DaJMasta

This. I've got a 150W over my 24G and with the skimmer running it almost needs a chiller.... almost. A single 150W will let you grow some fine SPS in the top half of the tank, plenty of light for that, two would probably give you good growth on the sandbed - but that comes with requirements to shade lower light corals if you want to add them. With 300W over a 30G tank plus the heat from the pump and skimmer, I doubt you'd be able to get away with air cooling very well and you'd want to ventilate each MH well. Heat would be my first concern, but it's enough light to bleach things if they're too high up or if they need less than extreme amounts of light.

NPS gorgs really need to be in a NPS tank... High flow and suspended food pretty much constantly (I've seen 4-7 feedings a day), which means heavy filtration equipment at the very least. If you want to try to keep it though, try supplementing what you're feeding with phyto and a meaty very fine food, like oyster feast or some of the smaller coral blend foods.

If you're willing to meet me somewhere in austin I'd be interested in the forest fire digi, the unknown yellow acro, and the ora bottlebrush. I don't have a way to get to roundrock, otherwise I'd certainly pay you a visit

Any herbivore blenny should be fine, maybe they can be irritants but I would say most blennies don't even eat meat. That said, the info I see says the blue and gold is a herbivore, you sure it's not damage from irritation or damage from skirmishes with other tankmates? EDIT: Apparently what's commonly called the blue and gold blenny is different from the combtooth blenny. Combtooth blennies make up quite a number of species and are larger and not necessarily herbivores. Make sure the ID is correct and you've actually got a combtooth.

I doubt you'd be able to get rid of them all, but there's a chance - a natural starfish predator the harlequin shrimp. If you have other starfish or critters with tube feet I doubt they'd be a good idea (they eat the tube feet), and I'm not exactly sure whether they eat brittle stars.... but with a little research you should be able to tell. A lot of people don't keep them because their diet is only starfish, but it could help solve your problem. That said, I don't know for sure whether it would work. There are chemical options like a copper based ich treatment, but that will essentially kill any mobile invertebrate and could be bad for corals, so it is by no means a reasonable option. If you can't keep the numbers down I'd gladly take a few - I have some regular sized brittle stars but none of the mini ones.

I got my two at RCA and they were the first fish in the tank and survived since then including a move (though that's just under 5 months now I think). No secret to acclimating, I don't think I even used the drip method. They haven't jumped. I feed the tank maybe 4 times a week with a varied diet. Generally, the available chromis are tank raised and are extremely hearty. What parameters are you running? Specifically: salinity, pH, temperature.

I wish you luck on the tank, but that is rather heavy stocking and I'd be lying if I said I thought everyone in the tank would make it. I would reconsider the airline though, all that bubbling will end up splattering a lot of salt and organics (like a skimmer) on whatever is on top of or beside your tank. If you go with a power head of some sort, you get the increased air to water interface that you get with the bubbler (at least, if the tank surface doesn't have a skin), but you also get some more circulation around the rock, which reduces debris collection somewhat and makes better use of your rock as a biological filter.

It will keep them alive but they probably won't be fully colored. If they're in the top half or so of the tank they should do just fine, the bottom half may be a little low for some types of zoas, especially if the bulbs are old.

-1. Bad advice. You must account for water back siphon in the event of a power failure. If you only have a sump that can handle your equipment and nothing else, be prepared to flood your house. Well I didn't mean ignore that.... It's a good point though.

Just make sure the inverter doesn't get exposed to salt water I use a little encased dual LED moonlight for my 24G. It's not really bright, but it has pretty good water penetration and it does just fine for a low level night time lighting. Because it's small I just leave it on 24/7. Evidently they're discontinued? I don't know.... nice blue color and a shimmer effect in a package small enough to fit on the arm supporting my metal halide: http://www.marinedepot.com/Current_USA_Lunar_Light_Moon_White_Moon_Light_Moon_Light_Fixtures_for_Aquariums-Current_USA-CU01650-FILTFIML-CU01650-2-vi.html

Big enough to fit your equipment is all that you need, that said having extra system capacity is a benefit and having space for a refugium or other goodies down there is always good. So you only need one that will fit your equipment, but I would recommend the largest standard sized tank that fits under your 55g. Standard sized tank just so that it's cheaper. If you're going with a premade sump of some sort, I'd get one with a lot of capacity.

Well there's an eShopps 75G HOB skimmer that I briefly looked at in my looking around. It uses a siphon tube and the pump and skimmer is both external, however the pipes that go into the tank are something like 6-6.5" apart, which at least for my nano cube didn't align well with the back compartments and the clip on light I'm using - it could fare better with a proper hood because it leaves the back open.

