So my tank fully cycled within 2 weeks fully stocked pretty much from jump with semi-cycled LR, 30 coral pieces (sps, lps, softies, a gorg & a sponge) and livestock (cleaner shrimp, yellow tang, coral beauty, 2 firefish, a banded goby, 5 blue legged hermits, 2 red legged hermits, 2 nassarius snails & 1 turbo snail).
I have been dosing CB pts 1&2, running a 70gph sponge filter and using 4x24W T5 lighting. I went thru the diatom stage last week and now have bright green algae on the glass and rocks along with bright pink & purple coralline.
Some of my corals have already begun splitting/growing and to think I started this with tap water, switching to waste water, then to 0ppm-3ppm RO water.
It should be noted that I did partial (20%) water changes every other day with IO suking out most of the crap blown off the rocks with a turkey baster and getting the crap left by the fish & inverts.
My yellow tang developed black spot a couple of days ago but is clean now, I think thanks to the cleaner shrimp.
The only casualties in the whole process was a cleaner shrimp juv, a turbo snail & a purple firefish
Using the 4x24W Oddysea T5 lighting fixture but will soon change out the bulbs for ATI as per the Grim Reefer's recommendation. I'm so glad I went thru the trial and error before so that I can enjoy my reef sooner than later.
Thanks to Manhattan Aquariums, Mo~Idol & scunfcu for their coral pieces.
Thanks to MR for the great resource of information which is necessary in this hobby!
I have been dosing CB pts 1&2, running a 70gph sponge filter and using 4x24W T5 lighting. I went thru the diatom stage last week and now have bright green algae on the glass and rocks along with bright pink & purple coralline.
Some of my corals have already begun splitting/growing and to think I started this with tap water, switching to waste water, then to 0ppm-3ppm RO water.
It should be noted that I did partial (20%) water changes every other day with IO suking out most of the crap blown off the rocks with a turkey baster and getting the crap left by the fish & inverts.
My yellow tang developed black spot a couple of days ago but is clean now, I think thanks to the cleaner shrimp.
The only casualties in the whole process was a cleaner shrimp juv, a turbo snail & a purple firefish
Using the 4x24W Oddysea T5 lighting fixture but will soon change out the bulbs for ATI as per the Grim Reefer's recommendation. I'm so glad I went thru the trial and error before so that I can enjoy my reef sooner than later.
Thanks to Manhattan Aquariums, Mo~Idol & scunfcu for their coral pieces.
Thanks to MR for the great resource of information which is necessary in this hobby!