Hey all -
Just joined BAR Forum (BARF?) and am really excited to learn form all of your hundreds of years of collective knowledge and hopefully contribute something of my own some day.
A brief history... I have been up and down with a little 30 gal salt tank for over 10 years. A friend gave it to me when he was moving and I loved the idea of a thriving salt tank but knew very little about what I was doing and didn't have the time to take the hobby seriously until COVID struck.
I had a 50 gal tank sitting in my garage that I picked up on Craigslist a number of years ago. With a lot more time at home, I drilled the bottom of the tank, drilled a few holes through my wall in my living room, installed a shed in the back yard outside where the tank sits and ran all the plumbing for a sump out the bottom of my tank, out the wall, and into the shed. I made my own ~15 gal. sump/refugium, which I think turned out pretty cool and am currently half way into a 4-month cycling process.
I have a 5-stage RO system feeding a saltwater premix trash can and an ATO reservoir (0 TDS currently).
I have a Benggai Cardinal, a yellowtail blue damsel, a lawnmower blenny, a blue chromis and a yellow tang contributing to the cycling process.
My first question for you all is regarding the refugium. I have put two batches of cheato in one of the sump chambers with a "grow light" (not necessarily designed for refugiums) I bought off Amazon a while back. Within a few weeks both batches of cheato have "wilted" and died. I tried reducing the time the light was on in case I was frying the stuff but to no avail. Any ideas as to what could be going on here?
Thanks for your help and looking forward to looking around at the posts and learning more!
Just joined BAR Forum (BARF?) and am really excited to learn form all of your hundreds of years of collective knowledge and hopefully contribute something of my own some day.
A brief history... I have been up and down with a little 30 gal salt tank for over 10 years. A friend gave it to me when he was moving and I loved the idea of a thriving salt tank but knew very little about what I was doing and didn't have the time to take the hobby seriously until COVID struck.
I had a 50 gal tank sitting in my garage that I picked up on Craigslist a number of years ago. With a lot more time at home, I drilled the bottom of the tank, drilled a few holes through my wall in my living room, installed a shed in the back yard outside where the tank sits and ran all the plumbing for a sump out the bottom of my tank, out the wall, and into the shed. I made my own ~15 gal. sump/refugium, which I think turned out pretty cool and am currently half way into a 4-month cycling process.
I have a 5-stage RO system feeding a saltwater premix trash can and an ATO reservoir (0 TDS currently).
I have a Benggai Cardinal, a yellowtail blue damsel, a lawnmower blenny, a blue chromis and a yellow tang contributing to the cycling process.
My first question for you all is regarding the refugium. I have put two batches of cheato in one of the sump chambers with a "grow light" (not necessarily designed for refugiums) I bought off Amazon a while back. Within a few weeks both batches of cheato have "wilted" and died. I tried reducing the time the light was on in case I was frying the stuff but to no avail. Any ideas as to what could be going on here?
Thanks for your help and looking forward to looking around at the posts and learning more!