I've been snooping around this site without logging in for over a year, though I haven't been posting, I _have_ been learning
I have a 29g tank, drilled, with a 20 gallon sump/refugeum combo. It has 4" of southdown sand in tank and refugeum, about 25 lbs of live rock, an aquaC (cheap!) skimmer, a few corals (mushrooms, zoanthinds, and a cabbage leather), and a few calurpa sp. macro algae in the tank. There's a 70w ushio 10,000k metal halide light over the tank, and a 55w PC light on the sump/ref. Tanks been running for a little over a year as a seahorse tank, it has tons of mysid and gammarus, a few hermits, and lots of bristle worms. The tank is quite stable, hasn't shown any ammonia/nitrate/nitrite in a year, temp is 76f, pH is 8.1, Ca is 340ppm...
I'm considering changing this tank over to an octo tank. Other than needing to add a glass top and screening the inlet/outlet to the sump, what would be needed to convert this little tank to an octo home? There's no cords/powerheads/etc in the tank, all the mechanicals are in the sump. Sealing the top ought to be easy, nothing in the way. How would you suggest covering the inlet/outlet pipes? Both are just 1" PVC elbows at the surface... just use a sponge over the openings? Is the little 70w metal halide too much light?
The tank has aptasia and flatworms, not so bad that they're taking over, but they're in there... would I need to irradicate them? How about the calurpa? Does it present any issues? If bristleworms are a problem, then I'd have to replace all my live rock, it's heavily populated with them.
I'm thinking of getting my octo from octopets.com, seems like a decent supplier, any personal experience with this outfit?
There's pics of the tank available at Blog - Greybeard's Rants under the photo gallery link. It's currently housing seahorses though... most of the pics are of the horses.
Any and all comments and suggestions are welcome... Sorry for the long first post, I been thinking about this for a while
I have a 29g tank, drilled, with a 20 gallon sump/refugeum combo. It has 4" of southdown sand in tank and refugeum, about 25 lbs of live rock, an aquaC (cheap!) skimmer, a few corals (mushrooms, zoanthinds, and a cabbage leather), and a few calurpa sp. macro algae in the tank. There's a 70w ushio 10,000k metal halide light over the tank, and a 55w PC light on the sump/ref. Tanks been running for a little over a year as a seahorse tank, it has tons of mysid and gammarus, a few hermits, and lots of bristle worms. The tank is quite stable, hasn't shown any ammonia/nitrate/nitrite in a year, temp is 76f, pH is 8.1, Ca is 340ppm...
I'm considering changing this tank over to an octo tank. Other than needing to add a glass top and screening the inlet/outlet to the sump, what would be needed to convert this little tank to an octo home? There's no cords/powerheads/etc in the tank, all the mechanicals are in the sump. Sealing the top ought to be easy, nothing in the way. How would you suggest covering the inlet/outlet pipes? Both are just 1" PVC elbows at the surface... just use a sponge over the openings? Is the little 70w metal halide too much light?
The tank has aptasia and flatworms, not so bad that they're taking over, but they're in there... would I need to irradicate them? How about the calurpa? Does it present any issues? If bristleworms are a problem, then I'd have to replace all my live rock, it's heavily populated with them.
I'm thinking of getting my octo from octopets.com, seems like a decent supplier, any personal experience with this outfit?
There's pics of the tank available at Blog - Greybeard's Rants under the photo gallery link. It's currently housing seahorses though... most of the pics are of the horses.
Any and all comments and suggestions are welcome... Sorry for the long first post, I been thinking about this for a while