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Marine tank #3 - ongoing creation

3K views 39 replies 8 participants last post by  dazdaraz 
nice to see someone else on this forum with reef tanks, you know there are alot of marine tank forums. i am a member of reeffrontiers.com and reefsancuary.com.

what kind of lighting are you using? if your planning on any coral i would suggest at least power compact for softies and for lps maybe t5's but any sps or clams either led's or halides but halides would probably fry that tank so your most likely stuck with led's. i have a panorama module on my 5 gallon sps nano and it works great. i would suggest this for your tank as it looks great and they also can come with remotes to change the light to any color you like. they are also fairly cheap.

Panorama Modules - Aquarium LED Lights

or you could go with a par38 bulb. i use one of those too.

LED PAR38 Lights - Aquarium LED Lights
 
i just did a quick google search and saw that they are power compact lights basically. that will be great for some nice corals. including mushrooms, kenya trees, star polyps and many other softcoral. stay away from any hard coral or clam with those though lps and sps. just not enough light output to support them.
 
watts per gallon is not very accurate nowadays but it does give a good guideline. with those types of bulbs your gonna want at least 4-5 watts per gallon to grow hard coral. of course with led's you can grow stony coral with 19 watt lights. for that small a tank i highly reccoment a panorama module or a par38. they are a little more expensive but the light looks great, it kind of shimmers like the real sun and it can grow anything.
 
looks great so far, however the led's may be a little bright for moonlights.

that is also a very strange overflow? does it not overflow over the top but goes through the ceramic rings? that is a good idea!however nitrates may build up there. but i wouldnt worry unless you start having problems.

does it have a sump? do you plan on adding a fuge or just the sump? also i wouldnt suggest adding a skimmer because recently it has been found they tend to do more harm and good. and i wouldnt want that if i was paying a couple hundred dollars for a piece of equpment.
 
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