For at least 3x as much I've also heard great things about the Remora and the 9002, but the price tags are similar. Not sure how the remora would work with the lid though, as it's HOB. I haven't received mine yet, but I'm running a 24g nano cube and I'm going to put an AquaticLife Mini Skimmer 115 into the first chamber of mine. If you're interested I'll have some info on it soonish, but it seems like the reviews I've read are fairly positive. I've heard the tunze is a bit quicker to skim, a bit easier to adjust, and quieter (to some), but at 3x the cost I figured I would try the well rated alternative first. For your skimmer particularly, I think the general consensus by reviewers is that it does work, but it doesn't pull a whole lot of gunk.

A lot has happened. I've been meaning to post something on the tank more than once before, but I always got swept up in something else or distracted or just plain forgot. I'll give you a run down since the last update: Green zoas got zoa pox. Lost a few, got Furan2 and did the dip as prescribed on Zoaid (though I used a slightly stronger formula by adding less tank water). It cleaned up the pox right good, but then I had fewer of the greens. Moved some greens and the gorgonian to the new (now not so much) 24G tank. Added a neon goby and some chestnut turbo snails. The tank looked like this: Moved to a new apartment: breaking down both tanks and putting the critters in buckets, driving them over one at a time after hauling the tank and sandbed around on a sheet of plywood, adding everything back in with relatively little new seawater. In the process of the move I restarted the modded AC70 as a fuge and turned the 5.5G sump into a sort of quarantine/fallow tank. The aquascape was completely redone, and I think it looks better. Then I went out of town for nearly a month. I left food and checkup directions with a friend to watch over the tanks. Both got an extra large ATO bucket and a fresh waterchange, but the time away made me nervous. Got back after nearly a month, I was greeted with a couple of nearly softball sized macros of dictyota - the invasive type which came with the rocks and I had been picking off bit by bit. Despite that however, the tank looked pretty good. The mohawks were a bit bleached, but all of the corals made it. It seems that I lost Hector - he was looking a little sickly in the weeks leading up to the move and I left only a few days after moving the tanks. I had hoped that the extra feeding regimen would be enough to keep him happy, but I haven't seen him since I left in june. The other tank had a wall full of green algae, but the SPS had actually colored up quite a bit despite the less than ideal water quality... however the geometric pygmy hawk - a shy little orange fish maybe an inch and a quarter long - which I hadn't seen for a few weeks before the move, which I rediscovered in a hole in the rock while moving, and which I thought may have been bullied by the saddled blenny in the tank..... was in one of the back chambers of the 24G. So I promptly moved him to this tank and he seems to be quite a bit happier. I also moved the brain coral to the 24G, I just couldn't find a space in this tank where it could happily grow without hurting things or rolling over. The tank, after moving over the fish and pulling out a solid pint worth of macro, looked like this: With all that macro still hanging out though, I decided I would do a 'three days of darkness' style treatment... though it lasted 4 full days. I covered the whole thing with towels... when the time was up I moved some corals around and let everything open up, and as of a couple days ago the tank looked like this: Not the cleanest of layouts, but certainly very alive. The tank has had a bit of a flatworm problem for a while now (look at the blue mushroom up front), but it's never gotten to the point that it's excessively invasive. I've been considering dealing with it somehow, but basically neither tank can properly contain a biological solution like a six line wrasse (both are open topped) and I think nuking it with FWE is a bit overkill for what amounts to some unsightly brown spots on certain corals. Anyways, I've got some plans for the next couple of weeks. My birthday is coming up and I plan on treating myself to some new frags and critters.... mostly for the 24G which looks fairly sparse now, but I'm hoping to get some nice bright zoas to add to my rapidly expanding collection in this tank. I may get something like a twinspot blenny for this tank, as they're rather small and herbivores, but I'm still undecided. I think the water quality for this tank is good for the stuff in it now, but the 24G with some SPS has made it clear to me that for SPS with fish I need a skimmer - so I've got a little AquariumLife Mini Skimmer 115 coming for use in one of the back chambers. Hopefully that will keep the SPS a bit happier between water changes, the chaeto in the fuge area doesn't seem to want to keep up the pace with the nitrates and they seem to hover a bit above 10. I've noticed that after a large water change I see a fair bit more SPS polyp extension though, so it needs to be done. That's all for now. Maybe next time I'll finally introduce you to the 24G. It looks great to me, given the age and the fact that I started with seed rubble and dry rock and all that, but it looks sparse and dead in all my photos. Maybe the skimmer and another fish or frag or something will do. Oh and I definitely need a new camera.....

