Few questions about starting a reef.

[ThatGuy]

the bacteria & such don't need light.
if you have corals on your LR, it depends on the type on how long they'd be ok without light & be able to recover.

No corals or fish. Going to wait and see if the tank goes through a cycle or if anything leaches from the LR.


As far as lights go, Should I go with 90 or 60 degree optics? I don't want to go with 120 because of the depth of the tank but I'm not sure if 60 would be to much of a direct light vs the 90.

 

[NyteGTI]

if you're looking at a normal 120W chinese fixture the 90s shouldn't be a problem reaching the sandbed for softies. the problem is how much light splash are you ok with? the fixture will be nearly as wide as your tank is by itself so even 60s will have a good amount of splash. 90s are usually used for a 24x24x24 area for SPS tanks. I'd say at that point its a personal preference. you could even put 90s in the middle and 60s on the outside leds

 

[Hawkeye]

Light is not a big deal. People have shut down their lights in order to control nuisance algae and the corals are fine. It's not uncommon to get multiple cloudy (rainy) days in a row on the reefs in the wild.

btw the reason nerites climb out of the tank is because they are tidal snails. So they normally sit right on the surf/water line hence climbing "out" of our tanks. I have found the larger ones to be capable of navigating out of an AGA tank lip. They may not do that on a eurobrace style tank though. The smaller nerites snails in my opinion are better suited. I gave up ordering nerites online (or via group buy) because i can never get exactly what i'm looking for.

 

[jgraz]

Until I put the tops on I would find the nerites in other rooms and I've found them as far a 15ft away. Dry as a bone on the outside and alive and well inside

 

[greybolt03]

As long as you have the rock in water with the water getting moved around from power head and skimmer there won't be any die off...

 

[ThatGuy]

Should I wait until the water par is good until I start adding inverts? Also what should I do first fish or corals? Its going to be awhile before I get to that point, just wondering what order I should do this.

 

[ThatGuy]

So will 50% on the LED's be okay until everything is transfered over? I don't want to ramp the lights up until everything is over.

 

[iTzJu]

I would start out with 30%/20% for the first week then gradually increase the by 5% every week till you see find a sweet spot that your corals like. I Have my units at 12" above the waterline on my frag tank 40b and have never had them over 50%/50% at any time.

 

[ThatGuy]

My problem is I need light to reach about 28" down and I don't know if 30% will work for the corals down bottom. Right now nothing is high, the highest anything is, is about halfway up and its just polyps and I have some GSP and the RBTA on the bottom.

 

[NikkiT]

It sounds like you need a PAR meter.

 

[ThatGuy]

It sounds like you need a PAR meter.

Yeah, but funds are kinda maxed out right now.

 

[Hawkeye]

Should I wait until the water par is good until I start adding inverts? Also what should I do first fish or corals? Its going to be awhile before I get to that point, just wondering what order I should do this.

if it were me i'd add the least aggressive fish first. If only because this hobby is expensive enough and to have a tank with no "fish" movement may make your friends/family think you are nuts. lol.

 

[ThatGuy]

Right now there is only 1 YWG(the smaller of the two) and 1 PJ Cardinal. I'll eventually get another Cardinal and add the 2nd YWG with the pistol shrimp. Other than that maybe a small blenny and even a clown goby or two but I think thats it. I want to go lightly stocked in this tank.