New 30 gal build-looking for feedback

Hi All

I've been keeping fresh & salt tanks for years but this is my first reef. It's a 30 gallon hex with 150W of MH light (12 hours daily) w/ moonlights (the other 12 hours), an in-tank refugium, remora protein skimmer, powerheads, etc. The LR, LS & water came from a 1 year old reef that someone was breaking down. I'm looking to get any advice I can get...powerhead placement, light, refuge, inhabs...coral placement..anything. I've been running the tank for just 3 months now.

Pics at bottom of post.

I couldn't figure out how to upload pics that were small enough but still identifiable so here's the link to my page...aquarium-blog Active Aquariums (I use this site to keep track of what I do)

Inhabitants

Ocellaris Clown
Zebra Goby
Pajama Cardinal
Peppermint Shrimp
Hermit Crabs (small)
Emerald Crabs

Zoanathids
Bubble-Tip Anemone's (2-I think mine split in 2)
Favia Coral
Various mushroom
Duncan Coral
Brain Coral
Blue Xenia?
Ricordea
Yellow-Green Polyps
Feather Duster
Branch Coral?

Refuge:
Chaeto
Live Rock
Marine Bio-sediment
Copepods

pics:








Thanks!;D

 

It's looking good. I would probably stack some of the live rock up a little so you can get some corals closer to the light.

 

Verry nice Im getting ready to do a 30hex show tank style fuge.

 

Ditto to Inwall.........Better light for corals, and balance the visual of your tank. Tank looks great......Karma for great pics!

Sue

 

That looks great. I personally would cut down on the moonlights a bit though. The fish are very sensitive to that wavelength of light, so they don't get much sleep time. If you watch them when the moonlights are on, you might notice they look very restless and don't sleep. I stopped using my moonlights after reading this in another post.
If the bottom of the tanks looks to have enough flow, then you should be ok with placement of the powerheads. As others stated above, I would move the corals closer to the light. You may want to get more baserock to lift the liverock and corals closer to the light.

 

Thanks to all!

Yes I had planned to add more LR but was trying to go slowly....guess I'll do that this weekend. I'll then start trying to move some of that coral up....any in particular that could be higher?

I'm also going to order one of those timer powerstrips so that I can better manage my lighting...specifically the moon lighting.

Any advice on light periods? I run the MH's 12 hours per day now and the lunars 24/7 as I've found conflicting info on whether it bothers the fish. I'll probably set them to go off after midnight at the very least.

10am-10pm MH Light
10pm-12am Lunar
12am-10am no light (though they'll get ambient light beginning with sunrise)

 

I would set the timers to mimic natural movement of the sun/moon. When I had my lionfish and puffer, they would hide in the rocks though didn't look like they would sleep. After I stopped using the moonlights, they would sleep on the sandbed. I think your schedule will probably work very well with your fish.
As for what corals to move, check to see what each light requirement is and go from there. They would all probably benefit from being moved up to the halfway mark in the tank though.