Hi, y'all! I'm just getting back into the hobby. Used to keep a pretty nice 55 reef but had to get out of the hobby about 4 years ago. When I traded in my last bit of liverock at the lfs, I came home with an Eclipse 7...couldn't help it...something deep inside just wouldn't let me give it up completely!
And so, this is what I am playing with, and, wanting to upgrade and turn into a nice nano on a non-existant budget!
I've had this tank up and running for a couple years with just a powerhead and some live rock, but, my interests went elsewhere when costs and lighting/overheating became insurmountable issues, so, this just ran without lights or any livestock, forgotten all this time. I finally decided I couldn't look at it any more... it was time to get rid of the little dark thing in the corner...so, I went out and bought a new lamp, some salt, and, a couple pounds of fresh liverock, instead.
(did I mention, I was a reefer addict?)
I removed the eclipse filtration and added a Rio 600 pump (leftover from the 55) as a powerhead and added a Rapids Mini canister filter with De NItrate, Phospure, carbon, and some bio ceramic rings. I currantly have aproximately 8-10lb. of liverock, a thin layer of shell hash, sand and rubble on the bottom, 2 astrea snails, 2 nerite snails, one combo coral rock with star polyps and palythoas, and, a bi-color psuedochromis. This has been running like this for about 2 months now. The snails combined with the canaster filter media have eliminated the diatom and green algae that had developed once I added light to the tank 3 months ago.
The coral rock was added a month ago to see if low light corals could survive in this tank under the 9w NO flourescent that came with the tank. Well, they have survived, but, I can't say they are thriving, so, I added a Rio MiniSun clip on LED light. (This is a cool little light with 5 white and 5 blue LEDs, but, it only illuminates about a 6" circle) The star polyps love this light, but, I think the palys will need some additional lighting. I will be upgrading the lighting on this tank soon, but, I wanted to see how the LED lamp would work for the corals. I do not want to use PC, HO, VHO, or, halides on this as the heat they generate is a real issue here, and, the tank is too small for the flourescent tubes, anyway (13" wide). A chiller is out of the question, too, and with the high summer temps here in N. TX, I am looking for a cool lighting solution! I have been looking into
LED lighting for this tank and have found a source on ebay where I can get 12" strips of blue, white, or mixed LEDs that are very reasonably priced. I would like to replace the 9w flourescent with 3-4 of these LED strips and possibly add some smaller sections to the sides of the canopy to direct lighting to specific spots on the rockwork. The nice thing about these is that they can be added a bit at a time, which fits in well with 'non-existant budgets'!
(talk about feed the addiction!)
So, now, my future plan for this is;
- add adaquate LED lighting to support low light tolerant soft and lps corals
- add a wavemaker with pico-sized powerheads, or...
- use a closed loop circulation system with a scwd and external pump
- add some corals, I would like several varieties of glove/clove polyps, tubioporas, palythoas, gorgonians, zoas, finger and toadstool leathers, and some smaller lps, undecided as yet.
- add some mobil inverts for interest, serpent star, porcelin crabs, maybe a scarlet-legged hermit, peppermint shrimp
I don't expect to get everything that I listed here, just what is available when I can afford it, lol!
Tank specs; What specs?
New test kits are on my immediate wish list! Using the old ones that I do still have,
ammonia, nitrite, = 0
ph = 8.0
nitrate...haven't tested since adding the DeNitrate, but, it was very high and I had heavy diatom and hair algae growth. Since adding the canister filter with the DeNitrate, and adding the 4 snail, my live rock is clean and starting to pink up with coraline...so the nitrates must be much lower!
PO4 = dunno...need the test
Specific gravity = 1.021 (I lowered my tanks SG from 1.025 when I added the livestock as the lfs had thiers really low) I plan to gradually increase it to about 1.023.
That's where this little project stands for now.
Pics will follow soon! Promise!
lol! 
