Please help to ID this

[VintageReefer]

Looking at the tank are you sure this is freshwater gravel? It looks like the crushed aragonite that petco sells which should work fine

This is the current substrate

I wouldnt do coral yet, the light you have wont support their growth. THat light is better suited for a fowlr (fish only with live rock)

Agree. Don’t do any coral until all this is fixed. It’s throwing money away and the coral loss will negatively affect the tank

 

[VintageReefer]

I see op wrote imagitarium gravel now, but it still doesnt look like it tbh. I forget the brand but double check that op.
Are you using rodi water or tap?

Imagitarium is the in house petco brand of products

 

[taz1458]

Looking at the tank are you sure this is freshwater gravel? It looks like the crushed aragonite that petco sells which should work fine

I wouldnt do coral yet, the light you have wont support their growth. THat light is better suited for a fowlr (fish only with live rock)

The wife told me the gravel she got was for saltwater. We have two goldfish is an outside pond thing we are going to bring in so I’m just going to basically transplant everything over eventually. Roger that on the coral. Could you folks recommend a light off of Amazon? I can easily return the one I got so it’s not a big deal. Thanks again for all of the help!

 

[VintageReefer]

Awesome. Thank you. Got it ordered and I’ll pull the gravel out and replace it with sand when it comes on Saturday. I’ll run to Petco as soon as I can to find some purple rock. I think I remember seeing some but I’m not 100% sure. Would it be fine to leave the castle in there in the meantime so the clowns have a place to hide per say? I ordered 4 cerith snails and a TSA Iceman Hydnophora Coral from top shelf aquatics the other day. I’m going to try to cancel the coral since I obviously have this all messed up and don’t want to kill it. Thanks for the help.

Yes you can leave the castle in for the clowns while this is corrected.

That tsa coral is “cut to order” which means it won’t be a healed established frag. Also the frag disk is .75” and the coral will be .25-.5”. Small. And freshly cut.


When ready buy from here, it’s $45 which is only 10$ more but you get a piece that’s 1-2” instead of 1/4 - 1/2”

Aquacultured Green Hydnophora Coral (Hydnophora sp.) - ORA

Shop The Best Saltwater Aquarium Equipment & Supplies at Saltwater Aquarium. We Carry Everything you will Need for your Fish Tank.

www.saltwateraquarium.com

 

[VintageReefer]

The wife told me the gravel she got was for saltwater. We have two goldfish is an outside pond thing we are going to bring in so I’m just going to basically transplant everything over eventually. Roger that on the coral. Could you folks recommend a light off of Amazon? I can easily return the one I got so it’s not a big deal. Thanks again for all of the help!

How big is this tank? I forget if that was mentioned

I could be wrong but I don’t think that brand makes sw gravel, and gravel really isn’t used in sw anyway. That brand is also junk. They do make a sand but I wouldn’t trust it.

 

[taz1458]

How big is this tank? I forget if that was mentioned

40 gallon. This exact tank

 

[VintageReefer]

40 gallon. This exact tank

A 40 breeder. Excellent size tank. I used one for many years and I love the layout / foot print.

 

[VintageReefer]

What’s your lighting budget
This is 36” wide so you may need two fixtures to get full coverage. An option is one fixture that “lights” the entire tank but allows coral in the middle 50%, and then adding a second fixture down the line

 

[taz1458]

I see op wrote imagitarium gravel now, but it still doesnt look like it tbh. I forget the brand but double check that op.
Are you using rodi water or tap?

Tap for right now. I have a brita filter running on it. I know it’s not looked good upon, but the rodi system is in the works.

 

[taz1458]

What’s your lighting budget
This is 36” wide so you may need two fixtures to get full coverage. An option is one fixture that “lights” the entire tank but allows coral in the middle 50%, and then adding a second fixture down the line

Honestly, as long as it’s not too ridiculously priced I’m not worried. I’d say tops probably $150-ish. Also, this is the gravel the wife used.

