125 Gallon Just Filled! Questions

Hello all!

We just finished filling our tank 3 days ago

Tank:
125 Gallon Acrylic with a built in Wet-dry 5' x 20" x24"
2 140 Watt VHO 6500K with a Coravue Vue 600 Ballast
120 pounds of live sand
approx. 75 pounds of live rock, 60 pounds of dry rock
PSK-150 Protein Skimmer
Eheim 300 Watt heater
2 Hydor Koralia Evolution 600 pumps
1.024SG
78-79F


My BF is old fashioned so we are cycling with damsels, 3 yt, and 2 chromis. The rock layout isn't really set in stone, nor are we too fond of it right now, but it will be moved around in a few days.

Sooo first question, one of our brand new Koralias is rattling like mad, granted the first one did and we took it apart and adjusted the impeller a little and its silent now, but we are thinking we are definitely going to need a bigger one for the left side of our tank. The right side has quite a bit of movement from the overflow, and the 600 seems to be alright for that side, but what size would you recommend for the left hand part of the tank?

The protein skimmer, maybe I'm just not doing it right, but no matter how much I adjust the tube on the left (as per the instructions), it's pushing just pure water into the collection cup and filling it incredibly fast. Is there any reason for this?

Lighting...
The current lighting is what came with the tank, and I'm wondering what is going to be doable with this lighting setup? The canopy has the two bulbs retrofitted into it, with no reflector (it's black acrylic), and two fans on opposite sides of the hood. I would change out the bulb colors as Drs F&S actually carry 5' VHOs, to a white actinic and a true actinic. Personally I want to get T5s in there. I use SunBlaze T5HOs on my FW tank and I am very fond of their performance, and the reflectors are pretty nice for the price too. I don't want to grow anything to crazy coral wise but I'd love to get into LPS one day. I was looking at these lights. Likely the 6 bulb fixture for the tank, and was wondering if 6 would be enough for LPS? Or could I do away with a 4 bulb fixture? They come with 6500K bulbs, but I was just going to take them and use them for replacements for my FW tank, since for the price of the unit I couldn't buy 6 T5 bulbs. What kind of bulb temperature is recommended? 20ks? A mixture of 10ks, 20ks? I love Geissmann bulbs so thats where I'd probably start. They aren't the greatest light reflectors, but if I could make it work I want too. It would be retrofitted into my hood. So there's the possibility of redoing the housing and making my own reflectors.

CUC suggestions?
There's 10 Turbo Snails and 10 Cerith Snails in the tank right now. Plus another two Turbos that snuck in on the LR. I would like Nerites (quite fond of their FW cousins), but what kind of numbers are suggested?

Lastly, this is our proposed stock list atm:
-Red firefish
-pair of Ocellaris Clowns -- Red Bubble Tip Anemone for these guys?
-Goby w/ matching snapping shrimp
-Scissortail dartfish
-Green Mandarinfish 9+ months down the road
-Yellow Tang

(added in that order, roughly.)
We are hesistant on the tang right now, but we really want to set ourselves up for success with the Mandarin. My BF had one for a few years a while back but lost it during a summer poweroutage.
I'd love to keep the chromis but don't know if thats going to be a possibility due to their aggression potential.

Is our proposed fish list a good one for right now? Any good Goby suggestions?


Oh and picture:

 

First, Welcome to 3reef! nice tank.

I'm not one for cycling tanks with live fish (raw table shrimp is so much easier) so i'll just say good luck catching those fish out of a 125g tank lol, i know people that still cant get them out of their 30g.

As for the koralia:
2 600's wont be enough. I would look at getting the biggest model available. IF you have the money, an mp 40 or a maxspect gyre are trending options. The rattling can be fixed usually by taking it apart and cleaning as you did, if it continues, contact koralia customer support, they're always VERY eager to help.

Protein skimmer:
This is happening because your skimmer is breaking in. just give it a couple more days to a week.

Lighting:
Can't find anything on your current fixture, sounds like PC lighting though, wont be able to keep much under your current lights. If you can afford the 6 bulb T5 system, that would be best, though the 4 bulb should be able to keep LPS no problem. For a bulb mixture, it really depends on what you like. There was a thread comparing all the most common bulb configurations for T5, I have a 6 bulb and use two purple, two blue and two 12ks; it gives a nice crisp white, but enough blue/purple to make colors pop.

