You might test your alkalinity and ph somewhat frequently. IMO having these both very stable contributes greatly to the health of zoanthids. I have also read that having high nitrates makes zooxanthellae grow too fast which causes colors to appear washed out and brown.
keep in mind as long as its not a 10k or 6500k MH it wont brown out.
in all seriousness. those yellow/blue ones are sweet, and i want them
where are you located?
man, i didnt realize how small your tank was until you showed that top down shot. that rock is stacked straight up. couldnt tell at all how skinny the tank was in the frontal shot. very nice! prob one of the best under 7g tanks i've ever seen.
Yeah I definately had to have those when I saw them. I was planning on submitting them to zoaid ('Ringed Royalty' keeps popping in my head as their name) but I need to restore that original beauty first! This is why I'm so anxious to figure out the problem and why I'm seriously looking into my options for MH over this tank - I want my colors back!
I'm having a hard time coming up with a good idea for how to mount MH on this thing. I put a lot of work into the current canopy and matching stand and really like how it turned out. I'd hate to just replace that with a lame looking (IMO on this tank it would be) prefabricated sunpod or something. What do you guys think the minimum height would be for 70W MH over this tank? And any suggestions for how to pull it off? I'm not afraid of DIY, but I don't want to build another wooden canopy either. I built this one as short as I could (5") and think a taller one to house MH would look goofy.
IMO. i think your only option is to get a bigger tank. or by some luck they make T5's small enough.
i wouldnt put a 70w MH on anything less than 10g tank. i've seen people do it to 7g minibow's, but thats pushing it as they had fans cooling it off, an autotop off system b/c of the increased evap, or a mini chiller.
plus, yeah, in order to mount it high enough off the water, you'd have to build a new canopy for it, that is tall and goofy. i dont think one of those coralife 70w clip on things will do you any good. they are made poorly from what i hear anyways.
you could always send me a frag of those, i could get them to color back up (if they color back up to their original color at all), and then decide on what lighting to do.
Well I've got 2 fans and an ATO... Any other reason not to put MH over this tank?
Oh and I couldn't resist, I got another frag today:
(click)
That and I've got some Alien Eyes, Eagle Eyes, and Triple Reds on the way to me. I GOTTA find and fix the cause of the fading! ...or control my impulsive zoa buying. I think I'm addicted...
