Beautiful aquascape! I'll hop over to your build and follow shortly.
I would recommend: (if u havent already)
1. That you do a PAR and Spectrum measurement at about 10 different depths/locations from the sandbed around the base to a handful of points around the rocks. Dont wanna burn some species, but dont wanna starve them of light either. Crucial to coral placement.
2. Draw out a flow mapping if you will. To identify the high flow and low flow, dead areas etc.. you will find different species of coral have just like us. We are all unique and have preferred conditions. I'm chubby, so 63 and sunny is my kinda day ;)
3. You mentioned you have zoas. Take note of which ones grow like crazy vs slow growers. If they can, they can potentially overgrow every rock connected to the first. Like weeds. Isolate the fast growers if u can, I know that's tough with the lack of sand surface area you have.. I personally have a lot, so I did a zoa island, for instance.
That's about it. Stable no3, po4, Ca, and dKh are the main focuses. As long as you have stability in the parameters, u should be ready :)
Thank you so much for the kind words! This is my very first saltwater tank and only 6 months in to this awesome hobby I still got a lot to learn. Thankfully R2R is my number one place I've learned and grown from honestly!
So funny enough when I first started here, I never actually started a build thread for my main tank. Ironically, I did for a second tank that is now being ignored until I fill this one out, which as you can see is gonna take awhile. ;)
I have some phone filters coming in the mail so I'll probably post a new build thread for this one and update it with some nice photos and such. Tomorrow is water change, so gotta make sure it looks nice and clean. Lol
I totally agree on the PAR meter idea. I've been looking at renting one, but just haven't justified spending $70 on something I don't get to keep and use for like an hour at most. Maybe I'll search the local reef club, like you said, and try to find one I can borrow on there.
I have a zoa garden, on the right hand side that has: everlasting gobstoppers, seductions, purple hearts, and rastas. I need make another separate island for one zoa I know that is a fast grower that is already picking up gravel in the sandbed, but like you said, I'm kinda limited on sandbed space. Also, I don't really know which ones are fast growers as opposed to slow growing ones.
I have a goby/pistol shrimp pair that basically bury anything on the left hand side that's a frag unless it's glued. I've even had him pick up whole frags to try and use them to support his caves. Great personalities, but they're a pain with corals sometimes, but at this point it would be a huge pain to get them out, so I guess they stay. Lol
I'll try and draw out a flow map tonight or tomorrow! I have two Jebao power heads opposite sides, one about half way down behind rockwork and the other in the upper part in front of aquascape.
Still really excited about expanding on this build and expanding on it. Definitely have a lot of ideas for the top 1/3, but just still trying to decide what I want to do.
Overall, still long way to go, but I appreciate the ideas and support!
