Andy's 29 Gallon Reef

[lcstorc]

Everything is looking good. Happy shrooms and happy zoas. Keep up the good work. It will get even better once you have your skimmer up and the new lights.

[Cassette87]

Just got home from the LFS to pick up my light! I'm supposed to be in class in two minutes, but i couldent pass up this deal! Not only did i get my lights, which i'll take pictures of after class, but I found this guy a small brain coral, for $15! I know it's not the healthiest looking one around, but supposedly it came from a tank that bit the dust, and they got it for free, better for me! anyway, it looks like it'll pull through, and i thought it was worth $15 either way! I like to see them grow from the get go.. so it worked out perfectly! More pictures to follow! (after class) :-)

[lcstorc]

Hope it does well for you.

[Cassette87]

As promised, the new lighting system! It's a 30" coralife lunar aqualight. i tested it out and man is that daylight bulb somethin else! the lunar lights are also amazing! I just hope they're not too bright! Does anyone have any reccomendations for a powerstrip with built in timers? I've heard many negative reviews about the coralife strip, and if i don't find a decent one, I'll need to pick up 2 more manual timers, which are rather bulky, but do what ya gotta do i suppose! I got home too late to take any more pictures of the brain, but there doesn't seem to be any changes since i added it to the tank. Maybe tomorrow will prove different, since I'll be able to get this new light fixture up and running!... although I just realized I haven't yet recieved my skimmer :-( I suppose it may be a day or two. At any rate, more updates tomorrow!

Here's the aqualight! its 30", 2x65watt one 03actinic and one 10,000k daylight(wow is that one ever powerful!)



edit:

And finally before heading to bed, I'd like to add that i plugged in the lunar lights and opened the canopy lid to set the lunars on top. all I have to say is it was worth every penny! The ripples shine down to the floor, everything looks beautiful... the corals luminesce... something i did not expect at all! I am so pleased with it! and the last photo for the night, A picture I just snapped of my larges mushroom, which on the right you can see a small recent frag that has already taken an independent shape, and is already growing quite rapidly! and to the left, a much larger portion that is about to frag! Im sure you've all seen it dozens of times... but i just want to share some of my excitement! and i thought reef keeping would be lame... boy was i wrong.

[BrothaWolf]

I have both corallife timer/power strips The manual one and the digital one. Both are good units each one having advantages over the other. The manual one lets you get a bit more creative with your lighting cycle it has 2 daylight, 2 atinic and 2 moonlight outlets and lets you program the atinic and daylight seperately The moonlights come on when the atinic go off. Drawbacks are only one dedicated full time outlet and the timers are manual so the time settings can get a bit off The digital one has 4 dedicated full time outlets and 2 daylight and 2 night light it also has a battery backup so you dont lose your settings if power fails or you unplug the unit Disadvantage is that when daylights are live nightlights are off.... thats it thats the only option there is no way to control atinics seperately. Thats why im using both. I have blue moonlights, white moonlights, T5's and halides all on different schedules.

[Cassette87]

Well, I would ideally want to run the atinic for about 1-2 hous, bring the daylights on for 4ish hrs, then shut those off, leave the atinics on for another 2, and then shortly after bring the lunars on. Do you keep the lunars on for a majority of the night? or only 4 hours or so? The manual strip seems to be what i would need more.

[Dentoid]

Very nice start Andy. The possibilities are endless and the beauty-unsurpassable. Looking farward to the growth and development of your reef.

[BrothaWolf]

Originally Posted by Cassette87

Well, I would ideally want to run the atinic for about 1-2 hous, bring the daylights on for 4ish hrs, then shut those off, leave the atinics on for another 2, and then shortly after bring the lunars on. Do you keep the lunars on for a majority of the night? or only 4 hours or so? The manual strip seems to be what i would need more.

