returning to the hobby

Hello to everyone
my name is Steve and I am from England, but have worked in China for the last 10 years

I had a 50 gallon reef tank for about 6 years when in UK - and have started the hobby again after a 10 year break
currently have 1 x 75 gallon set up for 12 months FOLR ( 2 yellow tail blue damsels - 1 banana wrasse and 1 fireball angel - all doing great. - plus a lot of calerpa

I am also in the process of setting up a 60 gallon (set up 3 weeks ago and at peak of Diatom stage ) this tank will be a reef set up and will house begginers corals - shrooms, softies etc - which is where I was 10 years ago when I left the hobby (due to work relocation)
some of the rock, sand and water - where taken from previously set up tank in order to speed up cycling ( 1 x hermit crab in at present - another relocation! )

1st question - due to mixed opinions when surfing the net

My 75 gallon tank hood is fitted with 5 x 10,000 K , 80 watt T5s - and 1 X 80 watt actinic -

I always wanted to progress to SPS corals - but never had what I considered adequate lighting - always had T10s before

would a tank 12 months old? - with the lighting described - be suitable for me to try one Acropora species - located in upper 3rd of tank?

parameters on 75 are

Temp - 26C
PH 8.2
Salinity - 1.026
Amonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - (Azoo brand test kit - less than 10ppm
Phospate - Tetra test Kit - less than 1ppm - water stays clear! no traces of blue
Calcium - not tested at present - but will test using the Tropic marin kit which I can get here

20% water change every 2 weeks using Instant Ocean reef mix
Lights - 12 hour days, 10 hour full 6 tubes - last 2 hours only 1 white and 1 blue

hope information given is adequate?

Thanks for reading

Steve

 

yes your 75 should be fine for acros

 

thank you Sostoudt

 

Welcome to 3reef Steve. It sound like you've done TONS of research and your on the right track. 6x80 watt t5s would be plenty of light to grow SPS, and probably even at lower levels of your tank than the top third, although I would keep Acropora in the top third as they are light hogs. However, you are going to want to switch to at least 3 actinic bulbs IMO and even up to 4 as opposed to only one in the fixture. Corals will use more light from your actinic bulbs than your daylights, so you will want to have more.

A lot has changed in the reefing hobby in 10 years, so even though it sounds like you already have done research, do even MORE research. You can never do too much and it will only help you in the long run. Oh, also, a 12 month tank will be fine for SPS, and you can probably keep SPS sooner, but work up to it as you plan to. Start with polyps, zoas, shrooms, and leathers, then move to some easier LPS like open brains and hammer, then you can move into some easier SPS like monipora. You'll get the hang of it real quick.

Good luck, LCP

 

Welcome back.... ;D

 

thanks LCP

Ill definitely go the slow route Via LPS - I used to keep some bubble coral and 1 torch that did well

Ill do more research as I would never have worked out the Daylight/ Actinic ratio - my preconceived ideas are based on other peoples MH set ups with Actinic as additional light - which made me assume a 5 - 1 or 4 -2 ratio in favour of daylight was the correct balance

I like your suggestion because - green star polyps, shrooms etc flourese under actinics ( anything with symbiotic algae in it I believe ) and I have always enjoyed seeing this

 

Hello and welcome to 3reef

 

Welcome to 3reef