critique of set-up please

[Zontar]

Okay, how does this sound for a set up. 5.5 gallon "All Glass" tank, with a substrate of: 5 lbs course silica, 1 lbs aragonite, 1 lbs of crushed coral, 7 lbs of fiji live rock complete with a ton of purple coralline algae and a decent number of copepods (so far I've seen at least a dozen scurrying around on it), water movement provided by a whisper power filter (I don't remember the model, but the one intended for a 20 gallon) and a hagen 201 power head, for lighting it has two 15 watt coiled fluorescents that put out about 12000 lumens at wavelengths between 400-600 nm. Live stock yet to be determined. Let me know what you think about this set-up.

[WorldNation]

wow, sounds nice, hopefully ill have something like that soon have any pics we can see?

[Zontar]

I would, but I don't have a digital camera, when I get it going a little more (since I used uncured rock, I'm giving it a couple of weeks to go through the whole die off stage) I might take some pictures and scan them and put them on, but at this point it's still fairly bare, and a little ugly given that there's still crap on the rocks.

[WorldNation]

well, its better then my reef tank...it consists of the 10 gallon.....and thats it, lmao. well, i'm getting my supplies tomorrow. is ther an advantage of either getting cured or uncured rocks?...

[Zontar]

Cured live rock will have more living things on it, but it can bring pests into your tank and it will have die off in it which will initially raise your ammonia, nitrites and nitrates level. So cured live rock is cleaner, but uncured live rock introduces more biodiversity into your tank, so it's a matter of priority, if you want a fairly sterile tank that only has exactly what you want in it, then go with cured, if you want as much biodiversity as possible go with uncured.

[freakaccident]

I like uncured. Most of the cured I have seen has been scrubbed of the goodies. I would rather cure it and save the life. Get a 10g ($9) and cure it in that. Just change the water a lot. I bought some uncured and after I cured it for about a month I had 4 diff macros, zoos, misc polyps, one SPS, and a cool sponge. Get the rock at a LFS and buy the pieces that have the most crap on them. Lots of color too. One of the rocks I got had some cool orange coralline type algae on it. Just dig through the rock tank and fine the ones you want. You can even set them in a pile to imagine what they will be like in your tank.

[scruz]

isn't silica the type of sand that ppl say fuels diatom blooms, or am i confused with something else.

[Zontar]

scruz: I'm not entirely sure what people use silica for, it's just regular sand, the kind you find on beaches and play grounds.

 

freakaccident: I agree with you, I think uncured is the way to go, you get more than with cured. However, by using uncured rock I accidently introduced some Aiptasia into my tank. Now I have to find some peppermint shrimp to clean those out.

[freakaccident]

I think silicate based sands are supposed to bad too.

 

Premium Aquatics had a sh*t load of peppermint shrimp last week when I was in there.

[Zontar]

I think silica should be okay, here read this:

 

http://www.rockymountainreefclub.com/article4.html

[Jahkaya]

Zontar:

 

I don't usually like more than a "dusting" of crushed coral on the sand bed, for asthetics only. If there is a "layer" of it I feel that the sand bed is not able to do it's job as effectively. DO you think that an addtional Smaller PH might be in order for addtional flow in and alternate direction?

[Jahkaya]

Also, when you say 12000 lumens are you reffering to kelvin Temperaure?

[Zontar]

Jahkaya, I should have been more clear about the crushed coral it is more of a light dusting than a layer. In the tank the silica is about 2-2.5 inches deep and the aragonite is about an inch deep and the crushed coral is scattered over the aragonite. I called it a layer because it is pretty uniform in depth at about an 1/8 of an inch. Umm, I don't really know about the question about the lights (I really don't know much about lighting, which is an area where I could do with some advice) I was just writing down what was written on the box of the light.