen any fireworms in the last few weeks either so hmm. I did watch it rip a spaghetti worm in half, then release it to the wild within the first few days though heh.
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Feb 27, 2009 00:10
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U.S. Barryl posted:I think I'm gonna spend my tax returns on a saltwater setup. Buying all the components together seems to get ridiculously expensive. Does anybody have any opinions on the nano cube kits? I was thinking about getting this one: I have a 24g AquaPod (very similar) but with 2 32w florescent bulbs. I wanted to get the HQI but now that I think back on it, I'm pretty glad I didn't. Even with 2 32w bulbs, the hood gets *hot*. I upgraded the fans and modified it a bit for better airflow and it still gets ~80 with like 68F ambient air temp. If you want that type of lighting, i'd recommend a hood-less light setup. I can't think of any coral that you'd want to put in a 24g tank that won't work with CFLs.
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Feb 27, 2009 08:40
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Morbid Florist posted:I picked up the essentials to start the tank up but I ran across something I'd never heard of before. My only option for sea sand was this stuff that claims to already be cycled, and that it will cycle a tank in a day. I'm skeptical to say the least. I figure at best it could drive me down to a week with the addition of live rock tomorrow. My cycle was about a week with Arag-Alive sand, ~40lbs of mostly-cured liverock and a few yellowtail damsels. The rock was transported wet, so no dieoff should have occurred with it. I'd just suggest that if you're buying rock locally, transport it in some 5 gallon buckets with a bit of water (doesn't need to be full, the sloshing should keep it wet). I actually never noticed an ammonia spike, just nitrates (was only checking ammonia for the first few days, then had a diatom bloom), so I checked the other levels. I added 10 hermits, 2 astrea, 1 turbo and 2 nassarius snails within the first few days of the tank. Only lost 2 hermits to my arrow crab, and 1 nassarius snail to unknown reasons, everything else is going strong as ever, so I wouldn't worry about your CUC during the cycle.
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Mar 6, 2009 20:08
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Morbid Florist posted:Wow you had an arrow take out hermits? I thought they only went after fish. Yea, mine is heading back to the store this weekend. I haven't seen my bicolor blenny in a few days either, which I fear that the arrow took him out too. which (may) bring the arrow kill count to: 2x hermit crabs two spot goby bicolor blenny
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Mar 6, 2009 21:36
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Morbid Florist posted:Do corals bounce back after a bit of a beating? I picked up some more live rock while I was there and a few pieces turned out to have seemingly wounded little corals on them. They still have color, but they're small and don't look so hot. Half of my frogspawn heads just up and fell off one day, and now the surviving half are splitting to become four heads once again. One of my liverock pieces sprouted three large green mushrooms and a billion little fanworms.
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Mar 17, 2009 19:02
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I had an aiptasia come in on a GSP rock, right in the middle of the GSP. Picked up a peppermint shrimp and the aiptasia was gone by the next morning. The peppermint took care of it <8 hours after being introduced to the tank.
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Mar 18, 2009 21:31
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Morbid Florist posted:I might end up going with one but the problem is my tank only being 14gal. I was leaning in a different shrimp direction but maybe I'll end up in candyland after all. I have a 24g, my peppermint was coming out during the day until I got a cleaner shrimp and the cleaner proceeded to beat the poo poo out of the peppermint. Now it hides all the time 
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Mar 18, 2009 22:25
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Morbid Florist posted:Goby question. This Randall's is my first goby and I seem to be doing myself more harm that good by trying to keep him fed. I've got brown algae starting so I obviously need to cut down the food. My problem is that the gramma I have is a prick, takes the pick of the litter for food, AND can get in the goby's face a bit. Astreas are supposed to eat diatoms, and since they're small and cheap, I'd probably add 3 more or so. My 24g has 5 astreas and a turbo, as well as 3 nassarius and a bunch of tiny hitch-hiker snails (not sundials though). My tank still has plenty of algae for them to graze on. I've only ever lost nassariuses. As far as the goby, I've lost 3 two-spots so far, so I'm done with fish in my tank. My two tank-raised percula clowns are the only fish that survive, so they'll continue to be the only two fish in my tank. The first goby and my bicolor blenny succumbed to the arrow crab, and the LFS gave me bad advice and claimed that the last 2 gobies were a mated pair. The 2nd goby only lasted a few days and was probably killed due to stress from the other goby. The other goby just up and disappeared in the last week. Its burrows are still there, but it is not in them, and the substrate is getting dirty again. Since I'm in rant mode, I had two separate pieces of the tonga branch coral in my tank just up and fall on the same day. First (larger) piece fell into the substrate and narrowly missed a nassarius, but the 2nd piece fell onto my frog spawn which 1) dislodged it from the rock it was on and 2) burst a few of its tentacles and released some weird stringy poo poo. It seems to be fine now, but I'm planning on removing all that tonga crap this weekend. Maybe I'll just break it apart and put it in the areas where I can't see it -- I just don't know how much biological filtration 8lbs of tonga will provide. I still have ~30lbs of normal fiji rock. The tonga just gets in the way, can't be stacked without fear of toppling, and seems to just breed diatoms / algae. What a frustrating hobby.
