How Long before i can put Sps in new tank?

[motorslave]

Depending on where you are in So Cal, in the Valley there is Vivid Aquariums. They are a great operation. Nice folks, great stuff and a great store. You can find them online too.

[Vj]

Yea there probably about an hour drive from where im at, but it looks like it would be worth the trip. There site is great.

I actualy discovered em last night when i was looking up local reef clubs, unfortunately the club in my area looks pretty dead.

[motorslave]

Where are you?

[Vj]

Originally Posted by motorslave

Where are you?

Temecula, South of LA, north of San Diego

[robertmathern]

You should go with 2 X 250 mh on the 55 I did and loved it and when I upgraded my tank to a 180 I just got another light and pluged it up no need to keep buying lights

[Vj]

Originally Posted by robertmathern

You should go with 2 X 250 mh on the 55 I did and loved it and when I upgraded my tank to a 180 I just got another light and pluged it up no need to keep buying lights

Yea im actualy looking into ordering the 2 250w Ballast atm, and my electrical wholeseler can actualy get me the 14 or 20k bulbs as well for a great price. Only thing i need to order is the standoff socket.


On a different topic the delima im having now is that the tank we have was actualy my cichlid tank over 10 years ago, 8 years ago i started my first reef with it, 2 years ago i broke it down and gave it to my future mother-in-law, 2 weeks ago they wanted to break it down so ive now taken it back and started a new system......you get all that? lol

Anyways now that i have all my rock scape in im starting to be really bugged by the scratches on the front glass. There really not bad but im a little OCD that way.

So i might end up breaking the whole thing down buying a new tank, building a new stand, since the one its on now wont allow for a sump....and resetting it up. Oh yea and i might go bigger maybe 75g...

I think im a little nuts but i think id be happier in the end...i hope lol

If i do go that route im going to be doing either a sump or a refugium, and since ive never had either im doing a bit of research on both.

Being that it will definitely be a sps/lps tank would a refugium be greatly beneficial? If so in what ways.

Also isn't a refugum basically a sump with plants and other stuff in it? (i just started researching em...like 2 min before i read this post lol)

I mostly want it to hide my skimmer, heaters, filters, increase water volume, but if i can set it up in a way that will benefit the fish and corals as well would be ideal.

Whats some of your guys opinions?

[Reeftanker3295]

A refugium is a spot in your sump or a seperate system plumbed into your tank with most of the time low flow, a 6500k light for growing macro algaes like chaeto. The point is that the algae will grow in the refugium instead of your main tank, also the refugium will be a pod farm.

[Vj]

Ok yea after a bit of research I realized that the fuguim has to be a different tank so it looks like I'm gonna build the new stand this weekend and I'll have to find 2 tanks that will fit under it.

I'm gonna have the overflow feed the sump and the fugum with a t and flow control valves to regulate the slow feed into the fuguim.

Is it ok to have the fugum feed back into the return section of the sump or do I need to have 2 return feeds?

[mobilebyrd]

I am putting on my nomex underwear but...

Buy the biggest T5HO fixture you can fit on your tank and put in good bulbs. Voila...U r done and saved hundreds upon hundreds of dollars. There is no reason at all for a tank the size you are talking about to need Metal Halides. You don't need the extra heat and expense associated with halides when T5HO will get the job done with less heat. Calculate how much 500 watts of power costs when run for 8 hours using the rates your local power co. charges per Kwh. Then factor in the lifespan of a T5HO bulb being 2.5 times longer than a T5HO. Now consider you can buy a Geissman T5HO bulb for $25. Oh...don't forget the heat saturation from the Halides.

I find keeping fish more difficult than keeping corals. I can't tell you why my jerry-rigged tank works well. I don't skim (yet), I have PVC Pipe for reflectors and I don't screw around with my tank other than changing the water twice a month. I measure salinity, use tap water, water conditioner and a pinch of Mrs Wages lime per 5-gallons of water. I don't measure crap otherwise. I might have my tank crash tomorrow but so might the guy with $6K in testing equipment and other crap that let him know why the thing crashed but did nothing to stop it. We have created artificial environments and we can only hope to enjoy them before/between crashes.

You can order a new 48", 4-bulb T5HO fixture on the cheap for around $130 shipped off ebay. You can get 4 geissman bulbs for another $100. Best of all your bulbs last around 12-18 months.

I am running 4 T5ho lights over a 25gallon tall. The lights are of the 24" variety being pushed at normal wattage by a hagen ballast with PVC half-pipes for reflectors (nothing fancy). I did skimp on reflectors ($3 at Lowes) but spent the money on Geissman bulbs and a reasonably decent ballast. Each bulb is a different color spectrum with two slightly overlapping actinics.

I have burned some sps corals when mounted at anything closer than 4-6 inches from lights. I can not place my monti's closer than ~6-8 inches without bleaching and limited growth and polyp extension. I only have a few sps: two monti's and another mystery brown sps finger. The finger coral was able to be moved to around 4 inches from lights over a 5-month period. My monti's suck wind when closer than ~6-8 inches.

People are successfully growing clams with T5HO at 18" tank depth. You Do Not Need Metal Halide unless you have a custom tank in the 2+ foot tall range.

