Ok, I’m going to use rodi to be safe, and will start building the stand on Friday. Ran into dunk and another member at dpa, nice meeting you guys, hope you didn’t mind me eves dropping on you conversation, just trying to figure things out. And could someone throw a couple of pieces of my rock in their tank for a few weeks to seed it for me, or spare a cup of sand? Won’t be needing it for a few weeks yet but figure seeding the rock for a bit will give me a good kick start.
Design options aside, you’re going to want to ensure adequate lighting. The picture you provided of your setup implies that you are going to be using one fixture for the “suite” setup . . . this may cause you issues due to watt/gallon. 120gallons = roughly 240 total watts (60/tank) for all fish setup, to the more desired 480 - 800 watts for corals (100-200 watts/tank). I have a 29 gallon display tank with an array of softies to some SPS, and I have IMO low lighting (4 T-5 bulbs @ 24w each giving me 96 watts total). I do this by having a meticulous arrangement of corals, not overloading my tank, and high quality bulbs that deliver the proper wavelengths and intensities.
Aside from very few exceptions, Corals cannot live without proper lighting and is the lifeforce of your tank. Proper selection of lighting is paramount and cannot be understated.
If I have repeated redundant information, forgive the redundant information and redundancy.
Best of luck, and of course, :Welcome)
I took my lights apart to see what they are exactly, there are 2 MH @ 175 w ea, and 2- 40 watt ?? or 112 w antic someting or other flurecents. the lighs would be set over just 2 of the 29 gallon tanks so that each tank would have one of the mh lights over thier center. would this be enough for lps and some sps???
That depends on your arrangement. If you are linking 2 tanks together and have lighting that will span the width between the two, I don’t think you will have any issues. Lighting penetration, bulb position, and light timing will be your biggest issues if you’re only using 2 29gal tanks. Consider a custom hood for more control on bulb placement and timing options. If you can manage a way to properly reflect the light away from your fixture and towards your animals, “evenly”, you shouldn’t have any problems. You want to avoid “dead space” where no lighting exists in your tanks.
Metal Halides get hot, placing them directly over the rims of your tanks may melt the plastic or disturb the silicon seal at the top of the tanks. Hot plastic = fumes = unhappy critters and a smelly room. This may also transfer unwanted heat directly to the glass causing an increase of surface area that heat is transferred to your water.
Those are 40w Actinics, which emmit light in the 450nm - ish wavelength (depending on brand).
I’m not being a “neigh-sayer”, but it’s best to address potential problems upfront to avoid expensive and time consuming re-work in the future. You are certainly being relatively unique with your design, and I would love to see you pull this off and have it thrive!
[quote=“dajohnson02, post:24, topic:4319”]
Those are 40w Actinics, which emmit light in the 450nm - ish wavelength (depending on brand).
I’m not being a “neigh-sayer”, but it’s best to address potential problems upfront to avoid expensive and time consuming re-work in the future. You are certainly being relatively unique with your design, and I would love to see you pull this off and have it thrive![/quote]
Thats why im here, to work the bugs out before I build :
: I appreciate any and all advice.
Its going to be a few weeks before i get things set up, may still sway and just set up the 40 long over a 29 for the sump, still researching and gathering information…
Be careful sticking to the watts per gallon rule, it is generally considered outdated due to advances made in lighting for the hobby in the last few years.
MH bulbs due get very hot, and melting plastic does need to be a concern, If you want to use 1 fixture I’d suggest looking for a longer T5 fixture that will span both tanks.
[quote=“Cdangel0, post:26, topic:4319”]
Be careful sticking to the watts per gallon rule, it is generally considered outdated due to advances made in lighting for the hobby in the last few years.
MH bulbs due get very hot, and melting plastic does need to be a concern, If you want to use 1 fixture I’d suggest looking for a longer T5 fixture that will span both tanks.[/quote]
I agree, covering 4 tanks would best be done with fluorescents. or only have 1 halide centered per tank.
I guess it would depend also on the stocking list for each individual tank, but with the tanks setup the way in your pic, you’ll end up with an “X” or “cross” of glass walls in the middle of the whole deal, blocking and reflecting light. I would think that any light source that is past the edge of any tank isn’t going to "reach that tank…example, if i hung lights outside of the outer diameter of my tank, the lights not going to penetrate the water… height of the fixture will probably help that scenario, but how high, and how much light would that lose? am i making sense?
