Buffy's 1st Ever SW Build - Reef Tank

[Buffy]

P.S. while shining my flashlight to look for everyone, I found the Emerald under a different rock and when I shined my light on him, he STUCK HIS TONGUE out at me. LMAO. So what did I do, I laughed and told my dog about it. Hehehe

 

[carey]

My shrimp almost always molt when I out them in the tank. I thought it was just me lol.

My little emerald crab was just doing a dance against the front glass of the 125g.

I;m now just sitting here watching Mandy eat, she;s getting a tiny little belly on her. No one can say my fish starve thats for sure. hehe

Now if I could only get Pootie to come out...(named the blue tang Pootie) rofl

 

[huma-huma]

Haha the fire just stripped into his birthday suit and started chasing other fish for hugs

 

[rdnelson99]

As in Pootie Tang??? LOL Carey, you should be ashamed of yourself. LOL

 

[carey]

One of the worst movies of all time, it's great!! LOL My b/f came up with it.

 

[Buffy]

LOL I like that name.

I moved my Elegance again, still seems like a little much for flow for it. I wish my Emerald was green :-(

So this empty shell......do I take it out or leave it or what? It's behind the rock...LOL go figure I tried making it so they didn't get back there, but I didn't think bout snails, shrimp and stuff just fishies.

I'm looking at more coral in a little bit. I gotta get my work stuff together first cause I'm gonna ride my bike in. Not too many warm days left.

So, I'm going to be going back to an earlier post that has my wish list and see if I can get one or two more this weekend. I already don't have groceries so I have to figure out where the money will come from LOL.


@Carey--what phosphate tester did you get???

I have problems with mine...the button is hard to push and I can't get it into setup so I can change it to farenheit.

 

[carey]

I got the hanna checker

Hanna Instruments Checker Colorimeter

 

[huma-huma]

Leave it there, it ptovides calcium to other inverts

 

[mdaniel2882]

At the risk of sounding cliche... as an adult, esp in todays world, its extremely hard to find something that genuinely makes you happy, mines sw fish and ill pay as much as needed to keep being happy

I was gonna just respond +1 but that did not do it justice. Yes yes yes!!!!

 

[mdaniel2882]

I wonder what a drunk fish would act like

Like a clown fish...what would a drunk clown fish look like?

 

[mdaniel2882]

There are good reasons for paying the extra at your LFS. When you find a good one, like ocean's floor in Greenville SC, they know your tank as well as you do. They know what is there and know what will solve any problems I have. I bought from another store(now OOB) for a while cause it was less expensive. The piece of mind is worth the extra cost. Plus if I go Pit of town for a couple of weeks I know where to go. I do buy some of the more expensive equipment on line but I talk to them first.

 

[Buffy]

Yep, I like that "personalized" communication. I was at the lfs and the guy and I discussed I don't know how much stuff. We talked the whole time I was there which was about 2 1/2 hours I think. I learned alot and was able to ask questions right off. Instead of email and wait for response. I don't know how many questions I fired off at the poor guy LOL. Got him on a couple too lol, wasn't intending too, but you know what, when he didn't know he told me, he didn't try to bs is way through.

And he also steering me away from "blowing" money by suggesting that I NOT buy certain corals right now. So he was there not just for the buck but he genuinely want to help. For all this I think the extra money is worth it also.

Back to my tank:

1. I think one snail died, he hasn't moved since Saturday.
2. How do I know I'm placing my corals in the right locations? I don't see any shrinking or reaching, so I'm thinking I got them in the right lights but my elegance coral.....the way it's swaying is not a gentle graceful sway, it's more like if the flow is much stronger I'm gonna tip over. It's tenacles are almost parallel to the sand. I'm thinking they should be "gently flapping around in the wind and basically just "waving"". I've moved him each day so far, he still is doing good-color and fullness wise. But as I said, I don't think he should be "swaying" so MUCH.

Time for sleep, alarm in 3 hours, ride bike in and home on 12 hour shift....gonna be a long day

Oh also, my lights have 2 switchs. One controls 2 of 3 acintics and the other switch control the rest of the lights which is 3 10,000k and 1 more acintic. I bought a "timer" from DrsF&S. How should I set up the timer stuff? How many hours of what especially since my bulbs are separated weird. I thought with 2 plugs that it would be all white and all acintic, 3 bulbs per outlet plug but nope it's 4 and 2.

This is the time I got. I need to try to get this set up asap, cause when I leave at 4am and come home at 7p, I think that's a tad too long (15 hours give or take and hope no issues with my bike that made it a 16 1/2 day) for lights. Any ideas?

Sorry so long, gotta get everything out a once.
Thanks all

 

[carey]

Thats the one thing that the nova extreme pro did wrong in my opinion, mixing up the lighting switches. lol

I have my 4 blues come on at 9 and the rest of the whites and the blues at 10. The whites go off at 8 and the blues off at 9pm.
Since its a three prong plug I had to go with a double timer setup, one for each plug.

 

[jsmith]

Feels like its been forever since I posted... had to read 10 pages on my phone sheesh.. worse then careys thread.. looks like your coming ali g great!

 

[scottayy]

Yeah I would do what carey said. The 2 actinics for an hour or two, then the other four.

That's a really weird setup.

Or I don't know actually. Maybe it'll look good with 1 10k and 2 blues, and then switch on the rest. Just play with it and see what you like!

 

[carey]

When I switch bulbs I am gonna swap out two of the 4 that go on first to purple bulbs. I think it will give the tank a nice pop in color for the first hour they are on by themselves.

Just thinking out loud cause I keep saying I'm getting new bulbs then it never happens. lol

 

[jsmith]

My whites are on from like 3 to 8 atonics are on 8 to 8 I never had an issue is this okay everyonr has me quessing now

 

[carey]

Whatever works best for your tank I suppose is the right answer. Do yiu have corals? cause I believe they need some more white light in their diet.

 

[Gregcoyote]

If any of you have Apple devices, download the application "Coral." it is the electronic version of Coral magazine. I just read the best article ever on coral feeding requirements that made huge sense to me. It was about the "myths" we still spread to each other. The light spectrum has to be right for the corals algae and this can change depending on where the coral normally grows. Why we move stuff around. But we are vastly underfeeding our corals in order to keep organics under control. They only produce sugars with the algae, so that is where the energy comes from, but they need food to grow tissues. When asked about some successful SPS gardens that are never feed, the answer was that they were eating everything from bacteria to fish poop and we don't notice. With most SPS corals the tissue is as thin as paint, so they don't require as much intake as a LPS or softie might, interesting article from a scientific stand point.

 

[Gregcoyote]

Top myths in reef keeping:

Many corals need no food, they get all they need from their algae - wrong, while it will sustain a coral, they all need food to grow, even if you can't see what they are eating.

Corals like low salinity - wrong, the salinity where they grow is almost always above .025

Corals need temperatures under 80 degrees - wrong, most corals grow in waters from 78-85 degrees, 90 seems to be the bleaching point.

Corals need constant temperature - wrong, they tolerate a few degrees either way in their natural habitat all the time.

The reef is a sterile environment with little phytoplankton in the water - wrong, the early researchers didn't see the tiny transparent stuff they like to eat.

The analogy is a coral reef is millions of mouths pointing into the current ready to get fed.

I am sure this will stir up some controversy, but this is the leading scientific understanding on corals presently.

So Buffy, when you get your corals situated, look into this.