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Mar 27, 2009 19:52
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I've been banning myself from adding corals and such to my tank but once a month -- to keep things stable and also prevent me from going bankrupt. So, for my monthly round of coral additions, I added a open brain coral and a torch (6 or 7 heads), bought with a gift certificate from christmas, and a flowerpot coral. Unfortunately, I read about how picky gonioporas are after I already picked it up -- any advice to help this coral live a long life? I'm already planning on replacing my 245 gph return pump (Maxi-Jet Utility 900) with a Maxi-Jet Utility 1800 (474gph), as well as replacing the stock canopy on my AquaPod 24 with a SunPod 150 HQI. I'd also like to either get a side-mount refugium to hold some chaeto on an opposite light cycle to stabilize pH a little better (currently swings from 7.8 to 8.2 throughout the day). Other changes: I've removed some of the tonga branch coral, broke it down into rubble and other pieces, placed most of it in unseen parts of the tank. I only had ~8 lbs of Tonga, so I don't think I reduced my filtration capabilities too much. Before:  Click here for the full 1280x853 image. After:  Click here for the full 1280x853 image. All in all, I'm pretty pleased with how its coming along; even if I can't keep any fish in it (only fish that have kept are my two clowns which I've had from the beginning -- everything else is either eaten or dies after a few weeks).
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Apr 1, 2009 18:27
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Morbid Florist posted:Wow is that a 14gal? My fish place swore to me I didn't want clowns in mine. The gramma they swore would not be a prick is a step away from a white hat and polo shirt. It's a 24 gallon AquaPod. I just ordered a SunPod 150, sapphire nanoskimmer, and a 474 gph Maxi-Jet 1800 utility return pump (to replace my ~140gph Maxi-Jet 900 utility return -- supposed to be 240 gph, but not even close). I haven't had the greatest of luck with fish, but my tank-raised clowns are the kindest things I've seen. They're extremely hardy too, apparently. My arrow crab couldn't touch them, they've never picked on any of the other fish that were in the tank, never nipped on corals, and are not shy. Maybe the skimmer will allow me to get another fish. I'd like to get another bicolor blenny -- had one before but the arrow killed it. I've gone through 3 two-spot gobies, so they're off my list even though they did an excellent job of keeping the substrate sparkling clean.
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Apr 3, 2009 18:18
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Morbid Florist posted:If I thought I stood any chance of catching the gramma without tearing the whole tank apart I would turn him in for a clown I cycled my tank with 3 yellow-tail damsels.. yea I had to remove all the rockwork to get them out.
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Apr 3, 2009 18:59
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Morbid Florist posted:Speaking of rear end in a top hat fish, are there any sort of baited traps you can put in a tank to avoid ripping everything apart? The gramma picked open warfare with my peppermint shrimp this weekend and is still making life hard for my goby, so he's vetoed. I had to take one of these out of a much larger tank and even THAT was a whore. I caught a couple of my yellowtail assholes, er damsels, by taking a 1L bottle (washed very well obviously), cutting off the opening about 2" down, inverting it and taping it to the rest of the bottle. put some flake or pellets in there and submerse it. caught one damsel in about 3 minutes, the other about 30 minutes later, and had to destroy the tank to get rid of the 3rd haha
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Apr 6, 2009 19:25
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Morbid Florist posted:Managed to ID my two free corals. One is a Tonga Purple Bullseye and the other seems to be an orange mushroom. These seem like pretty hands-off corals which I need right now. Nothing will grow so fast that you can't contain it easily. My GSP has tripled in size since I bought it, but this is over a period of 6 months. It's actually starting to grow on the back wall, which (IMO) is cool as hell. I'd imagine that encrusting corals will grow more quickly than corals that grow by division (zoanthus, ricordea, etc), but I'm still new to the hobby. Here's my GSP when I first got it sometime in December:  Click here for the full 1280x853 image. Here it is as of a week ago: Click here for the full 1280x853 image. I just checked out a few other 'local' fish stores (about 30 miles away), and they were epic. Picked up some ricordea, a couple very cool colored zoa frags, a dark blue zoa rock, and some red people eaters. I'll try to get a pic tonight. I saw a hitch hiker baby brittle star on one of the frags, but all my shrimp swarmed the frags, so I'm not sure if it made it.
