Advice on T5 lighting

[Scott.h]

I believe that's the same stand I have under my 75. It's kinda cheap but it works.

Long story short I don't mess with my sand too much anymore. I hand feed each to keep the waste down. Stir the sand a few days a week and vacuum about every two months. But it took a long time.. Few years to get everything established and flow correct to get to that. When you empty your tank take advantage. Fill a bin with new water, shake off your rock well. Put the rocks in the bin of new water. Vacuum the sand to drain the tank. It should be good and clean by the time the water level is low enough to move the tank.

I run in this order. Filter socks to catch debris. Baffle. Protein skimmer. baffle. Fuge with macro algae. Baffle. Gfo and carbon reactor in the return chamber. Every baffle has about a 1" drop to the next Except my last set is staggered.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Its cool that you love the hobby enough to have multiple tanks. I probably wouldn't have too hard of a time convincing for an upgrade for my tank other than as of right now "why?" might be the biggest dilemma.. People don't just see that a larger tank means more fun . Ideally if this all goes well and I can get a tank running and that looks better than a pile of rocks.. It could possibly get an upgrade.

I was really amazed to see that a stand isn't really that difficult to make.. I watched this video . I just am really confused on what dimensions I would use cause my tank is a weird shape.. but thats about it. I think the sump plumbing might even be more difficult than this build, but it sure would be nice to have a lot of room underneath. I never really realized that hardware stores literally have everything to diy at home.. The video quoted the cost of a stand built, from screws, 2x4's and some plywood was like $30.. and like you said, it was built really fast. I guess I was overthinking about how difficult it would be.

I barely have anything in my tank, other than rocks so I don't even see how it would be too difficult to really move my tank if I decided to move my tank do all this. I have a 30 gallon and 20 gallon rubbermaid bucket and a handful of 5 gallons if need be. I guess I just don't like disrupting my tank because it literally takes a visible toll on my blenny lol and I feel bad for him. Not sure if I ever included a picture of my tank, but here it is. I wanna break some of those rocks down, or just add new dry rock to build my aquascape out. Do you have any advice on building a sump itself? Where can I get some pre cut baffles? I am thinking about doing something similar to the picture I posted before, but unsure how that layout really is and was more interested in the piping itself.

that tank looks about 1000000000000x better than the first time we saw it. keep up the good work.
looks like the corraline is about to pop.

 

[Be102]

I believe that's the same stand I have under my 75. It's kinda cheap but it works.

Long story short I don't mess with my sand too much anymore. I hand feed each to keep the waste down. Stir the sand a few days a week and vacuum about every two months. But it took a long time.. Few years to get everything established and flow correct to get to that. When you empty your tank take advantage. Fill a bin with new water, shake off your rock well. Put the rocks in the bin of new water. Vacuum the sand to drain the tank. It should be good and clean by the time the water level is low enough to move the tank.

I run in this order. Filter socks to catch debris. Baffle. Protein skimmer. baffle. Fuge with macro algae. Baffle. Gfo and carbon reactor in the return chamber. Every baffle has about a 1" drop to the next Except my last set is staggered.

that tank looks about 1000000000000x better than the first time we saw it. keep up the good work.
looks like the corraline is about to pop.

Thanks to all the help from all of you guys, it doesn't look half as bad as when it first started..

I have a box of instant ocean coming in on Thursday, (first time using this... wish me luck ) which I'll then do a few water changes over the next few weeks. Will I have any problems with switching? Is it basically the same ratio amongst all salts? I am hoping that the water changes will help reduce the phosphate levels at least to the point where I am not growing any algae. Will nitrates go down if phosphates do? Or how does one fight against nitrates, other than not over feeding and over stocking? Which is at a bare minimum as of lately.

I guess what really freaked me out recently that made me think I was doing something wrong, was that two of my corals began to fade so i was concerned about what was wrong.. maybe it was really just the duncan coral sting after all.. silly me. Does polyp extension and tentacles mean that the coral is growing along with just content/happy with its living conditions? They clearly are extending at all times which leads me to think they are all pretty happy. Just haven't seen much actual growth but I don't know if I just am just expecting too much than what is natural.