IMO its going to be difficult to light them as a “whole” … will it work? maybe, again depending on the stock list, and where the halides are aimed. A single tank, the same size as the “total dimensions” of the 4 would be easy to light, but all the glass walls (and the algae, and the outside getting wet, salt build-up in between all the tanks) is my concern.
don’t get me wrong, thats a very cool little setup, i just see some challenges with it. then again, i’m a keep it simple type.
So anyway…do you have a specific stock plan for each tank?
For stocking, I’m thinking lps in one tank under the mh lights, then macro in one rear tank using standard fluorescents, the other rear tank will be used as a water change tank and qt that can either run on the sump or run stand alone. That leaves one front tank with mh lighting open for something, maybe clams? I’m still learning and researching so who knows lol if anyone has ideas I’m open to suggestions. I’m also buying back my 125 gal r/r tank to set up at a later time.
You know what really sucks? sitting here thinking it will be a few weeks before the tank is set up and running then another 4 weeks after that to get a good cycle and then maybe i can buy something to put in it verdict_in uggg. Well im starting to take a liking to zoa and something i saw that was like a green grassy type coral, have to look it up and try to remember its name… any way what about suplimental feeding of stuff? how do you do it and with what?
the green grassy stuff I think your referring to is probly gsp thats probly everyones first coarl ::
Your main feeding method will be through your lights and the associated symbiatic Zooxanthellae that lives within most corals. As for meaty additions, it all depends on WHAT is in your tank, and how many animals you have. If you have fish, plan on feeding them once a day (what they can consume in one feeding). For corals, I feed mine twice a week a mixture of Zooplankton and Mysis shrimp. I sometimes throw in a bit of Cyclopeeze just to mix it up. Everyone has a mixture that they use and trust, the key is to look up your animals specific nutritional needs, and feed accordingly.
Bit of warning: Feeding too much may cause unnecessary algae growth due to additions to nitrates, so finding a balance is necessary.
With the challenges that lie ahead of you, I wouldn’t worry too much about feeding just yet. When your tank is up and running, and everything is cooking, that would be a good time to research animals and their food requirements.
For now practice patience, but if you NEED ::drool:: to get some food, grab a bottle of Zooplankton and a pack of frozen mysis shrimp, I think you’ll be safe.
[quote=“Reefer, post:30, topic:4319”]
the green grassy stuff I think your referring to is probly gsp thats probly everyones first coarl ::[/quote]
Green star polyp, yep thats the stuff. I have decided to go with the 40 long over a 29 sump for now. that way i wont have to cut and modify my lights and can set it up pretty easily. In the next week or so ill be picking up my old 125 r/r tank alond with another 125 thats just a plain tank and building a stand for them. With all the new products that are out i figure ill set my old 125 up useing the newer lights and pumps and skimmers then take my seeded rock from the 40 and start putting it in, then the 40 can be used as a frag tank. I think this is my best bet :
:
I also have to admit i have been bad over the past few few days i have been playing around with a little 10 gallon tank and have put some live rock in it to seed some other base rock. Man small tanks are a pain compaired to the bigger ones imho. Anyway i know you guys like pictures and videos so here you go dont laugh… - YouTube
Yea thats what I would do makes more sense trust me you wana make things easy as posable you will have enough on your hands with the tank alone to play with a bunchall tied in like that getting water flow balanced it would be more work then you wanted.Get her started
[quote=“aonemarine, post:32, topic:4319”]
[quote=“Reefer, post:30, topic:4319”]
the green grassy stuff I think your referring to is probly gsp thats probly everyones first coarl ::[/quote]
Green star polyp, yep thats the stuff. I have decided to go with the 40 long over a 29 sump for now. that way i wont have to cut and modify my lights and can set it up pretty easily. In the next week or so ill be picking up my old 125 r/r tank alond with another 125 thats just a plain tank and building a stand for them. With all the new products that are out i figure ill set my old 125 up useing the newer lights and pumps and skimmers then take my seeded rock from the 40 and start putting it in, then the 40 can be used as a frag tank. I think this is my best bet ::
I also have to admit i have been bad over the past few few days i have been playing around with a little 10 gallon tank and have put some live rock in it to seed some other base rock. Man small tanks are a pain compaired to the bigger ones imho. Anyway i know you guys like pictures and videos so here you go dont laugh… - YouTube
Congrats on two big tanks, and the little one is cool, enough for a tempory “salt fix” ::
well i started designing a stand for the 40L and have the wood on hand now, going to be made out of maple and maple veneer ply, just trying to figure out where the heck my tenioning jig is. its somewhere in my basment/dungeon just havent been able to locate it.
