Alice in Wonderland

[mushman]

Decommissioned my last tank years ago when Ns became too hectic for me to maintain my tanks. Since then, I've only kept my freshwater tanks.

So recently, was showing my gf some pictures of reef tanks and reef fishes, and seeing how excited she was and how much she liked them, I've decided to start a pico tank for her to get her into the hobby as well.

Tank: 40cm x 25cm x 20cm shallow tank

Light: 36w Led with actinic blue, purple and 6500k white bulbs.

filteration: 2x internal filter

Just set up the tank today and am currently cycling it with NSw. Added a couple of zoa colonies on live rock for seeding during cycling. Will not be adding fish till cycling is complete. I intend to keep this low tech with weekly water changes. Expected livestock would be just a pair of clowns and a zoa garden, unless my gf wants anything else, then I might have to add equipment or upgrade.

Here's a picture of one of the zoa colonies one hour into the setup.

Comments please. Am very rusty with reefing so would appreciate some advice. Cheers!

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[mushman]

Here's the current scape of the tank.

A quick question, is blue and violet led lights sufficient for coral growth?

Been reading up alot about the necessary lighting for corals, and it is generally observed that the 430-450nm spectrum is utilised by corals for photosynthetic reasons. That being said, would just the use of blue and violet lights be sufficient for coral growth? I understand that it was also found that the white light often use helps to show the natural colors of the coral better, as a wide spectrum of the light is being reflected. That said, if I was fine aesthetically with just using blue and violet lights, is this a possible way forward?

In other news, I am looking to attempt to keep some sps in the tank as well, will the blue and violet lights be sufficient?

(.p.s. Will be looking to do 3 times weekly water change for this 5gal tank, hopefully the Sps can thrive in it. Fish wise am probably going to keep it below 3 small tiny fish)

Comments please, especially on the lighting question

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[Harlequinmania]

What light set are you using? Might not be good enough over the long run.

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[tuajia]

From my limited understanding, the spectrum colors most essential are actually blue and some violet. Purple is not super important. Also I think intensity is another important factor. For me, I use a Hydra at 40% intensity for blue and 15-25 % for other colors. So far lps growth is modest, but soft corals grow quite well. I don't have sps but usually they require higher intensities but you risk burning the other corals. I think most people just position the sps higher up the water column to receive more light

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[mushman]

Thanks for the inputs. I'm actually using a led light set made more marine tanks that I got overseas, don't recall the brand anymore. It actually comes stock with the violet and blue lights, as well as cob 6500k daylight, which I am not thrilled on using as I believe it would be too harsh on the open brain as the sand bed is only 20cm away from the light source.

So far, the open brain and zoas look to be doing fine, and I noticed the feeding tentacles extended after lights off, which I believe is a good thing?

Should the lighting be insufficient, I have no issues with upgrading them.

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[tuajia]

Yeah the feeding tentacles extending after lights off is totally normal. Maybe you want to move the brain to the side a bit to avoid overexposure?

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[mushman]

So, last night my brain decided to poo... It was quite epic and there was a lot of floating poo in my tank. Can't stand having the poop floating around, hence I'm going to upgrade to a 16gal tank tonight! Will be keeping the brain away from the light in the new scape!

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[tuajia]

Lol I thought only my elegance pooped like mad. I thought how come there's long brown strings floating around, maybe it's a type of cyanobacteria? Then saw my elegance pushing it out of its mouth... Gross

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[avamys]

Nice photos bro

[xavin]

Nice bro

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[Admiraltian]

Hope to see pics of ur new 16gal tank soon.

[mushman]

Heres how the tank looks like last night after the shifting, water was a little cloudy.

And here's the culprit looking smug after he settled down abit.

So, I've decided to change my lights to a maxspect 60w, with the view of going sps in future. Temperature of my tank reaches 27 in the day, and hovers around 26 at night. The rockwork now is done so i have a ledge for the future sps. When and if the SPS grows, the while scape would be moved forward, leaving less foreground.

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