Frag Outpost Forums - Coral Propagation and Reef Aquarium Forums - View Single Post

FragOutpost · 05-07-2006, 09:16 PM

First of all let me start by saying welcome to Frag Outpost!

What kind of corals do you plan on keeping? 216 watts of T5HO in a 55 gallon will be enough to keep pretty much anything including some sps corals in the upper half of your tank. If you want your tank to be more blue then add another actinic bulb or a 50/50. I would definitely take out the undergravel filter. Cruched coral is IMO not the best substrate for a reef aquarium. The particle size is so big that it prevents denitrifying bacteria from growing and will allow detrious to settle. I have seen people keep successful reef tanks before using crushed coral but they vacuumed it frequently to remove detrious. Are you familiar with how anaerobic bacteria processes nitrates? Most people use a sand be for a couple of reasons, 1. asthetics and/or 2. process nitrates. In order to process nitrates, anaerobic bacteria needs a place void of oxygen to colonize which means at least a 4" sandbed of fine grain sand. Another benefit of using fine grain sand is the amount of micro fauna that lives within the sand. Here is a great resource for information on deep sand beds - http://www.ronshimek.com/Deep%20Sand%20Beds.htm
In the aquaclear filter you have running are you using the foam filter or just carbon? I would advise against using a foam filter because it will produce aerobic bacteria (the kind that create nitrates) in large quantities. If you have a constant ammonia reading then that means that nutrients are decaying. This is most likely in the form of fish food or fish poo being trapped within the grains of the crushed coral. My advice to you would be to completely remove the undergravel filter and crushed coral and add 4" of sand if you are interested in the benefits of a deep sand bed. If you choose to go with a deep sand bed then I would wait a couple of months before adding any corals in order to give the bacteria some time to colonize. Bare bottom is another good choice but it has its pros and cons as well. If you choose to go bare bottom then I would get some cutting board material to lay on the bottom of the tank. Hope this helps and I hope I did a reasonably good job at anwering your questions. Let us know what you decide to do from here and if there is anything that we can do to help.

05-07-2006, 09:16 PM	#2
FragOutpost Administrator Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: FL Posts: 1,333	First of all let me start by saying welcome to Frag Outpost! What kind of corals do you plan on keeping? 216 watts of T5HO in a 55 gallon will be enough to keep pretty much anything including some sps corals in the upper half of your tank. If you want your tank to be more blue then add another actinic bulb or a 50/50. I would definitely take out the undergravel filter. Cruched coral is IMO not the best substrate for a reef aquarium. The particle size is so big that it prevents denitrifying bacteria from growing and will allow detrious to settle. I have seen people keep successful reef tanks before using crushed coral but they vacuumed it frequently to remove detrious. Are you familiar with how anaerobic bacteria processes nitrates? Most people use a sand be for a couple of reasons, 1. asthetics and/or 2. process nitrates. In order to process nitrates, anaerobic bacteria needs a place void of oxygen to colonize which means at least a 4" sandbed of fine grain sand. Another benefit of using fine grain sand is the amount of micro fauna that lives within the sand. Here is a great resource for information on deep sand beds - http://www.ronshimek.com/Deep%20Sand%20Beds.htm In the aquaclear filter you have running are you using the foam filter or just carbon? I would advise against using a foam filter because it will produce aerobic bacteria (the kind that create nitrates) in large quantities. If you have a constant ammonia reading then that means that nutrients are decaying. This is most likely in the form of fish food or fish poo being trapped within the grains of the crushed coral. My advice to you would be to completely remove the undergravel filter and crushed coral and add 4" of sand if you are interested in the benefits of a deep sand bed. If you choose to go with a deep sand bed then I would wait a couple of months before adding any corals in order to give the bacteria some time to colonize. Bare bottom is another good choice but it has its pros and cons as well. If you choose to go bare bottom then I would get some cutting board material to lay on the bottom of the tank. Hope this helps and I hope I did a reasonably good job at anwering your questions. Let us know what you decide to do from here and if there is anything that we can do to help. __________________ www.FragOutpost.com