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Apr 7, 2009 21:29
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Well, I feel like an idiot. Just figured out that my LFS sold me a nearly-dead open brain coral a week ago. I didn't know what to look for (first time I've seen them for sale). My peppermint shrimp is feeding on whatever little flesh it has left, so I've moved it into my cleaner shrimp's corner, who happens to not be very friendly with the peppermint entering its space. Hopefully it'll protect the coral while it recovers. The peppermint has eaten about 1/8" of flesh through the skeleton ribs in some areas Anyways, some updated tank shots (now with ricordea, red people eaters, and some epic blue zoas) under my new 150w SunPod HQI  Click here for the full 853x1280 image.  Click here for the full 1280x853 image.
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Apr 10, 2009 04:16
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Morbid Florist posted:Double post for emergency, sorry. I think your shrimp f'd you over -- my peppermint is outgrowing his welcome as well. I think they get bored when there is no aiptasia for them to eat. I've witnessed mine nibbling on my green stripe mushrooms (but nothing serious), and it is currently killing my open brain coral (already fighting for life -- I guess I unknowingly rescued it from the LFS). They're opportunistic feeders so they'll eat anything that isn't doing 100%. Hate to say it, but if you're out of aiptasia, perhaps return the peppermint or jail it somehow. I'll be giving mine to a co-worker next week.
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Apr 10, 2009 23:15
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Morbid Florist posted:He was my main suspect but I had no idea he'd go after live poo poo. Honestly these things had never been doing better. The orange one was a SPECK when I got it on live rock a few weeks ago, it was bigger than a quarter until today. The purple one was the same case, a little swollen blob when he came in on live rock and he took off. My sexies can bug some corals by trying to walk all over them, but I don't think they're harming them. My cleaner doesn't seem to bother corals, except for the trample effect or the feeding frenzy. The peppermint is popular for the fact that it does eat reef life (even if it is unwanted reef life).
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Apr 10, 2009 23:54
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Morbid Florist posted:Nice tank! red slime is best removed with pristine water conditions and high flow. I try to remove whatever is visible when I do a water change by simply pointing the hose at it while it siphons out. I had a pretty bad (imo) case of it (might have just been diatoms), but was nearly 100% cured by modifying my MaxiJet Utility 900 return pump. Turns out that the adjustable grill on the front of it severely reduces output. Removed it and put on the included exterior mount fittings and the difference was night and day. I also put a hydor flo on it, which seems to work very well. As far as your peppermint issue, my co-worker's peppermint did the exact same thing after clearing his tank of all but one aiptasia. I guess mine is a survivor for some reason -- I've had it for at least 6 months now. As far as my peppermint issue went, the cleaner shrimp joined in on the fun and totally cleaned that open brain out, so I tossed it (the open brain).
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Apr 16, 2009 18:37
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Yea, I'm totally convinced that the shrimps only picked over the brain because it was nearly dead when I bought it from the LFS. I'm more pissed off that the LFS I trusted sold me trash. I was hoping I could have revived it, but the shrimp prevented that.
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Apr 16, 2009 20:11
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One of my ocellaris clowns jumped yesterday Sucks because they were the only fish I successfully kept in the tank -- everything else died or was ate. Guess I'll have to find a new mate for the other one. Also set up a 6 gallon nano cube the other day, currently cycling with about 10lbs live sand and some random live rock and poo poo from my AP24. Tossed a small chunk of brown zoas and ripped off a piece of GSP to toss in there as well (I don't really care if these survive heh). If it is anything like the cycle in my main tank, there won't be one. I was /really/ tempted to buy the smallest tang I've ever seen yesterday. The LFS had a school of little blue tangs, all between 1/2" and 3/4". I'm gonna need to set up a 'big' tank someday to have all the fish I can't in this 24 haha.
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May 1, 2009 18:45
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Morbid Florist posted:I had a peppermint that made snacks of a snail and polyps before he up and died out of the blue My drat peppermint is *still* alive after almost 10 months (from what I gather is unheard of for a peppermint). It even survived me nuking my tank of flatworms with Salifert's FlatwormExit. That was gross, btw, but well worth it.