....alright.... I've got 2 nanos, a 7.5G and a 24G and I'm currently running about 1/4 of the stocking (or less, considering full grown fish size) and I just can't picture that many fish in any tank this small. I've done a lot of reading on nanos and I still can't picture it working out, yes they're small fish but their waste builds up quickly. Perhaps the recommended 5 gallon biweekly water changes could do it, but I for one don't want to be switching out 50% of the water every week - that sounds more akin to raising fry anyways. Also having less live rock may mean more swimming space, but it also means drastically reduced biological filtration capacity. I suppose in a FOWLR this can be solved (at least somewhat) with mechanical filtration, but still it doesn't seem to indicate healthy living conditions to me. Maybe it's just that while I can see a dozen fish in 20G of freshwater, it's difficult to find marine fish that are small enough to do that. Even a firefish - by no means a big fish, though not the smallest - is closer to 2.5-3". Neon gobies would be small enough, but you wouldn't be able to keep more than 2 or 3 pairs in there without territory fights - same goes for most of the very small gobies or blennies. This guide may be a little bit on the conservative side (it is a beginner's guide) but it's recommending 1/4-1/3 of that stocking level: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=74703 Also the dog comparison seems silly to me, it's much more difficult for a dog to take up any space in the height direction, so obviously the square feet is what matters and the height is thrown out of the equation above a minimum level. I suppose this discussion should probably have it's own topic.... oh well.

I agree with all your points, but keeping a dozen even very small fish (aside from fry) in a 20G tank would mean needing a skimmer, running carbon or another chemical media, and a huge amount of live rock to keep your ammonia below 5ppm Maybe if you had a 40G sump connected to it you could keep things in line, but then it's not really a 20G tank. I know virtually the smallest schooling fish would also be impossible to keep in a tank that size because they need a near continuous food supply to stay alive (we're talking more than 4 feedings per day). Also going even with peaceful gobies generally makes problems, because gobies and blennies of the same body shape will often fight with each other, and of course non-paired ones of the same species would also fight. I've also heard the opposite about cubes, that some fish which like to swim a lot do better with one long dimension (for a straight swimming path) than in the equivalent cube tank, but I don't have experience with that, just what i've heard. I just don't see a way that those numbers in that small a tank could work.

Most importantly: get your live rock in and cycled before you add ANYTHING. If you add something before your 'filter' is going the ammonia spike will kill it.

Dozen 2" fish in a 20G...... that's insane!!!!! As said there's no set limit. If you give some info about your tank, we can guesstimate to try and give you some help, but a lot of fish have different needs. Not only does the length of the fish usually exponentially increase the bioload on the system it creates, there's also the matter of how messy eaters they are, whether they swim actively, whether they need territory to hide in, whether you're running a skimmer or fuge or whatever - there's just too many VERY important details to even start getting to a rule about inches per gallon or grams per liter or something. So what's your: tank size? amount of live rock? skimmer? fuge? sump size? tank maturity (age)? current stocking? do you have sensitive stony corals?

Most of your 'filtration' will happen in your live rock and as long as you have proper flow. There is no need to use an external filter of any sort in most marine aquaria. That said, nutrient export in terms of a skimmer, a refugium or other place to grow chaeto or other macroalgae, or regular changes should be suitable replacements for mechanical filtration. You can run stuff in a reactor to help with certain compounds building up, you can run something like chemipure to keep several of them in check, and at times it is appropriate to run carbon in an external filter.... but these probably won't be necessary on your 55g. Having a sump helps because you have more space to fit everything (skimmer, fuge, etc) but also more water volume, meaning any waste or toxic chemicals which may get into the water are more diluted. It also helps oxygenate the water and can be useful for quarantining certain critters you may find.

I think I only saw one, but it was in their inverts rack. Pretty awesome that they're becoming so available so quickly, it was only a few short months ago that they were first announced.

I've always liked acan lords. The two smaller frags have the best color IMO, but I think that's just cause the red and white ones you see around more. That said, I've got some red and white ones which really look awesome,.

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade.... but they could be just bleached. There are white zoas around, but they're typically small, all white, and non photosynthetic.... so they're hard to keep alive (see those sponges with zoas encrusted). All said, they do look cool. If they are bleached, maybe they'll color up to look better!

What kind of CUC do you have? I'd say just increase water change frequency or feed less or both and let it do it's thing, unless your CUC is on the small side.

That's a nice setup. I've been considering getting a UPS for the powerheads/heaters for my system. Anything in there can live through a few days without light, but without circulation or heat is definitely another matter. That said, I don't have a huge amount of funds to spare or a huge amount of livestock, there are other options for the short term as long as I'm around and since I'm not stocking too heavily I have a little bit of breathing room. Since my pumps and heaters are fairly low power, a decent sized computer UPS could probably power them for quite some time. Actually what I fear more is the loss of my apartment's AC. That could easily be several days long and I really don't have anything good to combat that. Even with the lights off and large size fans blowing in the top, neither tank could survive a couple of days of Austin's summer heat I'm afraid. The ice cubes are a good idea, but with my small tanks it would be a continuous activity to monitor the temperature with them.

Hasn't yet happened to either of mine... On the inside, does it look like any of the connections from the power cord to the board are damaged or loose? Is there any scorch marks on the board? Does flipping it to the other mode help? Any evidence of water being in there? Does it power on with the pump disconnected (could be a short in the pump)? I don't think it has an internal fuse, so I doubt it would be that....