On my 30 gallon my atinics come on at 10am and run for 12 hours till 10 pm
the daylights come on at 11am and run for 10 hours till 9pm I run the moonllights all night

On my 75 I run the T5's from 10am-10pm Im only up to 4 hours per day with the MH but eventually will move up to 10 hours At 10pm both my white and my blue moonlights come on The white ones run for an hour and then they shut off until 9am when they run for one more hour right before the T5's kick in The blues are on all night

[Cassette87]

Originally Posted by BrothaWolf

On my 30 gallon my atinics come on at 10am and run for 12 hours till 10 pm
the daylights come on at 11am and run for 10 hours till 9pm I run the moonllights all night

On my 75 I run the T5's from 10am-10pm Im only up to 4 hours per day with the MH but eventually will move up to 10 hours At 10pm both my white and my blue moonlights come on The white ones run for an hour and then they shut off until 9am when they run for one more hour right before the T5's kick in The blues are on all night

Do you get much algae growth in the 30?

I'm also curious, I only have the three blue chromis, and the inverts, but I've read a lot of bad things about flake foods.. as far as phosphates go. I've been feeding marine flakes, but Id like to move to something that won't encourage algae growth like the flakes. Any ideas?

[Cougra]

Home made foods and frozen foods generally don't add as much phosphates to the tank. A lot of people presoak the foods in RO water and then drain the water to get rid of the fine relatively useless particals as well as draw out some of the phosphates from the foods.

Do a search on the site for home made mush to get some various recipes.


PS: When you start going to the Grocery store asking for one peice of shrimp, one scallop, one small portion of each item on the counter, they are going to look at you strangely for a while. When you finally feel the need to explain that it's for the fish not for you they will look at you even more strangely! Rest assured though once you go through all the staff members a few times they tend to recognise you and wont give you strange looks as often!

[Cassette87]

Originally Posted by Cougra

Home made foods and frozen foods generally don't add as much phosphates to the tank. A lot of people presoak the foods in RO water and then drain the water to get rid of the fine relatively useless particals as well as draw out some of the phosphates from the foods.

Do a search on the site for home made mush to get some various recipes.


PS: When you start going to the Grocery store asking for one peice of shrimp, one scallop, one small portion of each item on the counter, they are going to look at you strangely for a while. When you finally feel the need to explain that it's for the fish not for you they will look at you even more strangely! Rest assured though once you go through all the staff members a few times they tend to recognise you and wont give you strange looks as often!

Hah, That sounds like it could be interesting! I have a couple more quick questions here:

How do the majority of you clean the algae off of the glass? I have a sponge dedicated to the tank, but i can't help but feel like i'm doing something wrong each time i put my hand in the tank. That being said... How do i target feed, say a mushroom polyp, etc? are there like.. extra long tweezers or do i just get over the hand in tank phobia?

[rDr4g0n]

i put my hand in my tank pretty frequently. i target feed my cup corals with microvert mixed with tank water from a 10cc syringe. i also use a toothbrush i bought just for the tank to scrub whatever needs it (sponges get sand on them, or something takes a dump ontop of my corals or something like that)

i think as long as your hands are clean, theres nothing to fear.

[Cougra]

I use an algae magnet to clean the glass on the tank. I think they are called magfloats or something like that. (I'm horrible with names.)

For target feeding I use a poultry baster or even a long pipette that you can get from science stores (I found one that is about 12" long.)

Also instead of putting your hands directly in the tank I highly recommend that you invest in some long gloves that go up to your shoulder. There are many benifits to having these gloves to both the tank and yourself.

[Cassette87]

Sound reasonable, anyone else have different methods? I'm just curious to see how you guys do things. Also, Here is a picture of the Brain, as well as a new full tank shot!

[Cassette87]

Well, I just got through reading multiple horror stories about electircal fires, and now I am completley freaked out. I will be running all of my equipment off of two outlets, and have a powerstrip laying on the floor. I just took the time to clean everything, refer to pic below at any rate, I am hoping that the new lights and skimmer wont be too much of a burden for my outlets. I was researching the coralife powerstrip and found many instances of fire disasters, particularly with the manual timer version of the strip. I will need to find an easy way to set up my light cycle, but now I am hesitant to buy any sort of powerstrip or add anything to the set up just yet. Any experience with these issues from any one?