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May 28, 2009 03:52
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Hypnotized posted:I picked up a few new toys for my tank. I finally got my own RO/DI unit. I don't know why I waited so drat long. I also got the vortech MP20. It is a pretty amazing piece of equipment. It allowed me to remove all my other powerheads. And finally I took advantage of the $99 ReefKeeper deal and picked one up. That is an amazing tank! Looks a lot more organized and fluid than mine. Mine looks like a random mashup of various corals. I need to come up with a better plan, but I'd kind of rather just get a larger tank (90 gallon acrylic or so plumbed for a closed loop)  Click here for the full 1280x853 image. That ReefKeeper lite is tempting. What modules do you have for it? I'd love to be able to graph its results in cacti heh
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Jun 7, 2009 05:59
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The Interpolator posted:Nobody keeps this thread bumped anymore. I have these exact zoa / palys (the grayish ones on the right). They're growing like weeds heh. I also have some big bang zoas, but they're /very/ slow growing. I've been in the process of getting all my gear together for a new 90 gallon acrylic, so I haven't bought any new corals or fish. I guess I can post the stand I built:  I just ordered the plumbing parts yesterday, got about 90lbs of live rock off craigslist currently cycling in a trash can, got a Reef Octopus NW150 off craigslist as well. Building a sump out of a 29g, still need to get some glass cut. I'm going to try to get it up and running by October (1 year anniversary of starting this hobby), but I don't know. I still need to get a Vortech MP40w, lights, return pump (thinking Maxi-Jet Utility 3000), sand, and other misc. junk. As far as my livestock is concerned, my torch up and died overnight a few weeks ago, and my sexy shrimp whom were hosting it disappeared a few days after I pulled the skeleton out. I'm optimistic that they're still alive, but in hiding.
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Jul 16, 2009 19:36
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ludnix posted:You think the sexy shrimp might have been the cause of the torch's death? They are known for occasionally eating zoanthids and soft corals. I don't think so, but I guess anything is possible. I'd point the finger to my peppermint shrimp, which just won't die. I've had it for at least 10 months now, which is a record from what I gather.
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Jul 17, 2009 00:37
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VyperRDH posted:I have a few questions, but some background first. A little over a year ago I set up a 29 gal saltwater aquarium. Its doing great and I have very slowly been adding coral to it. My husband wasn’t thrilled at first. I really love fish and I’d have an aquarium in every room if I could. My previous tanks have all been freshwater and easy to take care of. After a couple of months my husband started to really get into maintenance on the saltwater tank. We now have a second 29 gal that has been up and running for 8 months. I think my husband is into saltwater tanks more then I am. He reads up on care and maintenance, fusses over water conditions, and enjoys picking out fish/corals. I always catch him sitting in front of the tank and just watching. I'd recommend checking out your local craigslist for good deals on a 2nd hand aquarium. I got my 90g 'clear for life' acrylic with a 5" side overflow for <$200, and have seen many more even better deals with stand included as well. You're probably only going to need a chiller if you run metal halides or if your house ambient temperature is >85F. For my sump, I just picked up a cheap 29 tall glass aquarium, then added some acrylic dividers and siliconed them in place with aquarium-safe silicone. The return is powered by an eheim 1262, which is pretty expensive, but reduced the temps almost 7F, nearly completely silent, and puts out ~900gph. My powerhead is a Vortech MP40W. You'll only need one in a 4' tank, would probably do well to have two in a 6 or 8' tank. Since the motor is outside of the water, there is no heat transfer. The controller lets you do some fun stuff as well. I would recommend sticking with T5HO lighting. I picked up a Nova Extreme Pro (6x54w) from ebay (from current themselves). The amount of light it puts out seems to be more than my 150w sunpod on my 24g. I don't think you need to worry about putting anything down on the bottom of the tank, especially with acrylic. The sand is going to help distribute the weight of the rocks as well. Also, the weight of the rocks is nothing compared to the weight of the water. Just make sure the stand you get is supported every 2 feet or so. Tigertron posted:What brand of aquarium are the ones that flow over the edge of the tank? They're called zeroedge, and they're a royal pain in the rear end to keep flowing well apparently. Gotta re-level them on a regular basis.
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Aug 10, 2009 01:15
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Some updated pics of my (newly set up) 90G reef. I've migrated all the corals / fish from the 24 to the 90, and already have a flourishing population of pods in the refugium.  also some interesting macro algae growing on some rocks  ceriths gettin' busy 
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Aug 28, 2009 06:28
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Psimitry posted:What kind of lighting are you running? A Current Nova Extreme Pro 6x54 T5HO
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Aug 28, 2009 06:58
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ludnix posted:But the shimmer! I want a 2nd vortech, but I don't think my tank would be able to survive constant waves (cheap acrylic 'clear for life' piece of poo poo). I have it set to reef crest currently on its highest setting. It's a great pump and I don't have any regrets. I had a 150w HQI (14K SunPod) on my 24g; the T5HO actually looks *brighter*. Yes, its over twice as many watts, but the watts / gallon is less. I may need to rotate some bulbs around, though. It has two of the 10K daylight bulbs on one switch, and the other 4 bulbs on the other switch. I think I want to move two of the actinic bulbs to the two-bulb switch so I can have a dimmer light sunrise/sunset. When I turn on the actinics now, there is so many watts shining that it really isn't a sunrise or sunset.
