60 gallon hex reef tank update

[jenniferroman]

so i moved everything from my 14 gallon tank to my new 60 gallon yesterday. i put all the corals at the bottom since the 14 gallon tank lighting had only 96 watt of lighting and the new 60 gallon has 380 watts of lighting. i plan on keeping the corals at the bottom for a week because that is what i heard online. since i put the corals into the new tank all the corals are no were near the size they were before. is this normal? do i really have to wait a whole week to put the corals were i want in the tank? well here are the specs of the tank. right now the tank has only has a percula clownfish. for corals there is a hammer coral, green candy cane, red pimple mushroom, orange zoas, purple torch, blue mushroom, pulsing xenia, red acan and a crocea clam. in the future my goal is to turn this tank into a mix reef tank. for equipment i have a 380 watt medal halide. koralia #2, koralia #1, 2 aqua-tech 175 gph. 350 magnum canister filter. also do you guys think that i have enough flow to keep some sps in this tank. also how do you suggest me putting my power heads so that i have good water flow every were in the tank. any help will be greatly appreciated

[jenniferroman]

here is what the 60 gallon looked when i first started. its a video on you tube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVZMljDdc6I

[Amphiprion]

Very nice. Seems to be coming along well. Are you using a fine silica sand?

[Cheech]

very nice tank! Seems like you did your homework!

I'd wait on adding SPS. Give it a few months , make sure everything is running stable and well, then I'd add some hardier sps...

good luck, and keep us updated!

[jenniferroman]

the sand i use is natures ocean premium marine substrate from petco. it says it is 100% natural marine substrate straight from the ocean

[jenniferroman]

the first sps corals that i am planning to get is the red capricornis montipora, pink birdnest coral and orange montipora digitata

[jenniferroman]

i am going to keep updating as i go along

[Ace25]

Those are definitely 3 of the easiest SPS corals to start out with. You should have no problems with those once your ready to add them.

One thing I will mention though, is both the red cap and birdsnest can really take up a lot of room in your tank once they get going.. I decided yesterday that my birdsnest colony has to go, it is taking up way too much valuable real estate.

[jenniferroman]

can't you just frag it?

[Ace25]

I am sure once I rip it all out I will have quite a few large frags of it. Even if I left a small piece within just a few months it would start to get out of control again. Plus, one negative I have learned about birdsnests, is they grow in such a way that no clean up crew can get within the branches/rock to clean the rock. I have major hair algae growing under my birdsnest that nothing can get to.

The red cap, ya, you can definitely frag that as it grows to keep the size in check.

[jenniferroman]

oh wow i see now why you want to get rid of your bird nest coral

[jenniferroman]

after having just a percula clownfish for so long by itself in the 60 gallon tank i finally purchased a couple of fish yesterday and they came in today in the morning. i purchased a bopperband butterflyfish and a flame angel. they have been in the tank for half a day now and they are both still hiding in the back of the tank. i was feeding my clownfish hoping that the other fish will come out to eat but they both ignored the food. but i was thinking maybe they are still trying to get use to there new home. hopefuly they will eat tomorrow. keeping my fingers crossed. by the way incase anybody is curious what i am feeding right now are frozen mysis, spirulina brine shrimp, krill, soaked in kent marine garlic extreme

[jenniferroman]

i will post up pictures as soon as they come out to the front of the tank

[Ace25]

Sounds good.. patience and observing them is all you can do right now. Maybe get some dried seaweed to put on a clip to see if they will eat that. I know my angel likes it. I don't think butterflies care for it though but the meaty foods soaked with garlic is the best you can do for the butterfly. They are super hard fish to get healthy and established but once you do they are very good and hardy fish.

[jenniferroman]

i have dried green seaweed and algae sheets. i just have not fed those yet to the fish but tomorrow i am going to try. my plan is if the butterflyfish still has not ate in a couple of days i am going to go to the supermarket and buy frozen clams. i have read that most people get them to eat by that. they both look really really healthy i purchased them from bluezooaquatics.com

[jenniferroman]

i had to go to my local grocery store to buy some live clams. and i fed it to him yesterday and he didn't even pay any mind to it. he didn't wat anything. i tried to feed it again today and he ate almost the whole clam. the one that is still not eating is the flame angelfish. teh one that i thought was goingto be a piece of cake is ending up being the most hard one to get to feed. hopefuly i can get him to eat later today

[Ace25]

Awesome news on the butterfly! That is a huge step forward. :) Hopefully the flame angel follows shortly. Did you try any seaweed soaked in vitamins or garlic yet?

[jenniferroman]

thanks ace i am happy too that i got the butterflyfish to eat. i did try to feed him seaweed and algae yesterday but it was not soaked in garlic. he didn't eat any at all. i will try to soak seaweed with garlic today

[jenniferroman]

i am getting really worried for the flame angelfish. all he does is hide in a little spot in the rock work. he hardly swims. and when he does he only swims in the back of the tank. he never comes to the front of the tank. i tried feeding the seaweed soaked in garlic and he didn't eat any of it. and my butterflyfish didn't eat any of the seaweed either. but i knew there was going to be a big chance the butterflyfish wasn't going to eat any of it. the butterflyfish is always in the front of the tank swimming around. he seems to be really happy. it's just the flame engelfish i am really worried about. i am afraid i am never going to get him to eat and he is just going to end up dying. my butterflyfish all he eat's is clams. he doesn't like any other food. hopefuly i can get him of clams and start eating frozen foods. live clams is a bit expensive

[jenniferroman]

i have very good news today i finally got my flame angelfish to eat. he is eating live clams too with the butterfly fish. he is now always in front of the tank. i just hope i can get them to switch to frozen foods. i was thinking of putting some frozen foods in a empty clam shell

[jenniferroman]

i am so sad. my flame angelfish and my copperband fish is nipping at my green candy cane coral. they have been picking at it all day today. they have been closed up since yesterday and i was wondering why the coral wasn't looking good. and i come to find they are nipping at it. i am so upset. the candy cane coral is never going to open ever again with them picking at it 24-7. what should i do? i see them getting to close to the zoas too im afraid they are picking at the zoas too. they are defenitely not reef safe. i feel bad for the candy cane coral