First Post on RC!

[Reef N Discus]

Ok well this is my first post on RC, I have been actively reading and soaking up everything I possibly can. I have been reading on this forum for about a month now and I have been a registerd user for about 2 weeks now. As he name implies, I currently have a 55 gallon Discus Fresh water display and I am currently saving money and am about to start purchasing equipment for what will be my 90 gallon mixed Reef tank, some reef compatible fish will be included mostly soft corals some SPS and a clam or two.

Now to my question/questions,
1. will I be good to go with a 6 bulb arangement T5HO 54 watt Current Nova Extreme fixture to grow out a few high up in the tank SPS and a clam or two, while at the same time no burning out my softies, and shrooms lower in the tank? if need be I have an extra 54 watt T5HO bulb running on my lightly planted discus tank I could use (if not enough light that is)

Secondly I have been reading all those wonderful writting that were put together for us newbies to learn all about the hobby and I came acrros the QT section and had a couple of questions. I have a 14 gallon I used as a QT for discus fish when I was purchasing y stock so I know about QT fairly well of freshwater fish I learnd my lesson early on when I skiped QT lost a lot of expensive discus due to one sick fish ouch!

So my question is this what type of lighting do I need to keep on this tank in order to keep my soft, SPS, LPS, clams alive during the qt period? should I raise by use of an egg crate or something the corals closer to the light? only a few inches under the water say instead of just placing them on the bottom?

Can I qt more than one coral at a time if purchased together? same goes for fish say I bought a pair or maroon clowns can I QT them together?

and does this also go for new set ups? I know in the freswater hobby in discus if you had a newly cyled tank you could introduuce all your discus at once if bought fro same breeder.

The QT article did not mention anything in the way of a heater? I am assuing the little 50 watt heater that came with the 14 gallon tank would suffice?

Using T5HO on my tank with fans running in a nice cool air conditoned finished basement do I need to run a chiller? if so what kind what HP how much will it run me to purchase 300-400$ and do you think I will need one (was kind of hoping I would not) sense running T5 and not halide and the fact it will be in a cool basement but i am not a reef guy yet.....

If I buy my LR from say that fish place near me can I just place that into the tank to cylce it or does this have to go thru a QT as well? I was assuming it was ok to use comming fro the LFS??

Also as a side note totally off the QT path but how many fish can I comfortably stock in a 90 gallon mixed coral reef tank and what size would be the max? I do not want something as finiky as discus either lol.

By the way my name is Nate I am from York PA I fortunately live near a fish place pet place there awsome they got almost eveything a little pricey with things but still good spot. Kept freshwatrer fish for several years, kept discus for about a year now, I got three girls a wife so really four girls lol, and I love this hobby. What inspired me is the fish store with all those beautiful reef tank setups and I watch that LA Fish Guy on You Tube all the time I think I have seen every episode cool net show I can watch from work. So thats a bit about me, I thank you for your time and expert help on the newbies questions

oh yeah what kind of water change schdule is reqiured on the QT tank? how about the main tank?? the same difernt? I currently do 3 - 4 times a week 75 - 80% water change with my discus tank, I a loing forward to doing much less with a reef tank, if you do not know discus fish trust me its all about the water changes.

Thanks again:fun2:

[Jstdv8]

Now to my question/questions,
1. will I be good to go with a 6 bulb arangement T5HO 54 watt Current Nova Extreme fixture to grow out a few high up in the tank SPS and a clam or two, while at the same time no burning out my softies, and shrooms lower in the tank? if need be I have an extra 54 watt T5HO bulb running on my lightly planted discus tank I could use (if not enough light that is) I have all of those things under the same light in a 120g tank, no clams, but i do have several SPS, mushrooms and softies, in a smaller tank you should ahve no problems at all

Secondly I have been reading all those wonderful writting that were put together for us newbies to learn all about the hobby and I came acrros the QT section and had a couple of questions. I have a 14 gallon I used as a QT for discus fish when I was purchasing y stock so I know about QT fairly well of freshwater fish I learnd my lesson early on when I skiped QT lost a lot of expensive discus due to one sick fish ouch!

