finally up and running

[hd dude]

well I did it, tank is set up and running its a 76 gallon half circle with 130 lbs of live rock two powerheads and 150 wet/dry with protein skimmer. I am also running a mag 350 with carbon sock corallife 36 lunar aqualight 96 watt blue night time acitinic light and 96 watt day time both are 10,000 k. I would like to keep some corals and fish can you tell me which ones ( corals ) would work with this light set up

Now that the tank is up and running can anyone tell me what to look for while it is cycling ( good things and bad things ) also any other input would be great.

[sir_dudeguy]

so your light is a 3 or 4 bulb fixture? And altho actinics can be run during the night, thats normally left to a moonlight and the actinics are used to create a morning and evening effect...they come on 1 hour or so before the daylights, and they stay on an hour after the daylights go out.

But in a 76 w/pc's you'd only be able to keep softies for the most part. Xenia, gsp, anything like that...just go to liveaquaria.com and look at their soft coral section. Those are just a small few of the good starter corals.

Also, you say you've got a wet/dry filter on there.... do you have bioballs in there? if so, take em out now before they become established. You absolutely do not need those. For one you've already got way more than enough live rock to filter your tank with a very heavy bioload, and in any case, bioballs and reefs dont mix too well. They create nitrates which make reefs impossible sometimes (yes, there are those few who HAVE done it w/bioballs, but for the most part, just stay away from anything that is like bioballs, filter media, or anything like that...they all make nitrates).

For your cycle, depending on what type of rock you got, you'll be seeing a spike in amonia and nitrite (if it was uncured rock...uncured basically means uncycled because thats what you're cycleing...the rock, not the water). If it was cured rock, you may not see any cycle at all...maybe just a small spike for a few days. But once your amonia and nitrite go back to 0 (both of them, not just one) then you can add a small cleanup crew (snails and stuff) and a couple weeks or so later you can begin to stalk it w/fish. For corals, specially softies, i honestly dont make that big of a deal about making sure "the time is right" for them to go in. They really dont care how well established the tank is for the most part. As soon as my tanks are done cycling i always add the stuff like gsp, xenia, kenya tree...all the softies and shrooms and zoa's.

hope this helps

[drummereef]

You could keep softies for sure. Shrooms, polyps no problem. Fish don't really care about the lights. The wet/dry sounds like an issue as sir_dudeguy said. Nitrates will become a serious issue when it comes to keeping corals. I'd ditch the balls now while you're just setting up. Post some pics when you get a chance!