2006 May | Tropical Aquarium

Jebo Protein

Posted May 27, 2006 By admin and has no comments yet.

Help, I am starting a reef tank and I need assistance with corals/ anenomies/ etc...?

I am a first time reef tank owner. I have a 55 gallon saltwater aquarium with live sand, rock, fish, and a Jebo 260w lighting fixture consisting of two 65w 12000K Day light and two 65w Antinic bulbs along with 4 blue moon led light. My 1st question is what corals/ anenomies/ etc... should I get and what do they need to survive ex: light or other types of food. What are HARDY and cool looking also. My 2nd question is how should I set up my lighting timers. What are the specific hours each should be on. I have three plugs and three timers. My final question is do I need any other tank products such as protein skimmers etc... and what are they used for. Thanks for all your help.

Wow.
This question is way to invovled for Yahoo Answers.
Let me briefly answer then sugegst some better resources.
1) What corals to get - we will comae back later to this
2) lighting timers. I would do the day light for 10 hours, the actinic can come on 30 minutes before and stay on 60 minutes after. The moon light can come on 45 mintes after the daylights go off(15 before the actinic go out) and stay on for 4 to 6 hours then all off.
3) YES. You need a protein skimmer. This is the single most important part of a reef system. They remove dissolved organics like protein from the water. Without one your corals will die from water quality pollution. You also need a pump for water flow. Many corals liek surge and water pulses. I suggest a wavemaker as well for this.

1) revisited. Your tank is not ready for corals yet. You have no skimmer, and no current. Even hardy corals need those. As for cool and hardy species, that is subjectie. The polyps and zooanthids are ahrdy. I think they are cool. You certainly cannot keep stony corals at this stage.

But help is easy.

1) Check out Aquarium Corals by Eric Borneman. You should buy it ASAP. It is the reference on keeping corals in captivity.

2) Check out http://www.reefs.org and http://www.reefcentral.org there you will find tons of great advice and have more direct access to reef information.

Jebo 180 Tuning Guide