36 gallon top fin bowfront reef tank

dcreasy9880 · Dec 28, 2022

I set up a 36 gallon bowfront saltwater tank. It was a freshwater planted tank for almost a year, and I turned it into a saltwater tank few months ago in august. The sand i added new and all the rock come out of a 20 gallon saltwater set up a i had for about 6 months and decided i wanted to go bigger. Shortly after setting it up i had some fish that received ick, i tried treating the tank and over a few weeks lost all 4 of my fish, i continued with treatment but left the tank empty of live stock for almost 2 months. I added in 2 clowns with a cleaner shrimp that did great for a few weeks so i added in a bicolor blenny, 2 hermit crabs, and 2 nassarius snails. I am currently starting to turn it into a reef tank. I’m running a tidal 75 filter with, seaclone 100 protien skimmer, single kessil a80 tuna blue light and a eheim 100w heater. I just recently picked up a Duncan coral with 2 heads and a 3rd is already starting to grow and a pulsing Xenia coral. My parameters are salinity: 1.025 kh: 8 phosphate 0.25ppm nitrate: 20ppm. I just recently added the skimmer so I’m hoping that helps lower my nitrates and ima do a larger water change later this week. I’m looking for advice on best way to keep nitrates low, recommended lighting for my tank and just all around advice I’m new to reef tanks and any advise is appreciated I have pictures of the tank and corals below.

"this was all posted in a separate thread titled 36 Gallon bow front reef tank on 12/20/22" Someone recommended i just copy and paste what i had in that thread and start a new one here to give updates on things i add.

dcreasy9880 · Dec 28, 2022

Update 2: "posted on 12/22/22 copied from my other thread.

i added a rainbow bubble tip anemone Wednesday evening from my local fish store. So far he is doing great and found his happy spot on a rock. I also got some gfo to start running in my filtration to help keep my nitrates and phosphates in check. My Duncan coral is doing amazing and already growing a third head that looks like it may split into 2 heads. My xenia so far is still doing good as well. I found a cheap box light on amazon the aqua knight A029. It is a 30 watt light and i thought about buying 2 of them and running them on the tank simply because im having good luck with a single A80 tuna blue Wich is only 15 watts, so 2 would mean id have 60 watts going into my tank. I'm curious if anyone else has had any luck with lights similar. I'm trying to stay fairly cheap for the simple fact id like to upgrade to a 75+ gallon tank and that would be where i really dump some money in. My ultimate plan with this tank is mainly soft beginner corlas and a few beginner lps corals.

dcreasy9880 · Dec 28, 2022

Update 3: I ended up getting a new light. I've been looking into the current usa marine lights, my buddy had an extra one brand marine ic led loop light. It is the 36"-48" style light, it is about 5 inches wider than my tank but for $50 for a brand new programable light i couldn't turn it down. i currently have it just setting across the top of my tank, i ordered the brackets to hold it up off my tank but they wont be here till the 5th of January. The light is extremely bright and i l love it.

I needed some water so i picked some up from my lfs today and decided to ask what he recommended i set my light as, The previous photos is with the daytime setting at red, green, blue 100% white 60%. He said for my size tank that my new light was plenty bright enough and that i needed to turn the red and greens off completely to avoid algae and to run 75% blue and 20% white. So when i got home i re programmed my light to those settings and they are now sunrise at 8:00 am ramping up from 40%blue and 5% white over the coarse of an hour to full intensity of 75% blue and 20% white for 8 hours then ramping down at sunset over the coarse of an hour same as sunrise into 6 hours of moonlight which is 5% blue only. He claimed that would be a great setting and time frame to work with. I'm curious if anyone else has used these lights or id love to hear what yall think i should be setting my parameters at. My corals are looking great in my opinion! My rainbow bubble tip anemone looks strange to me, i got it at a discounted price cause it was the littlest of the bunch. All the others were vibrant orange tentacles with neon green center body, where mine on the other hand is a dingy orange and more of a white center. I dont really know anything about anemones, my lfs said its just a young small coral and hasn't got its colors yet but it will, they said as long as it keeps opening up like it is and stretching out like it does all is well. I know at moonlight and darker blue lighting i can start to see shades of neon green and vibrant oranges coming out in spots on it. Please tell me what yall think? im open to any and all advice being i am new to the reef keeping side of the hobby i placed pics below of the new light setting on the tank along with the new sand sifting star the wife picked out today.

Gumbies R Us · Dec 28, 2022

dcreasy9880 said:
Update 3: I ended up getting a new light. I've been looking into the current usa marine lights, my buddy had an extra one brand marine ic led loop light. It is the 36"-48" style light, it is about 5 inches wider than my tank but for $50 for a brand new programable light i couldn't turn it down. i currently have it just setting across the top of my tank, i ordered the brackets to hold it up off my tank but they wont be here till the 5th of January. The light is extremely bright and i l love it.

I needed some water so i picked some up from my lfs today and decided to ask what he recommended i set my light as, The previous photos is with the daytime setting at red, green, blue 100% white 60%. He said for my size tank that my new light was plenty bright enough and that i needed to turn the red and greens off completely to avoid algae and to run 75% blue and 20% white. So when i got home i re programmed my light to those settings and they are now sunrise at 8:00 am ramping up from 40%blue and 5% white over the coarse of an hour to full intensity of 75% blue and 20% white for 8 hours then ramping down at sunset over the coarse of an hour same as sunrise into 6 hours of moonlight which is 5% blue only. He claimed that would be a great setting and time frame to work with. I'm curious if anyone else has used these lights or id love to hear what yall think i should be setting my parameters at. My corals are looking great in my opinion! My rainbow bubble tip anemone looks strange to me, i got it at a discounted price cause it was the littlest of the bunch. All the others were vibrant orange tentacles with neon green center body, where mine on the other hand is a dingy orange and more of a white center. I dont really know anything about anemones, my lfs said its just a young small coral and hasn't got its colors yet but it will, they said as long as it keeps opening up like it is and stretching out like it does all is well. I know at moonlight and darker blue lighting i can start to see shades of neon green and vibrant oranges coming out in spots on it. Please tell me what yall think? im open to any and all advice being i am new to the reef keeping side of the hobby i placed pics below of the new light setting on the tank along with the new sand sifting star the wife picked out today.

Tank looks great so far!! Love the starfish you have!