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Aug 28, 2009 22:59
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ludnix posted:Is T5 really that much more efficient? I haven't looked at a side-by-side comparison of PAR readings, but it seems like most people would recommend 8 4' T5 bulbs with individual reflectors to replace 2x 250 MH in which case it comes out even in wattage. I guess a lot will depend on what bulbs you're using and what color spectrum you're going for, but it doesn't seem like it's that more efficient in electrical useage. You wouldn't need a chiller with T5HO at that wattage  Supposedly T5HO offers more lumens per watt than MH. It definitely is more efficient in using that energy to produce light rather than heat.
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Aug 29, 2009 18:28
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Kill_Discussion posted:I'm in the process of setting up my first SW tank. I had a freshwater tank for a couple years but I took it down and stored it in the basement. My GF just bought her own place and wanted to set it up. Eventually I would like it to be a reef tank, but due to the costs of everything it's going to be a gradual process and will just start as a fish only tank. Between needing to upgrade my lights from CFL to the T5/MH, building a sump tank, etc. not to mention actually populating my tank, they weren't kidding when people said a reef tank has a lot of upfront costs. There are quite a few corals that will do just fine under power compact and CFL. I wouldn't be surprised to see coraline growth under CFL either. My chaetomorpha grows like a weed under a single 16w 5100K reflected CFL in my refugium. You should be able to grow various zoanthids (some are easier than others [ie. the cheap ones that will be basically the cost of the liverock]), mushrooms, palys, and other softies. You're only going to need T5HO or better for SPS and clams. I had a bunch of LPS under power compact and they were doing great. The emphasis with building bubble traps in the sump is just because they're ugly and stick to everything. A good protein skimmer would make so many microbubbles that unless you have something to block them, they'll actually make your tank look as if it has stuff in the water. Microbubbles don't necessarily float to the surface -- they stay in the water and keep pushed down my minute currents.
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Sep 8, 2009 23:37
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streetlamp posted:The return pump is fine, people over do it all the time but I believe the sump should have minimal flow through it. It is a filter, it needs time to filter. I have a 900gph+ eheim in my sump, but it has to climb ~5' so the actual gph is more like 500, and I have a bit larger sump I also have about 3300gph flow in the display, yay vortechI have a CPR hang-on-back overflow that I've never used, but it has a nipple on top to hook it up to a ToM Aquatic aqualift. Great for maintaining a siphon or sucking out flatworms after dosing flatworm exit, or auto top offs.
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Sep 11, 2009 17:13
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a foolish pianist posted:I bought a used 150 halide fixture, and hung it over the tank today. The 36 watt PC actinics really bring out the color in my rhodactis mushrooms, and the 10k halide bulb provides a nice shimmer on the sandbed. Get a GFCI on your poo poo, stat! I don't have any heaters in my 90 yet, but I had a visi-therm stealth thing on my 24, worked well. Solid black plastic housing, should be difficult to break.
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Sep 23, 2009 03:28
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ludnix posted:Even SPS corals could handle a 4 degree swing over a period of 24 hours. Mine have endured larger swings than that for a while, though my tank doesn't usually dip below 80 -- only once when I accidentally left the fan on the sump overnight, then it dropped to 76. I usually see the tank at ~84, but today reached 96 at home and the AC isn't on so we'll see when I get home.
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Sep 24, 2009 01:12
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VyperRDH posted:So now the questions. Will the tank be ok without heaters (for now anyway)? The weather is very mild here and we always keep the house around 76 degrees. Will the lighting need to be upgraded? I don’t know anything about Coralife lights. You'll probably want to check the temperature at night when the tank's lights are off, and your house is at its coolest, but if that temp isn't out of range, it should be fine. What type of coralife lighting is it? Powercompact or T5, or T5HO (I'm assuming its florescent). It all depends on what type of coral you want to keep.. pretty much anything will grow under T5HO, but you probably won't be able to keep SPS, clams, or most anemones under PC. Given that you already have an anenome, its probably T5+. If you don't know how old the bulbs are, its probably best to replace them. I'd recommend replacing one bulb every other week (keeps the corals from being shocked by the sudden increase of light PAR).
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Sep 24, 2009 03:32
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