yes, there is a special reader you can get. Im not sure on where to purchase it from. Im sure lighting suppliers will know about the levels. I have a link somewhere about the comparison on MH and VHO. I will send it to you if i can find it. Anyways the point behind this is this may shed some light on the SPS and HO and VHO debate.
nano tank walk through...
- Thread starter BIGgourami
- Start date
I read your original post. I would like to convert my 29g to SW. But, as I've never done salt before, I'm a salt noob, and have no idea what you're talking about. Some of the terms and acronyms you use are confusing to someone who's never done SW. I can only assume that you meant for this thread to be a reference for someone like me that wants to do SW (at least on a small scale) and hasn't. Some clearer language would go a long way.
Hawkfish3.0;1755649; said:
Here is a few for you mate...
LFS - Local Fish Shop
LR - Live Rock
LS - Live Sand
DSB - Deep Sand Bed
SSB - Shallow Sand Bed
Invert - Invertibrate
Reef - A mixture of coral, fish and invertibrates
FO - Fish Only
FOWLR - Fish Only with Live Rock
SPS - Small Polyp Stony
LPS - Large Polyps Stony
HOB - Hang On Back filter
NO Lights - Normal Output lights
VHO Lights - Very High Output lights
PC Lights - Power Compact lights
MH Lights - Metal Halide lights
UV - Ultra Violet
Ruby Murry - Curry
AGA - All Glass Aquarium
RR - Reef Ready
PH - Powerhead
pH - Degree of Acidity of water
Calc - Calcium
No2 - NitrITE
No3 - NitrATE
NH4 - Ammonia
GPH - Gallons Per Hour
LPH - Litres Per Hour
K or Kelvin - The colour output of marine lighting
Nano - A Small Reef Aqauraium
IMHO - In My Honest Opinion
PITA - Pain in the As*
HTH - Hope That Helps
FWIW - For What Its Worth
QT - Quarantine
SG - Specific Gravity
Kalc - Kalkwasser, or Calcium Hydroxide
DOC - Dissolved Organic Compounds
GH - General Hardness
KH - Carbonate Hardness (german K spelling)
PPM - Parts Per Million
RO/DI - Reverse Osmosis/Deionization
TDS - Total Dissolved Solids
Just wanted to throw this in, to convert from Celcius to Kelvin you add 273. To go from Kelvin to Celcius you subtract 273. I didn't know that was what was used to measure the color output of light...
Hawkfish3.0;1755649; said:
yeah i got that from a different guy on another forum.. unfortunately it's a little (well really alot) bit late for me to edit.. i'll go through and post them here...
BIGgourami;1748089; said:hey guys as some of you know i have a 10 gallon reef (technically) set up and i figured i'd share what i did so i can help anyone interested in trying to start one...
components:
20# Caribsea live sand
5# of dry lace rock
5# os LR from my oldest tank (original peices)
10 gallon All Glass Aquarium tank
25 Watt Marineland stealth heater
AquaClear 20 (originally an AC 30)
Hagen GLO (that's the name and how it's spelt) 24'' dual bulb 48W T5 lighting fixture with 1 24Watt actinic and 1 24Watt 10,00K bulb
inhabitants:
then:
1 Blue spotted jawfish
and 1 Yellow tailed blue damsel all now dead from rock slide
now:
1 dragonface pipefish
1 margerita snail
2 astrea snails
1 blue legged hermit crab
1 fire red mushroom
1 colbalt blue shroom
1 "tiger snake" shroom
2 emerald green shrooms
2 heads of white striped green candycane coral
1 head of hammer coral
1 frag of Green star polyp (approx 30 polyps)
i used to feed rod's food and mysis to the damsel and the jaw, but now i don't feed the pipe, just the occasional feeding of Cyclops-eeze. the tank is litterally crawling with copes and amps, and s/he's getting fat (for a pipe anway)
pH 8.0
Calcium 420
Alkalinity 179/17* (still not sure how to read results)
Nitrite,Nitrate,Ammonia, all 0
element readings unknown (don't have tests, I just dose adaquately)
what i did:
i put the tank where i wanted it, and where i wanted it to stay, my desk right next to my computer. i added an 8 outlet power strip instead of the 6 plug so that i could run the computer, tank, and all components of both simultaniously (except the speakers :/ i make due)
i added the filter and heater ot the tank and added my base rock then the live rock on top of that and filled the sand in around it all (did this in reverse last time, hence deadly landslide)
i placed a bowl on the major open space in the tank and poured the premixed SW into that to keep form aggitating the sand too much, turned on the filter and heater and waited.
the tank cleared in a day (thanks bowl!) and was cycled (no trites) in about a week.. bought the YTBD, then another week later the Blue spotted jawfish, long story short i now have a pipefish.
i had bought a pair (or at least 2) but one died a very strange death.
after about another 2 weeks of not seeing ammo or trites, i added a frag of my Green star polyps, 2 heads of my candycane coral, and my dying hammer coral, the hammer has come bad a little bit in waves but is now onn a recession (think i may just go buy another, healtier one)
then bought a few shrooms, just the red and blue at first, then the snake and greens, i added one of the greens to my 29 with halides and all the green has faded to brown except for when the actinics or moonlights are on...
they've all done good and are now growing (save the hammer) so im think ing of adding a few more frags in the near future (wondering how Small Polyp Stony coral would do under T5's?)
my maintainence shed, consists of weekly 10%ish Water Changes's and bi-weekly dosing of elements and Ca (+/-?)
topping off isn't much of a problem, i have a very tight lid (jawfish) but there's good circulation through the AquaClear so there's also good oxygen content. i top off maybe 1x a week if that.
my clean up crew does good work but there's still some algea on the glass, a small magnetic scraper easily mows through it.
thinking of adding a biocube 29 skimmer to it, they have them for $30 at an LFS and the one on the biocube does good work
also i DIY'd the AquaClear into a refugium after getting the pipe...
tryed it on the AC 30, killed the motor, didn't have enough $$ at the time so replaced it with a 20
basically all i did was pour Live Sand (again from the oldest tank) into the media chanber of the AquaClear, add some cheatomorph algea, and make sure the light gets to the algea... literally that's it.
i see copepods pouring from that daily, and as proof of it's workingness i also have 0 trates
i think if you can't get through THIS then you should just start a FW tank
MustangMan;1756026; said:
yeah i think the color it refers to is the color an object glows at that temp? but i could be totally wrong...
One thing that I had a problem with lol PICS PICS PICS! I gotta see some pics of this tank it sounds pretty sweet 
