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

 

I am no expert in coral - but I would venture a YES would be in order here!

 

WELCOME BACK TO THE LOVELY WORLD OF SALTWATER!!!!
By the way, can you post a pic of your bit of the ocean?

 

I think you should. But I would increase the actinic output. I would consider doing 3x80 actinics and 3x80 daylight. I don't think the one actinic bulb is going to do the job. But you definitly have the power to house LPS, softies, SPS, clams.....whatever you want with that lighting set up. And with that kind of output, you could put it at the bottom of the tank and get some good results. A 75 is only 18 inches to the bottom, which is, at the end, a total of 15 inches taking into consideration sand depth and the difference between water level and the top of the tank. T5s will easily penetrate that far. But I would definitely do more actinics.

 

Welcome to 3Reef>>>>>>

 

Stripped out about half a bucket of calerpa this evening (create space) and will be purchasing 2 new T5 actinics tomorrow and some more rock to create more height - tank looks bare now - I had forgotten my rock work only went up half way - and it was the calerpa that had filled the upper half
Thanks to all for comments and advice - Ill move to the correct forums now for any future comments and questions

 

Welcome to 3reef

 

Glad to have ya. Listen to FarmerJohn...he'll never steer you wrong. HAPPY REEFING!!