First reef

[Bocephous]

I work at a LFS, but we dont carry corals so I dont know much about them. Recently a long time customer who is moving to texas gave me an entire setup for my 10gallon.

 

Overnight I had live sand, live rock, 2 carpet anemonies(one with porcelan anemone crab, an orange gorgonian, red sea fan, and a yellow cucumber.

 

I used Instant Ocean salt mix with distilled water. I've been adding daily Kent Micro-Vert, Liquid Calcium, Iodine, and Strontium/Molybdenum.

 

10gallon all-glass, glass lid, 1 NO full spectrum, 1 NO Actenic, Aqua-Clear 150 PF, 2 rio 50 ph's.

 

It has been a week with no peak in ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates.

 

My question is how many hours a day should I keep the NO lights on untill I can get PC's in two weeks.

 

Any other advice would also be apreciated.

[The Unit]

wow, u have two 2 carpet anemonies under 2x15w NO's......that lighting needs to be upgraded now......i suggest u read read read read and the read some more.....this site will help u out alot also post this in the normal section as it will get read more often.....this site has soe great articles about nano's u should take a look...i think they are on the home page....

[Bocephous]

unfortunently due to budget restraints I'm not able to upgrade the lighting for two weeks

[The Unit]

did this guy have these anemonies in the tan kwith the 2x15watters for a while?

[tinyreef]

i'm not quite sure on your situation but john tullock had discussed a similar question in his book, Natural Reef Aquariums. his thought was that the amount of light for an animal outweighed the spectrum of light, if taken unequally. translation: 2 hours at 10000K doesn't beat 6 hours at 5000K.

 

i would extend your photoperiod to about 14 hours under the NO's to give the anenomes a chance to photosynthesize over a longer period even though at a lower rate. this is ONLY because you do not currently have the correct spectrum/intensity presently needed. i'm not favorable of more than that as every animal needs a rest period.

 

just my $0.02, good luck!

[Bocephous]

perhaps I should have stated exactly what tubes I have.

 

1, 15W 18" Hagen Power-glo 18000k

1, 15W 18" Hagen Marine-glo Actenic

 

I am planning on upgrading to either...

 

1 50/50 36W PC and keeping Marineglow

or

1 50/50 36W PC and 1 Actenic 36W PC.

 

The guy I got the anemones from used 4 36" Marineglows and 4 175W metal halides on his 125gallon reef tank.

 

I have been keeping the lights on 12hours a day. The Anemones are readily eating brine shrimp, mysis shrimp, and krill.

[OscarBeast]

I think the issue is intensity, not spectrum here. A full spec, with an actinic should provide enough of the correct spectrum of light for photosynthetic activities. The problem is that there isn't enough of it. However, a longer photoperiod would still help.

[tinyreef]

that what i thought! hiding mh's on us!

 

i was wondering all that time how the friggin heck that guy was raising CARPET anenomes on NO's! ???

 

at least they're eating. that should buy you a lot of time. they're photosynthetic carnivores so one out of two ain't bad. my local lfs has his carpet's under vho's and they look great! true, he's a pro...:

[Kapelakin]

Two weeks under low light should be no problem. Definitely go with at least 2x36 watt PC's. MH added to your NO's would be even better if you could manage it.

[Bocephous]

the tank is 4" below my girlfriends 20gallon goldfish tank so MH isn't an option :/

 

I am going with the 2x36w

 

I removed the anemonies and the cucumber from the tank and am getting more corals when lights arrive.

[Mr_Spam]

anemones will kill any coral in that tank.

[Bocephous]

Hence why I took out the anemones and cucumber

 

Ordering the Lighting Friday(payday) and probably the Beginner Reef pack from Liveaquaria on Wednesday.