My orange monti caps were being grown at the LFS under a MH 400 watt and a couple of T5HO around 10" from the bulb. They were beautiful while at the store. I originally put the monti's ~4" from the lights and they started bleaching. I kept them there for a couple of weeks and the bleaching did not get better. I moved the monti's to mid-tank and they colored up within 24 hours and were full color within 48hours. I am sure somone will say something along the lines of the corals were just stressed...bullocks. I have tried inching them up and I can not get them closer to the lights without reduced growth or polyp extension.

I also picked up another Monti frag at a club-meeting about 5-months prior to the orange monti (Thanx Tom). I had the same thing happen with this frag. I have had it for 5 months and it grows best around 8" from lights. I have tried movements around 1" at a time and they bleach when moved closer in addition to reducing their polyp extension and no edge growth.

About the only thing I have found which can tolerate the upper regions of my tank are my pulsing Xenia. They tolerate it but they do not grow well (a good thing if you know much about Xenia). The color is there but not the growth. If I moved the Xenia lower they start to spread and travel around.

Now you can tell me how I am doing things wrong all you want but if it is not broke I won't waste money "fixing" it...unless it is a car.

I am training in Orlando and can not reply regularly so don't expect a quick response to anything...flames included. If u want to reach me PM me.

G'Night

[Fat Tony]

You are totally right about not needing MH for a 55, T5's will be more than suitable.

But to touch on a couple of items you pointed out...

Don't buy your lights on eBay. 99% of them are not UL listed and if for some reason they every catch on fire and burn your house down, your insurance possibly will not cover the loss. Buy a quality UL listed (aquatinics, Current.. blah blah blah brand) fixture if you go that route. Lighting is a preference thing really, I have a preference toward MH. A pair of 150w MH with Good reflectors (Lumenmax 3's) mounted about 6" from glass to water will not transfer as much heat to the tank as less efficient reflectors mounted just a couple inches off the water. If there are heat issues with the tank, a pair of PC fans will 90% of the time cure that issue. Rarely do you need a chiller. A 4x54w T5HO will use about 250-300 watts of power depending on the ballast and efficiency. A pair of 150w MH with electronic ballasts will use between 320 and 350 watts of electricty. There is a savings in using the T5's over a narrower tank like the 55's off of that alone. There isn't much savings in bulb replacement (although I still recommend annual bulb changeouts with T5HO, not to PAR loss, but to color shift) between T5's and MH. 4 T5 bulbs will cost you about the same as a pair of Phoenix 14K's do, and I have found that the Phoenix bulbs last about a year as well before needing replacement.

In the end, there are as many different ways to do this hobby as there are people in it. Find something that works for you and stick with it.

The only thing I can really say that is a constant is this, test, test and test, get to know your tank. Testing helps avaiod nedless crashes due to over compensation when you ahve to dose. It also helps maintain stability in the tank. If you plan on SPS, there are 3 constants which really need to be kept in check. Calcium, Alk and Mag. Just because the SPS look good, doesn't mean they are getting everything they need (element wise) and maintaining those 3 levels to:

Alk 8-10 (I prefer and have better results with my sandbed with alk around 9-9.5)
Calcium 380-420
Mag 1250-1350

That is the only thing that I test for anymore (and some more frequent than others, alk once a week, mag once a week as well)

[Vj]

Awesome advise guys ty.

I agree MH arent completely necessary for a 55, however i do like the light they give off. It looks great and is good for practically every coral you can put in a tank.

I have the fixtures already so that part of it isnt an issue. And i do use 2 Pc Fans mounted to the back of the canopy which actually work so good ill see my heater come on even when my MHs are running.

What kind of test kits do you use Tony? Right now im using aquarium pharmaceuticals, but im not sure about there accuracy being that they were cheep, so what kind of test kits would you recommend?

I dont have a Magnesium test kit yet so i definitely need to pick one of those up.

[Fat Tony]

I use Tropic Marin, Sera, and Elos

Tropic Marin and Sera for the Alk testing
Sera for Calcium testing
Elos for the Mag test (although, I have heard that the Elos reads a tad low)


For your fans, I recommend getting a temperature controller of some sort. Cooling the tank off only to have the heater come back on to warm it back up is inefficient, and it will save you some money by not having to use it. I don't use heaters personally. I hear more failures (frequent) due to heaters in this hobby than most other items (equipment related failures causing tank crashes). I use my ACjr to control my fans and maintain my temp between 80 and 83

[Vj]

Alright awesome that Pc Jr looks awesome, gonna have to pick one up. Same with the test kits.

Btw according to my test kits my water perameters atm are:
Calcium - 480
Alk - 13
Mag - 1340
Amonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0

So my water perameters are looking good atm, but i guess ill still wait it out a month before i start adding any sps.

Any idea why my alk is so high? I havent dosed it with anything since i set it up, im guessing its from my salt mix. But it looks like good stuff since my calcium and magnesium are just about perfect.

[Fat Tony]

Which salt mix are you using?

[Vj]

Originally Posted by Fat Tony

Which salt mix are you using?

Im using Oceanic Salt Mix, but im looking at some other salt mixes on marinedepot and i see some very good salts on there, i might make a switch.

I didnt use ro/di water when i origionaly setup the tank, i used tap water (i know big no no) but now im using ro/di for top-offs and water changes, so that could be the reason.