CUC:
generally 1 turbo per 10g, 1 cerith/astrea/nerite per gallon, some other wonderful snails are conches and nassarius snails. i would do only 1 conch, and 1 nassarius per 10g. Also, many members like hermit crabs and emerald crabs. I personally run my tanks crab free. I also dont like nerites because they lay eggs all over the glass, but the eggs never hatch because they only hatch in lower salinity (mother nature is pretty cool).

Stocking:
Looks good, you're familiar with the mandarins dietary requirements so thats good, a 125g will be more than adequate for one. As for Chromis aggression, i've never heard of chromis being aggressive, except intraspecifically, ie they attack each other. For gobies, check here: http://www.liveaquaria.com/

Hope i answered all your questions,
Welcome to 3reef!

 

I feel bad for the fish when people use them for cycling. Much easier ways to do it. Then what's worse is you have damsels in the tank.

Lighting is one of the most important things. I've had to upgrade mine twice. Learn from my mistakes and save up for some nice LEDs.

 

Welcome to 3Reef. As you can see folks around here are very friendly and knowledgeable.

I had a conch once, that bugger, after it got bigger wreaked havoc on my aquascaping. I'd find rocks tipping all the time from where it had cleared out the sand from underneath it. IMO if you get a conch I'd recommend on a bare bottom and then sand around it.

I agree with Va, I've not heard of Chromis being aggressive towards other species.

I love my radions lots of color variations available and the light hits the bottom of my tank easily.

 

I'm not personally a huge fan of cycling with fish either, but ammonia is at .5 right now, so I am keeping an eye on it. I woke up yesterday and two were in my wet/dry in the back of the tank. One wanted out of there asap, the other seemed to think this was where his new home is. Go figure. Was the biggest PITA to get the one guy out, the other swam right into my net. I don't mind keeping the damsels either. They've been doing pretty well so far. Very outgoing, already very interactive, and ate last night as well. I am someone who in FW just uses small doses of pure ammonia every day for a cycle vs. fish.

So CUC wise, so far, we are good on turbos, but could go higher on the cerith and others, thank you for that! I like crabs, but the LFS said there's a chance if I don't biggers shells for them they could choose a snail's shell as a home. No idea if thats true or not.

I do like having a few 12ks in there. I like the blue, but the white tint looks nice. They are flourescents, with what is now the IceCap 660 VHO ballast. I did some more reading, and apparently it can also overdrive up to four T5s to 440 Watts, and can also do a combination, so maybe it might be possible, for right now, to do a mixture of 2 of the 140 Watt VHOs and 2 T5HOs. Would a 12000k Actinic White VHO, a Actinic VHO, a Pure Actinic Giesemann T5, and a AquaPink or something else? Or should I just do all T5s? If I did 4 T5s on the ballast, they would be running as a 110W VHO T5s, so with a decent reflector would they be good? I can't imagine the bulb usage on that.

 

Its very true, hermit crabs will go after snails all the time, be it to eat the snail or get the shell or just to kill the snail, which is why i dont keep crabs.

It may be possible but i wouldnt put T5 bulbs in a PC fixture even if it can overdrive it. Im not entirely sure about using the ballast so i wont say anything about that. As others have suggested there are some nice LEDs out there, I however prefer T5 or MH. To each their own.

 

Regarding your CUC, in case this wasn't mentioned, I would wait quite a bit before adding any additional members. You really don't have much for the snails you have now to eat. For lighting, I would be looking to replace that whole fixture. There are plenty of options of course, MH, T5, LED, or even better a combination of those

 

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Welcome to 3Reef!

Well, I agree with everything everyone else has said. But since the topic hasn't been brought up, are you planning on setting up a quarantine? It will help you a lot in the long run and will be very beneficial for ich prone fish like tangs (which you'd like to buy). If you want to know more ask any of us and we'll be sure to assist.

Here's a little video that helped me a lot:

 

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What Vinny and Marshall said.. They have to have algae to eatsssss.