So my question is this what type of lighting do I need to keep on this tank in order to keep my soft, SPS, LPS, clams alive during the qt period? should I raise by use of an egg crate or something the corals closer to the light? only a few inches under the water say instead of just placing them on the bottom? if you are planning to Qt for 4-6 weeks to keep down ich then I'd reccomend getting a little T-5 for the tank or one of those Par38 LED's from nanotuners or ecoexotic ect. I( have the LEd on my QT/frag tank
Can I qt more than one coral at a time if purchased together? same goes for fish say I bought a pair or maroon clowns can I QT them together? yes, but keep in mind if you have to treat the fish for parasites or disease they will need to be treated in a seperate tank. thye corals you can Qt as many as you like as long as they all have thier space needed for the particualr species, some sting

and does this also go for new set ups? I know in the freswater hobby in discus if you had a newly cyled tank you could introduuce all your discus at once if bought fro same breeder. Its best if you are going to have several fish to add them one or two at a time to let the bacteria catch up with the bioload from the new fish.

The QT article did not mention anything in the way of a heater? I am assuing the little 50 watt heater that came with the 14 gallon tank would suffice? yes, as long as it keeps it above 75 degrees, some of them don't have settings and just go to 72 degrees and you don't have a choice

Using T5HO on my tank with fans running in a nice cool air conditoned finished basement do I need to run a chiller? if so what kind what HP how much will it run me to purchase 300-400$ and do you think I will need one (was kind of hoping I would not) sense running T5 and not halide and the fact it will be in a cool basement but i am not a reef guy yet..... No chiller needed with t-5's unless it gets hot in the house

If I buy my LR from say that fish place near me can I just place that into the tank to cylce it or does this have to go thru a QT as well? I was assuming it was ok to use comming fro the LFS??
if you are on your first cycle with no fish in the tank you can jsut put it in there and leave the tank fishless for the first 6 weeks, this will let you sort out your first cycle and it will kill off any ich that might have been present becuase of lack of fish to continue thier life cycle

[Jstdv8]

one thing about the first question, is it the nova extreme pro with the contoured reflectors or the nova extreme witht eh flat reflector accross teh back of all the lights?
there is a big difference here and may prevent you from keeping SPS and clams

[Reef N Discus]

one thing about the first question, is it the nova extreme pro with the contoured reflectors or the nova extreme witht eh flat reflector accross teh back of all the lights?
there is a big difference here and may prevent you from keeping SPS and clams

It is in fact the fixture with individual reflectors, I have been reading a lot and at this point just getting into it and wanting to purchase all the "right" equipment I would not buy unless it was with the individual reflectors. So base off your response then I assume I should be good to go with doing what I want becuase of this correct?

and thanks for all the input!

[Reef N Discus]

Thank you so much for the individual response, I do not often get that. I know I can ask to many questions in one post say about 10 and get only 4 of them answered thank you for takijng your time out to respond to all of my questions I do really appreciate that.

Having said all that I do have one more question, I have read in many posts that if it is just corals we are talking about that a full blown qt is not really needed but rather a coral dip of some kind is this true? can I skip the qt of the corals if I do this dip? I am sure that fish place sells the stuff they have almost anything you could ever need or want? Why do some use frag grow out tanks? is this that I can not put a frag into my main display? I can tell you one thing after I finally get everything set up nice nice I will certainly want to place a frag or even two in that big all but empty 90 gallon tank frag or not lol? Well besides the ive rock and maybe a thin sand bed.

I have been learning a ton from watching all the episodes of the LA Fish guy on you tube plus all the reading I have been doing here over the past month, would you say that guy knows what he is doing? he sure seems to know his sh@# if you knw what I mean?:lmao:

[Sugar Magnolia]

Some people do QT their corals to watch for any unexpected hitchhikers like aeolid nudibranchs or any number of species of flatworms. Dipping them in coral dip is always a good idea, but it generally won't dislodge the nasties. I do a dip in coral disinfectant and thorough inspection prior to placing the coral onto a frag rack in my tank. Zoas always get a freshwater dip. I've found my share of aeolid nudibranchs on some zoa colonies I have purchased in the past.

