mcarroll
10K Club member
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2012
- Messages
- 15,224
- Reaction score
- 8,991
- Location
- Virginia
- What state or country do you live in
- Virginia
LIGHTS
Lights sound like a question mark to me....With LED's, lenses usually dictate a correct mounting height. (What are your lenses?) After that, getting a good, cheap lux meter ($15 online - Model LX-1010B is common) is your best bet to know how your lights are performing. From 20,000-80,000 lux is "full daylight" and will make most corals very happy.
FLOW
By the numbers you have a lot of flow. Unfortunately, corals don't live by the numbers and you have a very low tank with wide-flow power heads. The implication is - in spite of the flow numbers - potentially a lot of dead zones. Moving sand can be OK, but it means that a lot of your 75x flow number is being wasted. Likewise in creating surface turbulence. It's OK, but another sign of wasted pump energy. Both of these are typical things to look out for in a low tank...there's just not a lot of room to get water moving! Can you post a picture that gives perspective on where your pumps are in relation to your rocks? Maybe a top-down?
STOCKING
At six months, your stocking rate is also a question mark. I note you already run kalk in your ATO and two-part dosing pumps....that's too many corals too soon. Not too much for the tank so much as for you. Taking your time is good for the tank, but it's REALLY good for you...so you can get used to changes in the tank's mineral and nutrient loads.
SUGGESTION
Unless you feel like you have a handle on things at this moment, I'd literally consider unloading half or more of your coral stock to make the system lighter to manage in the short term. In another six months, reassess how you and your tank's stability are doing and perhaps begin stocking up again...more slowly this time. Maybe a friend will grow out corals you can't part with in the mean time?
$0.02
Lights sound like a question mark to me....With LED's, lenses usually dictate a correct mounting height. (What are your lenses?) After that, getting a good, cheap lux meter ($15 online - Model LX-1010B is common) is your best bet to know how your lights are performing. From 20,000-80,000 lux is "full daylight" and will make most corals very happy.
FLOW
By the numbers you have a lot of flow. Unfortunately, corals don't live by the numbers and you have a very low tank with wide-flow power heads. The implication is - in spite of the flow numbers - potentially a lot of dead zones. Moving sand can be OK, but it means that a lot of your 75x flow number is being wasted. Likewise in creating surface turbulence. It's OK, but another sign of wasted pump energy. Both of these are typical things to look out for in a low tank...there's just not a lot of room to get water moving! Can you post a picture that gives perspective on where your pumps are in relation to your rocks? Maybe a top-down?
STOCKING
At six months, your stocking rate is also a question mark. I note you already run kalk in your ATO and two-part dosing pumps....that's too many corals too soon. Not too much for the tank so much as for you. Taking your time is good for the tank, but it's REALLY good for you...so you can get used to changes in the tank's mineral and nutrient loads.
SUGGESTION
Unless you feel like you have a handle on things at this moment, I'd literally consider unloading half or more of your coral stock to make the system lighter to manage in the short term. In another six months, reassess how you and your tank's stability are doing and perhaps begin stocking up again...more slowly this time. Maybe a friend will grow out corals you can't part with in the mean time?
$0.02