I pick up a green star polyp frag from DPA and put it in the 10 gallon tank and it seems to be doing well, I had it just under the actinics and it opened nicely, then put on the MH lights. It really really likes them opens up alot more under them. I thought they didnt like high lighting ??? but from what i can tell it seems to preferr the mh, its also sitting near the bottom of the tank so im sure that has much to do with it. I have been tring to take pictures of it but they come up washed out from the blue of the antitics and i cant capture the luminisence of the frag with out them, how do you guys do it? I dont have a real good camera either
Ok what i liked and bought wanst the green star polyp, but was the neon clove polyp. still working on this picture taking thing so the pic just doesnt do justice to the green but see what you think.
To answer your question with out answer your question, yes it is a polyp. There a thousands of different species of coral imported into the hobby every year and 99.9% of them will go with out a proper ID. There are lots of common names used by hobbyist and there are some genetic lines with fancy names, but often we take our best guess to understand what it is and what it’s needs are with out know for sure exactly what it is.
Thing is that isn’t just the case with the hobby world. Often scientists who spend a life time identifying corals and describing new species can’t ID an animal especially just by looks alone. Many corals that could be IDed easily in the past are frequently being redescribed.
Most hobbyist call what you have in the above image a common brown Paly.(which is a bad abbreviation for Palythoa which is a bad abbreviation for Protopalythoa.) It certainly isn’t a Palythoa. And everything I said above could be dead wrong a month from now because there is a group of scientist that have been working for year to reclassify the entire family.
As far as care goes you don’t need to worry about it at all. It will love through worse conditions then just about anything in your tank.
With the image above that one it certainly isn’t a clove polyp either.(though some hobbyist or LFS may have called it that) It appears to me to be from the Briareum genus which are knowing for growing on ANYTHING. Remember to never place it near a stony coral(once you are ready for those) as it will grow on live stony coral and out compete it. Don’t place it near a rock you don’t want it to grow on as it will and will be difficult to remove.
Briareum is a great beginner coral for those interested in getting into fragging as it spreads very easily and is very hardy.(as long as you remember it will overgrow other items it is placed near)
Best of luck.
I will interpret for you…
The bottom pic looks like Brown button polyps
The top pic does look like Star polyps
Glad to hear that these are hardy and good for beginners, tank is just now starting to show a hint of amonia < .25, nitrate 0, nitrite 0 so i guess its just beginning to cycle. I wasnt planning on having anything in there other than some live rock but the polyps were on the one little piece and i couldnt resist the green polyp, its emerald green just screamed buy me!
I have been keeping a log from day one figured it would help me out when I start up the 40 gallon tank.
one thing i am sorting out now is my pH the API test kit said it was 8.2 so i set my digital up to read the 8.2 as a sample cal. I just bought some buffers and checked my meter to find it was way out so i did the 3 buffer cal and re checked the ph is actually 7.84-7.88 slope on the meter was 98 so its all good. now im trying to bring the Ph up slow wit an addition of hydrate lime in the drop down cyl. first i dissolved 1/2 teaspoon lime into 200 ml of di, then allowed to settle and added 3 ml of the lime solution to 1 L di. I am now slowly adding it to the tank at a rate of 10 ml/hr. hope it works out ok time will tell.
One question I have is with mixing up the salt mix with water the mix is supposed to come out to a pH of 8.2-8.4 but for some reason It came out alot lower is this just a result of using di water or is it the salt mix probably wasnt a good batch? I guess what im asking is if i had used tap water would the pH have come out higher?