Hey everybody, I haven't posted in awhile. When i got my new job in the city i was working close to 60 hours a week so I gave away most of my fish and sort of just kept my tank in hibernation until I had more time to spend. To make a long story short I have gotten a better job a few months ago. Its closer to home and am able to work much less hours, so i have spent the past couple of months cleaning and revamping my 55g tank. Im very excited to get going again.
My tank before was a FOWLR and now im going more in the reef direction. I cleaned up the tank a bit and had the lights on a timer for 5 hours a day. I wound up having a huge algae bloom in started with red slime on the rocks and then green hair started to grow. I blacked out the tank, and There was allot of left of algae detrius so I cleaned/brushed/vacuumed it up and did a couple of heavy water changes. Now my parameters are were they are supposed to be and I haven't had any algae in a couple of weeks.I want to start adding more corals but Im still nervous about keeping my lights on for too long because I feel that the more the lights were on the more algae i got. Im keeping them on about 8 hrs a day now.
Right now my aquarium is stocked with 1 2yr old clown, 1 year old black stripped damsel, some green zoanthid coral, and a small patch of pink pulsing Xenia. 6-8 nassarious snails, 4 hermits blue leg.
I have 65 lbs of live rock. 60lbs of live sand about a 2 1/4 inch bed.
Lighting: 2x 175w 14,000k metal halides
Heat: 2x 250w hydor heaters
water flow: 2x koralia 3's
Prot. Skim: red sea Berlin
My params are
Temp: 76-78 deg
Salinity: 1.0245
nitrites: 0
nitrates: very near 0 but not quite
ph: around 8.4
Calc: about 450
I would like to start building a cleanup crew but i don't want to wait for another bloom to start to have enough inverts to take care of it. but if i add enough now there might not be enough to munch on.
What do you guys think?
I was thinking of adding about 10 more hermits, a few more nass and cerith snails. a couple of shrimp because I do still have dirty live rocks there's some detrius still clinging on ans swaying in the current. Maybe a serpent star and i need something for the top of my sand that seems to be the first thing to start to get the browning of algae.
My tank before was a FOWLR and now im going more in the reef direction. I cleaned up the tank a bit and had the lights on a timer for 5 hours a day. I wound up having a huge algae bloom in started with red slime on the rocks and then green hair started to grow. I blacked out the tank, and There was allot of left of algae detrius so I cleaned/brushed/vacuumed it up and did a couple of heavy water changes. Now my parameters are were they are supposed to be and I haven't had any algae in a couple of weeks.I want to start adding more corals but Im still nervous about keeping my lights on for too long because I feel that the more the lights were on the more algae i got. Im keeping them on about 8 hrs a day now.
Right now my aquarium is stocked with 1 2yr old clown, 1 year old black stripped damsel, some green zoanthid coral, and a small patch of pink pulsing Xenia. 6-8 nassarious snails, 4 hermits blue leg.
I have 65 lbs of live rock. 60lbs of live sand about a 2 1/4 inch bed.
Lighting: 2x 175w 14,000k metal halides
Heat: 2x 250w hydor heaters
water flow: 2x koralia 3's
Prot. Skim: red sea Berlin
My params are
Temp: 76-78 deg
Salinity: 1.0245
nitrites: 0
nitrates: very near 0 but not quite
ph: around 8.4
Calc: about 450
I would like to start building a cleanup crew but i don't want to wait for another bloom to start to have enough inverts to take care of it. but if i add enough now there might not be enough to munch on.
What do you guys think?
I was thinking of adding about 10 more hermits, a few more nass and cerith snails. a couple of shrimp because I do still have dirty live rocks there's some detrius still clinging on ans swaying in the current. Maybe a serpent star and i need something for the top of my sand that seems to be the first thing to start to get the browning of algae.