[Reef N Discus]

Now to my question/questions,
1. will I be good to go with a 6 bulb arangement T5HO 54 watt Current Nova Extreme fixture to grow out a few high up in the tank SPS and a clam or two, while at the same time no burning out my softies, and shrooms lower in the tank? if need be I have an extra 54 watt T5HO bulb running on my lightly planted discus tank I could use (if not enough light that is) I have all of those things under the same light in a 120g tank, no clams, but i do have several SPS, mushrooms and softies, in a smaller tank you should ahve no problems at all

Secondly I have been reading all those wonderful writting that were put together for us newbies to learn all about the hobby and I came acrros the QT section and had a couple of questions. I have a 14 gallon I used as a QT for discus fish when I was purchasing y stock so I know about QT fairly well of freshwater fish I learnd my lesson early on when I skiped QT lost a lot of expensive discus due to one sick fish ouch!

So my question is this what type of lighting do I need to keep on this tank in order to keep my soft, SPS, LPS, clams alive during the qt period? should I raise by use of an egg crate or something the corals closer to the light? only a few inches under the water say instead of just placing them on the bottom? if you are planning to Qt for 4-6 weeks to keep down ich then I'd reccomend getting a little T-5 for the tank or one of those Par38 LED's from nanotuners or ecoexotic ect. I( have the LEd on my QT/frag tank
Can I qt more than one coral at a time if purchased together? same goes for fish say I bought a pair or maroon clowns can I QT them together? yes, but keep in mind if you have to treat the fish for parasites or disease they will need to be treated in a seperate tank. thye corals you can Qt as many as you like as long as they all have thier space needed for the particualr species, some sting

and does this also go for new set ups? I know in the freswater hobby in discus if you had a newly cyled tank you could introduuce all your discus at once if bought fro same breeder. Its best if you are going to have several fish to add them one or two at a time to let the bacteria catch up with the bioload from the new fish.

The QT article did not mention anything in the way of a heater? I am assuing the little 50 watt heater that came with the 14 gallon tank would suffice? yes, as long as it keeps it above 75 degrees, some of them don't have settings and just go to 72 degrees and you don't have a choice

Using T5HO on my tank with fans running in a nice cool air conditoned finished basement do I need to run a chiller? if so what kind what HP how much will it run me to purchase 300-400$ and do you think I will need one (was kind of hoping I would not) sense running T5 and not halide and the fact it will be in a cool basement but i am not a reef guy yet..... No chiller needed with t-5's unless it gets hot in the house

If I buy my LR from say that fish place near me can I just place that into the tank to cylce it or does this have to go thru a QT as well? I was assuming it was ok to use comming fro the LFS??
if you are on your first cycle with no fish in the tank you can jsut put it in there and leave the tank fishless for the first 6 weeks, this will let you sort out your first cycle and it will kill off any ich that might have been present becuase of lack of fish to continue thier life cycle

Also do you think I would have to use the egg crate in the 14 gallon to raise the frags of coral up closer to the light or just sit directly onto the botto of the tank? and is just one of those par 38 led lights going to be enough to keep the corals alive for a few weeks during the acclimation/qt process? even a couple of SPS & clams just for qt raised up perhaps with one of the par 38 fixtures do you think y animals would live thru this ok? I do not want the qt process to be worse and more stressful possibly even killing my new guys before I even get them into the main tank? you know what I mean?

[Reef N Discus]

Some people do QT their corals to watch for any unexpected hitchhikers like aeolid nudibranchs or any number of species of flatworms. Dipping them in coral dip is always a good idea, but it generally won't dislodge the nasties. I do a dip in coral disinfectant and thorough inspection prior to placing the coral onto a frag rack in my tank. Zoas always get a freshwater dip. I've found my share of aeolid nudibranchs on some zoa colonies I have purchased in the past.

So I should raise them up in the 14 allon then? using like an egg crate or sumthing like that? and do you think one of those LED par 38 fixtures would do? how long do you qt corals for? what corals get a dip in the store bought solution and what corals get dipped in straight rodi water and for how long of a dip seconds minutes hours what? how long in qt?

the other concern I had is say I use the sae qt tank for fish as I do corals at difernt times obviously but say I had a pair of clown in the qt tank and had to use a copper treatment for sumthing rite a couple of months later after tear down and cleaning of the qt tank I purchase a coral to place inside to run a qt on do I need to worry bout trace amounts of copper reaining? I heard once you have used a copper treatent there may always be trace amounts left behind this worries me when qt my corals afetr the qt and treat with a copper med on the fish? do you know what I mean? do you understand my concern? and do you feel I could qt more than one coarl at a time? and is the length of qt of a coral the same as a fish or shorter? thank you for helping to answer all of my questions thank you very much!:lol2: