Pics of the old tank, question on lighting for new

[zuzecawi]

Finally got off my butt and took some recent pics. Here's a couple of my 58. As you can see, I really dig ricordea and odd colored mushrooms. The lighting on this is 1 250w 20k bulb, it has 180lbs live rock in the main tank, another twentyish in the 20 gal sump, my macros are gracilaria and ulva, and a small bit of feather caulerpa (the yellow tang that I had in the 55 ate all of the caulerpa prolifera). I have it stocked with the small sailfin (motivator/excuse for the new tank), a spotted mandarin, and a HUGE FAT jeweled blenny. For those of you who remember, I had a TERRIBLE algae problem when my tank crashed (on TDY/Army duty to Texas and my tank sitter wiped out my tank) and it has been six months fixing the tank. I still have a bit of hair algae, but it finally doesn't grow quicker than the blenny and tang eat it. No worries of that blenny starving though, I have a very established wide variety of macros. And it eats gracilaria!!! I think its color has improved immensely since I picked it up from LFS, so has the tang's.

The new tank (135gal) is coming along, I got a guy to build the stand and canopy for $425, which is a steal around here. (Other quotes ran from 1000-1700$.) He's buildin it oversize to fit my 75L under it, + equipment. It will also be 36" high, giving me enough room to cram my skimmer under there (I hope... this might end up with me trading skimmers). So, now I'm at the point of ordering my lights. I was thinking (in respect of my power bill) of doing a PFO triple 175w metal halide ballast, and adding 2-4 (depending on what I can cram in there) VHO's. Keeping in mind that the only stonies I'll have will be on the top of the rock, and the main brunt of my corals are ricordeas and some future gorgonians, do you guys think this would be enough lighting? I really like low light corals... carnations, gorgonians, deep pigmented mushrooms. I figure with the 3x175w's + VHO's I'd be able to have stonies near the top, medium lights on the slopes, and my low light/cave critters in the bottom and in the caves. Am I smoking crack? I really want to avoid going to 3 250's but I will if I have to.

[Good Crab]

Love to look at the pictures put I only see this:

rednbluemushrooms.jpg - 2 Time(s)

[Lagger]

I can see them. And the pics look gorgeous! Nice tank.

Do I think you're smoking crack? maybe Do I think you'll be able to get away with 3 175's? Nope. Do the math, you'll be decreasing what you're at right now. Although 3 250's under a canopy will get hot, and thst something you'll have to address.

Good luck with the 135 and don't be so lazy to get us pics next time!

[zuzecawi]

Heh, I did the math, which is why I was thinking of adding the VHO's. And... I actually have TOO MUCH light in the 58. My gorg's and some of the ricordeas bleached on me when I switched from pc to halide. The ricordeas are recovering, the gorgonians never did. I guess what I want with this is a little different than most reefers... I like the really low light stuff. I want to have the option of having some plating type corals on the top of my reef, near the surface with the strong currents, but the majority of my corals are definitely not high or even medium light species. And with the bigger room, I really plan on having a lot of gorgonians. I kind of want this to be the gorgonian and sea fan showcase. Not knocking all the SPS guys, it just isn't my thing. There's a guy here locally with the same sort of tank, 24" deep like mine, and he's got the same kind of lighting, three 175's with 2 VHO's. He has a very nice selection, even some crocea and acroporas (sp?) up in the top levels, and then it goes to toadstools and colt corals and the bottom is deep red open brains and mushrooms. It's classy, I like the biodiversity vs. the usual all branching sps type reef. I'm really not in need of full penetration... (that sounds dirty) but I don't want to short change my top layer either.

Hmmm... Good Crab, I don't know why it won't show for you. It shows to me. Weird.

[Brenden]

You have experience in properly feeding gorgonians? They need "special" attention

[zuzecawi]

Yeppers. We have live phytoplankton on hand and there is also a locally made gorg-n-sea fan mix. It's kinda like microvert only with live items (enriched brine shrimp, pods, cyclops, etc) in it. Works good for scallops and hard to feed corals like carnations too. I don't plan on any scallops (finding them in my rock work would be nuts) but I wouldn't mind trying some carnations in a couple years. There actually ARE a few gorgs that have symbiotic algae, like the spiny sea fans, encrusting gorgonians, sea rods, knobby sea rods, etc. They require moderate lighting and will probably be on the upper-mid slopes with the leathers. Settled on a closed loop plan with a modded Squirt and Super Squirt from Oceans Motions, so the water flow will be pretty much tailored to the needs of these critters. I won't be adding anything to this tank for a while though. When I start it up, I'm ordering in a new 150lbs of rock from the keys, going to cycle the tank up with that. I did that last time, and it really worked great. Cut my cycling time down, and curing the rock in tank did wonders for being able to sort out the meanies before I added any livestock. Once a couple months have gone by with the new rock, I'll decide whether or not to start transferring the 180lbs from the 58 over. In the meantime though, I want to make sure my macro gardens are good and established enough to survive the grazing of my tang and blenny. Especially the blenny. I'm still not sure 230 some odd pounds of rock will be enough. Gotta see what comes in the 150. I don't want the rock to be quite as stacked as it is in the 58, but I like it thick and high. This tank I'm concentrating more on aquascaping than the 58, where I just sorta crammed rock in however it would fit and tried to save some swimming room. Brendan, you really saved me with the idea of the external overflow. I'll post pics later of how I'm working that out... it's a little more complex than your average box on a tank but it'll pull water from deep in the tank as well as off the top, and with my density of rock, that's a real must. Took a LOT of studying my Oceanic to come up with what should have been obvious. (Guess I'm dense) I have a swimming alley in the 58 (you can kinda see in the pics, it's behind the big A shaped arch) but I'm going to be extending that for about two thirds the length of the 135. Some place for good horizontal alternating currents and for my tang to really get a good swimming run. It'll also be the perfect way to place sea fans and the light loving gorgs so that they get both light and food. The www.oregonreef.com site really gave me a idea on how to do this. Wow, I really went on here. Can you tell I'm excited?