ideal conditions to start a reef

[wiggy69]

Alright i have had fowlr tanks for a while now and they do fine minus the brown cynobacteria that i get from time to time. I put some yellow button polyps in the other day and they dont seem to like my water i know they are usually a pretty hardy coral but they arent coming out near as far as they were at the LFS. I have been adding calcium and essential elements by kent marine for a bout a month before i bought them and my conditions are as follows i have 110 watts of lighting using 50/50 daylight/actinic lights, salinity 1.025, temp about 78 Fahrenheit, nitrates about 30, ph about 7.8, nitrites ammonia 0, running a penguin 400 and a penguin 150, and a cpr backpak 2 skimmer, any help would be great
Thanks
Eric

 

[dustin_P74]

nitrates are too high and your pH is to low

 

[Bifferwine]

Hi and welcome!

First off, your lights are not strong enough to sustain any corals, even the low light ones. 110 watts of lighting over a 125 gallon tank is not even 1 watt per gallon. You should aim for at least 4 watts per gallon, and that is just for the corals with the lowest lighting needs (zoanthids, mushrooms and softies). If you want to keep LPS corals, you should aim for more than that, while clams and SPS require even more. Anemones need the most, and usually need around 8 or 9 watts per gallon at least.

Next, your nitrates are high. Understandable for a fish only tank. Fish can tolerate high nitrates, but corals and inverts can't. 30 is in the area where they will start to harm your inverts. For corals, you need to keep nitrates as close to zero as possible, but under 20 is okay.

In order to keep corals, you will first need to upgrade lights. If yours is a standard sized 125 gallon tank, you could go with either T5s or metal halides. In the meantime, you will need to work on improving your water quality -- do regular water changes of 10 to 20% weekly of RODI water -- not tap water, which can lead to major algae problems and can contain things that will harm your animals. If your nitrates don't come down, up the amount or the frequency.

Certain types of equipment will lead to high nitrates also. Penguin filters tend to do this unless the media inside of them is cleaned very thoroughly once a week or once every other week. Same with canister filters and wet/dry filters. If you are wanting a reef tank, I'd get rid of the Penguins and buy a better protein skimmer. If you have 1 to 2 lbs of live rock per gallon and a good skimmer, that will take care of your filtration.

Also, you do not need to be adding calcium and essential elements. That's just wasting your money right now. For easy corals (like the button polyps you picked up), they will get any elements they need from your salt mix. They also do not have strict calcium requirements. You shouldn't be adding anything like that unless you have tested your water first and determined a deficiency (which I doubt you have).

 

[wiggy69]

its a 46 bow sorry about the confusion. haha

 

[Bifferwine]

That's still just over 2 watts per gallon, still not enough. Sorry...

 

[Doc]

as Biff pointed out, the lighting will be your biggest challenge. Lighting choice should be determined by the types of coral you want to keep. Most people here like T-5 lighting because none of us are rich (cough, except Biff, cough)and they get good results with all coral and are cheaper to run than MH.

Your nitrates are a bit high, but still within what soft corals will tolerate. SPS will not like them much higher than they currently are. Increasing water changes will help to lower them as well as reducing the amount of nutrient in the water (too much food, dirty filters, etc).

I would also recommend running a phosphate remover such as phosguard. High phosphates wilt corals pretty quick. Good luck.

-Doc

 

[poolshark181]

t5's can get expensive as well, i opted for a metal halide pendant for my 40g.

 

[yote]

Everybody already has you pretty well covered.
So,Welcome to the reef.

 

[dustin_P74]

if your a diy person then you can go for MH retro kits and that will be your cheapest and best option

 

[wiggy69]

where do i find one of these retro metal halide kits at? Thanks for the info been told alot of different stuff i kinda already knew the lighting wasnt sufficient i though i would ask first. What are some good get what ya pay for lighting systems?
Thanks
Eric

 

[Piggy]

Welcome to the reef.

 

[RyanG]

check out www.drsfosterandsmith.com or www.marinedepot.com or www.reefgeek.com for all of your DIY lighting needs. I would go T5 for a 46 bow personally but either would work just fine.

 

[Bifferwine]

I agree -- for a 46 gallon tank, metal halides will cost twice as much as T5s, and have the potential to heat your water up a lot.

What is the length of your tank?

 

[yote]

T-5s are the way to go on anything less than 90 gallons IMO.
Enough light for your corals,without the heat.Plus the bulbs last longer.

 

[wiggy69]

its 36 inches, long im gonna start doing water changes on Mondays until nitrates go down.
Thanks
Eric

 

[Bifferwine]

A 36" T5 fixture won't be TOO expensive, and will allow you to keep pretty much anything you want to keep.

 

[wiggy69]

any recommendations on brand? I looked at the currents briefly but i havent really researched it much yet? Asking you guys first to get an idea
Thanks
Eric Wiget

 

[dustin_P74]

the nova extreme pros are fairly inexpensive and the best t-5's for the price, plus they have individual reflectors

 

[wiggy69]

alright ill check it out any other recommendations? What does everybody think about the orbit systems with the metal halides?

 

[dustin_P74]

metal halides on your tank will make you have to get a chiller because it will heat your tank up too much, stick to t-5's, it will save you money for other things on your tank.