coral???

[miked78231]

besides the lighting would this be an okay setup for coral? do you all have any suggestions? what could i add or take away?

[Reef69]

besides the lighting would this be an okay setup for coral? do you all have any suggestions? what could i add or take away?

No, it would not be ok for coral. I'd have the tank drilled, add good lights, add good rock, add more water movement, a good sump, a good skimmer, maybe a fuge..then it might be ready for coral. But if by coral you mean some zoos and xenia..add a PC fixture and you are set to go.

[miked78231]

well right now im running a red skimmer delux, and what do you mean by "good rock", are my rocks crap. i want an awesome coral tank so i will do what i have to do. give me more ideas if you have them.

[Reef69]

IMO..That skimmer is crap..(i used to have 1, i traded it for a seaclone)..Good rock?..nice coralline encrusted tonga, kaellini, or fiji (fiji is good as "skeleton" of the structure, other than that, its bulky and ugly). And patience, a nice coral tank takes months,..years..spend a gizzie or two (..true)..thats what i did, and what people with bad *** tanks have done..

[miked78231]

im not taking any offense but my tank looks likt crap right now? i need better rocks and a better setup? is it possible to get these rocks looking better? i am adding a calcium buffer every night to help with the coraline. so i should save up and get an sump/fuge with a skimmer thats not a HOB? up have any other ideas?

[Ram_Puppy]

mike,

Lighting, your tank looks shallow enough you can get by using T-5's. If your willing to invest the money up front they are great lights that have a spectral life of 2 years. I would reccomend hitting CB Pets, last time I as there they had some great T-5's for very reasonable prices. If you want an awesome set though, Get some teklights from reefgeek.com, their bulbs paired up with icecap ballasts are unbeatable for T-5s.

if you put 4 x 48" tubes I think that would probably be enough, I am not sure on your tank size though. Should be able to do some SPS and clams in the top 1/3rd of the tank at that point.

Liverock: you need a LOT more. rule of thumb, 1lbs per gallon of capacity. some rock is denser some is lighter, so you make it a judgement call. live rock is more than just decoration, it's your filter too. I would reccomend getting a good indo-pacific rock, fiji, kalini, tonga, etc.

ditch the redsea skimmer and have one of our maastards make you a nice custom one, or, get a precision marine (based out of san marcos i believe)i fyou want a HOT skimmer get a remora pro, they are the undefeated hangon kings, (except maybe for deltec's hang on skimmer)

buy lots of books and read a lot, the more you do, the more informed your purchases will be, and the better the tank.

[miked78231]

since ive been on here, (2-3 months) you are the only one to tell me what i needed to hear. thanks im gonna follow exactly what you said.

[Ram_Puppy]

sorry I haven't been around that much lately, my tank crashed about a year ago and I have been acquiring the parts to build a new one that is more stable, now that it is almost up I will hopefully be around more.

[brewercm]

If you go with a sump, here is a great skimmer and I've found the prices of this place to be about the lowest. They don't require the monster pumps that the becket style skimmers use, nothing against beckett skimmers or the PM style, I just like that this one requires less tweeking and a lot less pump, but it does require a sump.

No need to drill the tank either since it's already up and going, I'd just get an overflow with a decent sump. They are very easy to use and there are many systems you can take a look at to get an idea of how they work. I'm going to put some pictures in the gallery of my system now that I've basically completed the changes I wanted. Maybe tonight if I get the chance to you may want to check out my gallery later in the week to see the system or PM me if you want to come take a look some time.

Lighting, if you want to keep hard corals and clams I'd highly recommend either the T5s like ram was saying or a mixture of T5 or VHO's and Metal Halides.

Here is that site for the skimmers I was talking about.
www.asmskimmer.com

[LoneStar]

No need to drill the tank either since it's already up and going


Yeah I agree, no need to drill the tank. Overflows work great. Just get the ones with the "J" tubes, they seem to be more reliable.

[Reef69]

im not taking any offense but my tank looks likt c-word right now? i need better rocks and a better setup? is it possible to get these rocks looking better? i am adding a calcium buffer every night to help with the coraline. so i should save up and get an sump/fuge with a skimmer thats not a HOB? up have any other ideas?

First off..how long has it been running?, here we are talking about corals and buying stuff when in theory you cant yet.

[hobogato]

too bad NO ONE else would help you. :blink