Stocked the tank today!

[Ralph Ritoch]

Hi, I've been running this tank for about two months.

Lost one coral and a few Torch polyps to red Algae but other than that it seems to be under control now so I stocked it with 4 more coral. This will be all the coral for this tank but I do hope to add more fish and possibly some turbo snails.

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

Looks good. May I suggest to raise your lights as you are not getting a good spread on the left and right side of the tank. Appears to be a major hot spot in the center of the tank which can hurt corals directly underneath.

Also the the colony on the right appears to be losing heads so you might need to check and see what’s going on. Good luck Ralph !

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

Looks good. May I suggest to raise your lights as you are not getting a good spread on the left and right side of the tank. Appears to be a major hot spot in the center of the tank which can hurt corals directly underneath.

Also the the colony on the right appears to be losing heads so you might need to check and see what’s going on. Good luck Ralph !

Thanks. That is my next project. I have ordered some bulkheads and will utilize a local glass-working shop to make a sump. They made this aquarium. Once there is a sump I can have the top removed so I can hang the light higher. Right now this is the best I can come up with.

My concern now is that when they fully bloomed the two corals on the left are touching eachother. I hope they don't end up attacking. I believe they are the same type but their color is slightly different.

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

Not sure if that’s a torch or hammer colony but yes they can get aggressive with sweeper tentacles .

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

Not sure if that’s a torch or hammer colony but yes they can get aggressive with sweeper tentacles .

Thanks for the heads-up. The Torch on the left is very stressed and most of the colony died before it was given to me. On the right, and alone is a Hammer Colony. The two on the left that are possibly fighting may be green star coral. One is comfortably sleeping right now, and the other is reaching for it. I'm just waiting for it to go back to sleep so I can move it father away.

 

[Jekyl]

Looks like a black box light? Want to keep those about 12" above water surface. I ran mine at 30% white and 80% blue when I had them.

 

[Jekyl]

On second look maybe it isnt lol

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

On second look maybe it isnt lol

This is the light https://www.lazada.com.ph/products/...o4l.searchlist.list.3.3da985c4yo0OXI&search=1

I have a PC fan and to be frank, these corals really like this light at about 75%+ blue and around 75% white. I've heard this is going to cook them with luminosity but these guys are hungry and will just go to sleep if they aren't blasted with light.

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

It was a long and stressful 24 hours trying to get all of these coral happy. I'm loving this zoanthid coral because no matter where I put it, its happy! It is the only coral that hasn't given me any problems. So first I had to deal with the coral fight. Eventually I gave up and moved them to opposite sides of the tank and put the Hammer in the sand. Great right? WRONG!

Hammer retracted! Didn't like the shade and didn't like the low flow. *sigh*

Moved things around again and put the Hammer right next to the wavemaker. Hammer loved it and bloomed! This caused one of the green corals to retract from too much flow. *sigh*

I moved the green coral farther away from the wavemaker so it wouldn't have as much flow. Done right? Wrong! The green coral conned me and reached as far as it could to resume its attack on the other coral *sigh*

Finally I was able to move its victim over a little more and finally, they are all happy. For now.

 

[Jekyl]

The white wont do anything for your coral I believe. Also any changes to lighting wont really show for a couple weeks

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

The white wont do anything for your coral I believe. Also any changes to lighting wont really show for a couple weeks

Yes I've noticed they are perfectly happy with the blue light. I haven't tried just white to see how they may react.

 

[Jekyl]

There's plenty of people on here who know more than I do about it. However I'm pretty sure the spectrum of the white lights do nothing to promote coral growth and health. They are just for algae growth and personal preference

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

There's plenty of people on here who know more than I do about it. However I'm pretty sure the spectrum of the white lights do nothing to promote coral growth and health. They are just for algae growth and personal preference

I can't get my Nitrates below 40ppm so right now I'm not very diligent in removing algae. Once the sump is in, I hope to hunt down some chaeto algae for the refugium so I can end all the algae without any guilt.

 

[brandon429]

hey that looks clean, the sand looks clean, the tank walls too.

the rocks, I can tell its been gardened now that's how to force compliance out of a square box $ nice going. those corals are rather old too, you didn't buy new young specimens. those are hungry, active feeders. what are you feeding them

 

[Ralph Ritoch]

hey that looks clean, the sand looks clean, the tank walls too.

the rocks, I can tell its been gardened now that's how to force compliance out of a square box $ nice going. those corals are rather old too, you didn't buy new young specimens. those are hungry, active feeders. what are you feeding them

I'm feeding them calorific delite. I'm not sure that I should continue trying to feed the green ones though because they retract when I try to feed them. The zoanthid's on the other had, they all wake up for feeding time. The hammer doesn't seem to care either way.