How does an overflow / return pump not take out too much water/ or put out too much water? What happens if the power goes out? does water still flow? I don't think overflows have any electronic parts to them, now that I think of it.. so what can be done to prevent overflows? I think a 20l would be a good size realistically it would add a decent water value to my tank and it would also allow me to do whatever I want underneath it in general. Does a larger sump mean a larger bioload capacity? Like is the reason you can't overstock is because of the lack of filtration? Do people have larger sumps than display tanks? I was looking online at videos and saw that the water gets siphoned from the sump, rather than needing to do it from the display, is there a reason for this?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Will I have any problems with switching?

no

I am hoping that the water changes will help reduce the phosphate levels

WC doesnt effect Po. dont sweat it. Imo you had a damaged bio filter. the bio filter lowers No and Po. itll take some time but itll be fine.
above all, look at the health of the corals. for what they've been through, they look great.
also dont do too much all at once, vibrant, gfo, bla bla bla. give the tank some time.

IMo, the vibrant is very aggressive. it took a toll on your less than healthy coral. a lot of folks saw the same thing.

 

[Be102]

no


WC doesnt effect Po. dont sweat it. Imo you had a damaged bio filter. the bio filter lowers No and Po. itll take some time but itll be fine.
above all, look at the health of the corals. for what they've been through, they look great.
also dont do too much all at once, vibrant, gfo, bla bla bla. give the tank some time.

IMo, the vibrant is very aggressive. it took a toll on your less than healthy coral. a lot of folks saw the same thing.

Honestly I feel the vibrant is good and bad at the same time.. like I don't know much about the chemistry behind all the elements and whatnot, but I physically saw some algae die off, whilst my tank actually got covered in some dark algae (what I think was cyno? like i said, not an expert). I didn't dose that aggressively and like everyone says, that everything happens slowly, but I guess my tank is looking better along with not over feeding and whatnot.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Honestly I feel the vibrant is good and bad at the same time.. like I don't know much about the chemistry behind all the elements and whatnot, but I physically saw some algae die off, whilst my tank actually got covered in some dark algae (what I think was cyno? like i said, not an expert). I didn't dose that aggressively and like everyone says, that everything happens slowly, but I guess my tank is looking better along with not over feeding and whatnot.

yea, it is good and bad. that was a cyan bloom you saw. a lot of folks get that.
It happening."Nothing good happens fast in this hobby only bad things happen overnight, if you think you go slow, slow down even more" - Diesel

Grab a couple new tubes. One way to lower No and Po is to have your corals eat them

 

[badfishaz]

I recently learned a hard lesson on changing light too quickly. I bought the 8x80watt LED hybrid ATI powermodule (60") and loaded it up with some cool ATI bulbs because I wanted fast results and lots of growth. If you switch to T5, use the actinic and blue bulbs at first, and sloooooowly acclimate your corals to the new light. I used a hybrid where I could run some supplemental LED's while everything is adjusting. I went in swinging with coral plus bulbs and bleached some corals I grew from frags that were starting to look really nice with amazing color under LED. Nothing feels worse than removing a coral skeleton because you're an idiot and just want results too fast. The words everyone says a billion times take it slowly, have patience, etc... was not enough apparently. Learn from my lesson and approach light acclimation with upmost caution. If you're ready to up your light game, buy a par meter first and read light before you change it so you're not making blind changes. With only 4x bulbs (2x blue plus and 2x coral plus), I was getting 400-450 par near the top of my coral which is just too much. I thought I made a big mistake buying the hybrid fixture, however my mistake was not thinking things all of the way through and making poorly calculated decisions in attempt to force results. I honestly don't know if I'll ever run all 8 bulbs, but it won't be anytime soon and if I do it will be very slowly. If you can get a dimmable fixture, that's even better, but unfortunately not an option once you go over 48".