125 Gallon Just Filled! Questions

They aren't PC, T12s=VHO.

And yes I am planning on quarantine picking up a 20 long from the dollar per gallon sale. I have a spare Aquaclear 50 HOB that I'll use as the filter for it. And a spare light.

I don't plan on adding more clean up crew right now until the algae starts growing more, just planning mostly. I'm not really fond of LEDs for the most part, but I love my T5s. Maybe just two individual T5 strips (I have individual T5s with their own ballasts), I might add into the canopy?

 

Great! T5s are great lights, but why don't you like LEDs.

 

Not very familiar with them yet. I know in the planted tank hobby, they are gaining ground, but for lights that can really grow the true high light price, you are looking at some very expensive LEDs, and I can only assume its the same with SW. I'm against trying them, but they are expensive

 

Everything everyone else said... Well, except about cycling with fish. I've done it and the fish are still in my tank 5 years later, so who am I to judge.

As for lights, your VHOs are nice lights, but there are not enough of them and without reflectors it exacerbates the problem. I'm a huge proponent of t5 lights. They're easy, straightforward, hard to screw up, and give good colors. There are several great, cost effective 6 bulb fixtures out there that would work great in conjunction with the current lights (keep em, they can be very nice color additions not available in t5).

 

Didn't notice anything about a sump. Have kept mandarins for years and feel that a sump gives you a better chance of maintaining a study supply of food for them. Agree with everyone else on the lighting and highly recommend the gyre if you can afford it at this point. Have one on a 72' tank at 305 flow. Gives me plenty of flow and no noise.

 

Yeah still time to figure out the lights, and I'll take a look at those pumps! Definitely need more water movement, especially on the left hand side of the tank. Ammonia is still very low, hasn't gone over .5ppm, been testing every day. I'm not a proponent of cycling with fish, but they are very entertaining to watch. I do have a good sized last chamber on my Wet Dry where the pump sits, that I could be used to grow pods for the Mandarin. I also have spare tanks I was thinking I might be able to see with pods, and add them in to the tank manually as a supplement.

They've been getting a frozen mysis/brine shrimp mixture, gave my FW tanks a little bit off of the cube, I think I now have to feed both of them the frozen food. They went crazier then the damsels, and they are pretty crazy. Had neons and barbs taking pieces and stashing them under the plants.

I have been getting a LOT of coralline algae growth for only a week, even on the dead rock I put in. It's growing faster then I expected it too. This rock was not live, was in a tank, but didn't have any coralline on it. You can see the pink starting to show.
Coralline growth:


There are two critters/things I'm curious to know about. The first one I swore I saw on the glass after the first fill, but now it's on a snail, and I have no idea what it is. And then there's the weird spiky thing on the rock in the second picture. Any identification help?





Sorry for the sub-par pictures, made do with the camera on my phone.

 

The second looks like a ball anemone. I have found them to be harmless. I am not sure what the first one is though.

 

first 1 looks like asterina starfish

 

I do think the first is an Asterina Starfish. I found him again right before I turned the lights off, sitting on a rock with a bunch of coralline. Also have dreaded diatoms on the sand, like magic, they've appeared. Nerites do the trick as in FW correct? I do know it will go away over time, but it's ugly

 

Diatoms will go away once the silicate are used up. Usually diatoms are a sign of the ending of a cycle