75 Gallon Hand Down

[dr.diggler]

My pap last night handed down his tank to me. I have been taking care of it for a bit now. Its a 75 gallon tank. I added my 34 lbs of live rock from my 28 euro bowfront to it making it around 70-80 lbs of live rock.

Light Question: He has a 175 Watt Metal Halide flood light on there that he bought from grainger and removed the base of it.
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/productdetail.jsp?xi=xi&ItemId=1611635207&ccitem=
-I am going to buy another metal halide light and two atinic lights and make a aluminum hood for it. Is that sufficient light for a 75 gallon reef tank?

PowerHeads: I have 5 powerheads in the tank now. I am going to buy the coral life power strip that you can set to 15 minute intervals. Would there be a issue with this many powerheads in one tank and what is the best practice with powerheads and reef tanks.

He has a Fluval 304 on there with a wet-dry sitting in a box which will be going together real soon. My question is the wet dry came with bio balls, I posted on another thread about this and I was told to use live rock rubble and not the bio balls because of the debris that can collect on the bio balls. Good idea?

One last qustion, what is currently in the tank are two tomato clowns and a hippo tang. The hippo tangs color is almost a faded blue. Besides pellets what would be good for color enhancing.

I will post pics of the tank tommrow, his tank is to the left of the 28gallon in my pictures.

 

[fishfreek]

I belive the bulb that this fixture comes with and the one thats avaiable from Grainger for replacment is to low of kelvin. The bulb appears to only be a 4000 kelvin lamp.

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/productdetail.jsp?xi=xi&ItemId=1611594910

I would suggest a higher kelvin lamp. Depending on the bulb connector and the ballast type you may or may not be able to use other MH lamps in the unit.

Other than the look of the powerheads in the tank I dont see an issue with 5 of them bing in there. What size are the PH's? On my 75 I have two Hagen 802 powerheads that alternate every 10 minutes.

Detrius can collect on the bioballs if you dont have a trickle filter pad before them to collect the big stuff. If your not running a DSB the bioballs can cause a steady increase in your nitrates as the bio ball area is highly oxygenated and thus a perfect place for nitrification to occur. Using live rock rubble that is fully submerged in the wet/dry will do the same thing as the bio balls and the nitrate production will be lower. The water level in the sump will need to be a little higher than with bio ball operation.

The tang should be fed a steady dite of seaweed with the occasional meaty meal. What I use is dried nori that I purchased from an online health food sthop. If you have a god asian section in your grocery store you might be able to find the same thing there. Its basicly the stuff suchi is rolled in. The meaty foods can be ground up fish, shrimp, squid, clams, etc.

 

[dr.diggler]

I was looking on ebay and you can get the ballast and two metal halide fixtures and bulbs for relativley inexpensive. I think I am going to go that route and build a canopy. Is it true with full reef tanks that you should use 7watts per gallon. That would set me at 525 watts of light.

In the tank right now are 4 AquaClear 402's and one Eheim Aquaball

The bed that he has right now is all crushed coral. I not sure what to do with it, it looks alright, rather have a sand bottom. I opened up the wet dry last night and there is a pre filter pad. I think I am going to purchase a slab of live rock and break it into smaller pieces or see if i can get alot of frags.

 

[Phyl]

I'd steer away from the Coral Life timer strips. After reading several experiences with them causing house fires I threw mine (3mo old) straight into the garbage. And these weren't stories of salt creep, they were stories of well looped strips that just melted down for seemingly no reason. It just isn't worth the chance, IMO.

Get a red sea wave maker.

 

[Phyl]

Oh and before you look to ebay check out CaptiveReefs.com. Great customer service, good prices and you're not spending buckets of money with an unknown on eBay. Good luck. Enjoy your new setup!

 

[dr.diggler]

Thanks alot for the warning, its worth spending the extra money for that wavemaker. Going to check out that site now.

 

[revhtree]

Also AA members get a discount a Captivereefs!!


PS. My new 125g came with the coralife timer......

 

[Phyl]

Run to the nearest garbage can...

Page 3 has the information from the fire investigation on it:
Photos of House Fire & assoc story

A must read.

 

[dr.diggler]

Wow, saw those pictures and glad the tank put the fire out or the whole house would have been destroyed.

For the reef tank should I be following 7 Watt's per gallon?

How much of a discount do we get with captivereefs. I wish we got discounts to bigal's I order from them all the time.

 

[Phyl]

Discount from CR is 6%. How many WPG really depends on what you want to keep but it is a good middle of the road number.

 

[captivereefs]

just use coupon code AQUARIUMADVICE at checkout for the 6% to be automatically applied.

 

[dr.diggler]

Thanks alot. Not sure right now what I am going to house in the tank. I am focusing on getting all the essential parts of the tank done.

I have a couple questions
1) Could salt creep eat through wire? Reason I ask is because on some of the wires for the powerheads I get salt creep and I use a warm cloth and just wipe it off and put the salt back in the tank

2) I got a coralife 18watt uv sterilizer with the tank, my plan is to use his wet dry and then also build a refugium. Is it a bad idea to use the UV sterilizer. I ask because I know it destorys everything good or bad and with the refugium being in place I dont want to kill any beneficial life. I have a rainbow lifeguard uv sterilizer on my freshwater tank and it helped take care of all the free floating alage in the tank. I love the lifguard so much better than the coral life, better design and more effective.

3) What kind of lighting would you use on a refugium and also as far as plants I've read they use mangroves are there any other plants that would be beneficial.

 

[dr.diggler]

When dosing with kalkwasser does anyone also dose iodine and Strontium.?

 

[Phyl]

I have NO lighting on my fuge. I have a fuge, a sump and a UV sterilizer. My system is stable and handling the bioload great. My trates are hovering right about 7 and have been for the last few months (*knocks on wood HARD*). LOL!

I don't dose Kalk, I'd rather do b-ionic personally. I have this fear/respect for kalk and I'm just not ready to go there yet..

 

[dr.diggler]

Hey PHY, what is in your fuge? Why do you fear Kalkwasser?

 

[Phyl]

I have a 4" DSB, chaeto and caulerpa. I light my fuge 24/7 and am finally ready to havest a little bit of my fuge growth, I think. I fear Kalk because in the raw it has a pH of around 13 and dripped wrong you could really hurt your tank. I'm not ready for that level of responsibility, lol!

 

[dr.diggler]

PH of 13!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wasnt aware that it could really reak havoc. My mom is going to get me the drip setup because she works at a hospital.