New here...from NC. 55 gallon reef (pics)

Good advice, I think I will stick to just corals as well. Thanks! Unfortunately though, I noticed what I am almost positive is an aiptasia on a new piece of liverock I added yesterday. I'll take pics later to confirm.

 

i think its lookin real good. interesting scaping . and agreeing with pered on the nem. thnx for the updates B

 

BTB nice tank, have you pulled power and made sure your sump does not over flow onto the ground? it looks close to me just fyi.

 

Thanks! I'll keep them coming ;D

Thank you. I haven't taken water out since I added the liverock yesterday and took those pics, so I probably would be in trouble if I lost power right now since my waterline is much higher than normal. My salinity is a little on the low side, so i was planning on just letting some water evaporate to get my salinity up a bit before I removed enough water to make up for the rocks.

 

Really?!?! How is my logic wrong here....the salt stays in the tank while water evaporates out. Less volume of water=higher concentration of salt=higher salinity, right?

 

youre right B . i dont know what i was thinking. i apologize for giving that incorrect statement. i should think before typing sometimes.

 

lol thats ok. If I had a nickel for every time I said something wrong before thinking it through I would be a rich man

 

I spotted a huge hitchhiker in the big piece of liverock on the left side of the tank last night. I was feeding the fish and I noticed a red crab whose body was probably about 3" in width hanging out in a crevice. I tried to get a pic but it was too dark. He was red with small dark spots, with long hairy legs, and his pincers were a dark maroon/brown/black color. Any guesses as to the species? I'm really hoping its reef safe cuz its gonna be a huge pain if I have to get him out of that rock.

 

I did a little research and decided I should probably take him out. So I rigged something up and caught him....he's not as big as I thought. To catch him I decided to try a simple approach with just a glass and some bait. I honestly wasn't sure if he was going to be bold enough to climb over the lip of the glass to get at the squid, but he did. Now that I have pics, is it a xanthid crab like I suspect? I doubt he is reef safe, but if he is I would like to put him back in the display tank as I'm sure he would be a great addition to the clean up crew.

 

I got another koralia 2 and some other stuff delivered yesterday, so now I think I have all the flow I will need and the moonlight set up is done. I'm going to return the powerstrip with timers cuz the one that showed up didn't have as many options as I expected, just a day setting and a night setting, which doesn't allow for my actinics and 10000k bulbs to be on seperate timers.

I'm a little concerned that my chaeto doesn't seem to be thriving. I'm wondering if this could have something to do with my fuge lighting? Could it be that since my nitrate and phosphate levels are so low its not getting what it needs to grow?