Placement??

[bfd chief 26]

Ok new guy on the block

I have a 40 gal tank.
I have a dual power wheel filter.
One whishper small filter
One Protein Skimmer by Prizm.
The three of them take up the back wall of the tank.
I run all three 24 / 7.

My light is a CoraLife with one blue and one white light.
I run that from 5: am till 9: pm.

I have a 38+ pounds of live rock. 90 percent has turned purple.

Tanks been up for about 4 months.

1 inch to 2 inch of live sand.

Have three snails, One Pajama fish, one cleaner shrimp -- shedded three times so far, one sand star, two blue tiped annaome.

My wife and daughter came home with a coral ???? So they say??

Its green tiped fingers, feels rough to the touch. How ever it was not attached to any kind of rock. It gets reall small during the night and almost doubles in size during the day. I placed it about 3/4 the way to the top of the tank on the rocks. It has never attached it self to a rock yet?? Am I placeing it at the wrong place??

The blue tips have moved about three times know they live about 1/2 way up the tank on the rocks but they hang sideways. When your looking in the tank your looking right into the mouth. Is this ok?? They seem to like it that way they have not moved in two months...

Any help or anything I am doing wrong will be a big help PM me, IM me or just post it for all to learn.. Any help willl be a great help..

Your firend

Thank you for your time !!!!!!!!!!

[jenajet]

First I want to say Welcome to TRT.
Anemones are notorious movers so if they have stayed put for two months congrats. Second what wattage of lighting do you have? Anemones usually prefer mh but my condy is doing well under pc but it made its home up near top of tank and I hand feed it to supplement. I am not clear about what the other coral is. Not all corals attach themselves on their own. Could you post some pics so we know what the coral actually is?

[tims]

I agree with Jena... ( did i just say that????)
pics are needed if possible of the new coral .
watch you levels with the power wheel. in reefs they tend to cause the Nit. level to be off and can harm our buggers.

[dobejazz]

Welcome to TRT! Please do post a pic

[bfd chief 26]

ok the light bulbs say:
blue has on it = coralife actinic f21-t5-bp
white has on it = coralife 10,000k f21-t5-bp

They are both under one hood. They both turn on at the same time and off at the same time. Thin bulb and they run from one side to the other, they have a piece of plastic between them and the water. I need to clean that like every other day it builds up with salt.

I had a cover over the whole top of the tank that was clear and would set the light on top. That was when I first started this adventure. Got my rock from a guy that had a 150 gal tank that was taking it down. He gave me first pull so I got the rock with the cool stuff however I got stuff that I have no clue about(will send pics of it). But with the light on the hood some stuff died. So I removed the hood and things got better. Buy doing this I get quicker water loss.
Should I get another light set and have two whites in one and two blues in one and have them on at different times?

I feed every third day two fozen brine shrimp cubes.
I take the cubes and place them in a cup I add Kent Marine PhytoPlex. Its a concentrated Aquacultured Marine Phytoplankton. I then let every thing sit in the cup till the cubes are no longer frozen. Then I have a big bul dropper that I feed each thing with. I turn off the filters for about a hour during this so every one has a chance to eat what it can. The shrimp follows it where ever it goes. The Anemones love it. They have grown from a size of a quarter to the size of two half dollars.
Any ideas on my feeding??


Hows my filter and skimmer system I have??


Ok I will try to take pics..

If I get them to my pc, who should I pm about how to get them in this form?

You guys are great thank you for your help

Sorry if I am making anyone mad with all the questions, just a real cool thing to get into. I have read a lot but till you ask someone that has done it you never know if it will work. Anyone can write any thing they want in a book to sell it.

Thank you for your time

[tims]

hehehe bunch of questions.. lets take only a few ata time okay?

lighting.
i belive what you have is called a 50/50 that is what i have on my nano. not bad at all. you might want to add another light with that.
as for the cleaning, Yup we all have to do that ( or most of us) you can also pick up eggcrate from home depot or such inthe lighting area, it is the white plastic grid for over head lights, you can cut in to the size you need to cover the top of the tank, this will alow for gas exchange and heat exchange.
the filters...
your LR and skimmer are the main filters for the tank. you do want to run carbon, if you are not going to try and set up a sump ( easy to do and very good over all for the system) then make sure you hange out the carbon often! you dont need the Bio wheel part..
pics
you can post them yourself.. when you have them on your PC make sure they are jpeg files and just up load them to your photo area in the photo section, or your blog here, or right in to your next post. when you post next, in steadof hitting the submit button scroll down just a little bit more you should see "manage attacxhment" if you click that it will open up another window so you can up load a picture, then hit the submit button...

[bfd chief 26]

Ok lets see how i did with my pics?

ok lets see This setof six pictures is of stuff I know I have in my Tank!

How I do what you think so far??

[bfd chief 26]

Ok now for the UNKNOWS IN THE TANK !!!

The First is what I was told was a Finger Coral.. Opps I almost for Got the Star of the Tank Mr. Star fish!!
Then the next three I am not sure about???

So Over all where do I need help ????

[ReelFreak]

I didn't read all of the thread but those lights are NO T5 21w lights....they are NOT the HO bulbs. So basically the tank has 41w of NO lighting. Not enough for a majority of corals.

[tims]

nice shots.. definitly need to increase the lighting and soon.
the unknowns look like button polyps

[piberoptikz]

Great shots!

[Kullas]

the white or yellow ones look like a type of spounge

[bfd chief 26]

ok -- LIGHTS ???

If you go to a pet store and they sell alot of Saltwater stuff. On the box it told you for Coral and it said coral light on each tube and one was blue and one was white.
So I bought it --- NOW what
1. What do I Buy?
2. How many whites should it have?
3. How many Blues should it have?
4. How many night lights do I need?
5. How long do you run each color??

help me please

[Cylenchar]

Originally Posted by bfd chief 26

ok -- LIGHTS ???

If you go to a pet store and they sell alot of Saltwater stuff. On the box it told you for Coral and it said coral light on each tube and one was blue and one was white.
So I bought it --- NOW what
1. What do I Buy?
2. How many whites should it have?
3. How many Blues should it have?
4. How many night lights do I need?
5. How long do you run each color??

help me please

The Blue light(Actinic) don't really do much for your corals, they just make it nicer for you to look at the tank..

Depending on what corals you want, generally the rule of thumb is 3-4 watts per gallon. You also may want to look into the # of Kalvins. Mine are 10 K, for some corals, 14 or 20 K may be a better choice.

You don't need any night lights, again, these are more for your benefit in viewing the tank.

I run my compact fluorescents for 14 hrs a day. some people do as little as 8. I'd say 10-14 would probably be sufficient.

[tims]

also look at the box or ask if it is a PC( compact fluor) light or noraml output.
ask if the have VHO lights