New to Salt Water Aquariums and have a few questions

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divemasterjim

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
May 18, 2004
Messages
315
Location
Chicago, IL
Ok im new to saltwater aquariums and have a few questions. First im having trouble with Algae that I think are Diatoms. The algae keeps covering my substrate on the bottom of my tank then moves up onto my fake plants and fake rocks. My tank is a Fish Only 60 gallon Acrylic 20"H 48"W 16"D looks like half of an elongated octagon, im using a CPR bak-pak 2R protein skimmer and an Eheim 2213 canaster filter, I have a coralife actinic 03 and a trichromatic 6500k full spectrum lights running about 12 hours a day also 4 LED moonlights I made myself running 24/7. I also have a Rio 800 moving water in the tank. As for fish I have eight, 2 tank raised Percula Clowns, 2 Three spotted Domino Damselfish, 2 Yellowtail Damselfish, and 2 Sargent Major Damselfish. The tank has been set up for about 7 weeks .temperature is around 74.5-77f .The water was tap when I filled the tank, I have since done a 10 gallon RO change and then i bought a RODI unit from filters direct off Ebay. My unit is a 6 stage Water General RO6100Dint RO+DI and i just did a 15 gallon change, I also added 1 cup of Seachem Phosguard phosphate/silicate control to the filter but the algae is still growing. Should i get A algae attack pack from Doctors Foster & Smith http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?siteid=25&pCatId=520
Which contains 12 Scarlet Hermit Crabs, 24 Mexican Turbo Snails, and 35 Dwarf Red tip Hermits,or should I use Chemicals? or any other Ideas?

Ok For my Second Question I want to turn my fish only tank into a marine tank with corals and such so im about to buy Live Rock From Doctor Foster & smith web site
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Display.cfm?siteid=24&pCatId=397
It is Fiji Live Rock is 45 pounds enough for my tank? or should i get more?
Is this stuff any good? any better ideas? was choosing this one based on price.

Ok For my third ( and last)question I am going to need new lighting for the marine tank and need help on this one. I would like to build my lighting system myself and have seen some great articles on this website!
I was thinking about doing dual 6500k 250w Iwasaki Metal Halide but have a concern, my hood is black acrylic and only has about 4 and a 1/2 inches of space between the tank and the hood. Will it melt my hood?or tank? i was planning on installing fans but worry about the direct heat to the hood. Also do I need some type of HO or VHO with this? if so what should I use? OR if the MH wont work What should I retro Fit my tank with? keep in mind i want to build it myself and dont want to spend an arm and a leg for it .
Well sorry for the long post any advice is welcome.If it works Picture is a model of my tank
 
I would not get that algae pack, it is too big for the ammount of algae that you have. I would get 2-5 of the critters mentioned, and see how they do for a week or two. If you need more then buy some more. I once added a similar pack to a 30 gal and they stripped the tank clean in a month and then died off (probably due to starvation) and then I think it allowed space for cyano to take hold.
2. live rock is a great addition to a tank. I have 2 lbs/gal in a 75 gal and it gives the fish places to hide, and cleanup crew places to clean. I can also be yor main source of denitrification. I got some base rock for the bottom and middle of the structure and then some lr for lfs, which was kinda-live rock and then some from lr.com which has lots of lifeon it without much die off.
3.what type of lighting do you have now, and what do you want to keep? pc fixtures will give you better light. it would allow you to kep low light corals like shrooms. MH is better, but it would have to be suspended, about 12" from the water.
hope this helps 8)
 
I don't have any advice on your lights, I'm just about clueless when it comes to that
If your ordering online go with Liverocks.com, and try to get 2 lbs/gal like darb2 said.
I read a post recently about the LR from liveaquaria that wasn't too favorable so i would look into that before ordering LR from them
I too got an algae attack pack for my 55 and thought it was too much. I ended up trading a bunch of snails to the LFS
How old is your tank?
Algae is a pain in younger tanks from everything I have read and what i am going through myself
What are your nitrate levels, how often do you feed (over feeding will feed the algae), how often do you do water changes?
 
my tank is about 6-7 weeks old i have done 2 water changes , i was feeding the fish 3 times a day at first now i only do it twice just measured nitrite, nitrate and amonia all are zero so thats good.
 
Feed way less. I used to feed twice a day and then went to every night and every other morning. That worked for varying the diet, but now I'm feeding on average every other day either day or night. That has helped with the algae.

The other help will be the age of your tank. How long have you had it set up? Maybe cut back on the time your lights are on to about 10 hours. If you only have fish, that would be more than sufficient.

As far as your ideas for lighting, I'll have to let others give ideas for that.
 
IMHO 6500k will not be the color you would want unless you like the lighting more of a yellowish hue. Also two 250W in that small of a space will more than likely cause you grief later on. Depending on what you want to keep in your tank depends on what kind of lighting you should purchase. You can get this kit http://www.hellolights.com/4lamvhoretki2.html and that would be very easy to install and you will have almost 8 watts per gallon which could be over kill or if you want less get the 3(5.5 watts per gallon) 0r 2(little over 3 watts per gallon) lamp version. Also available are power compacts like this one http://www.hellolights.com/4x55wretrokit.html they are a bit more expensive but will do the job. I have 3 400w metal halides and heating is a very big issue, my lights are currently about 16 inches off the water and by 5pm my water temp in my sump is 85. those are on a 9 to 9 cycle. So if you want corals you are going to need the higher end of the watts per gallon and you may need to put in some fans on the end of your hood. Make sure you have the fans drawing air over the lights and not blowing on them, also make sure you open the other end of the hood so that it will get fresh air. oh ya Hi Mom :wink:
 
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