 

[VintageReefer]

Honestly, as long as it’s not too ridiculously priced I’m not worried. I’d say tops probably $150-ish. Also, this is the gravel the wife used.

Ok that’s not the brand that was mentioned so we can just omit any of the prior talk on the gravel and start fresh. No worries thanks for clarifying.

To be honest, I’ve never heard of it. I searched the forum and only see one post, from one person, in the history of the forum mentioning this product.

I would have to defer to someone else to decide If it’s ok.

But, I would say, that Fiji pink sand is tried and tested and proven to be ok. Plus you can get creatures that live in the sand, fish that burrow in sand, fish that clean sand. Having gravel will limit you vs having natural sand

 

[taz1458]

Ok that’s not the brand that was mentions so I we can just omit any of the prior talk on the gravel and start fresh. No worries thanks for clarifying.

To be honest, I’ve never heard of it. I searched the forum and only see one post, from one person, in the history of the forum mentioning this product.

I would have to defer to someone else to decide If it’s ok.

But, I would say, that Fiji pink sand is tried and tested and proven to be ok. Plus you can get creatures that live in the sand, fish that burrow in sand, fish that clean sand. Having gravel will limit you vs having natural sand

Works for me. In the end, it’s not that big of a deal. Get the gravel out and replace it with the sand and use the gravel in a basic freshwater tank later. Yall recommend rinsing it? I seen both options but I’m not worried about cloudiness at the moment.

 

[VintageReefer]

Wrasses for example are an excellent family of reef fish, many are peaceful, and they eat pests, and sleep at night burrowed in the soft sand.

There are many sand sifting gobies that will shovel up mouthfuls of sand and sift it and keep yo ur substrate clean.

 

[VintageReefer]

Works for me. In the end, it’s not that big of a deal. Get the gravel out and replace it with the sand and use the gravel in a basic freshwater tank later. Yall recommend rinsing it? I seen both options but I’m not worried about cloudiness at the moment.

I don’t rinse live sand and let the filter get the cloudiness. But I’ve head people recommend rinsing it over and over until it’s clear water when stirred

If it’s not a big deal you could rinse it a little before putting it in to make the cloudy period shorter. You don’t have to go crazy or you could skip entirely.

Since you have fish I would probably rinse a little just to make it less stressful for them

 

[taz1458]

What’s your lighting budget
This is 36” wide so you may need two fixtures to get full coverage. An option is one fixture that “lights” the entire tank but allows coral in the middle 50%, and then adding a second fixture down the line

Amazon.com

a.co

Would something like this work fine for what I have?

 

[VintageReefer]

Amazon.com

a.co

Would something like this work fine for what I have?

Funny, that’s the research I was just doing. Someone is using two of those on their 40b which tells me they probably needed two

Interesting to me is the spread / coverage of the 100w vs 50w is the same. The only difference is the par within that zone of 24”.

I think you would need two fixtures and if you aren’t doing acropora and sps, then 2x50w should be sufficient for most soft and low lps coral

Apparantly there is also a 40$ controller that increases functionality of the light, and it’s recommended

 

[steveschuerger]

If you haven’t bought your sand this was fantastic. It’s a Carib Sea product as well. Chewy has it for a good price.
PetCo live rock will work but if you can find it in your budget get some mariculture from Tampa Bay Saltwater of Gulf Live Rock. Just remember to give the PetCo rock a decent scrub with a brush before putting it in. And remove all plastic fake stuff. Trust me, once you start having corals you’ll have your own colorful show

 

[steveschuerger]

Amazon.com

a.co

Would something like this work fine for what I have?

Another option is Noopsyche K7 lights just a bit more expensive but if I remember correctly they have 50watts more power.

 

[dedragon]

Salinity is 1.27. No ammonia or any of that. Currently only have 3 miniature clowns in the tank and that’s it.

can you double check salinity possibly meant 1.027? sorry saw this was addressed now, but 3 clowns is not recommended and usually ends with 1 dead overtime

To be honest, I’ve never heard of it. I searched the forum and only see one post, from one person, in the history of the forum mentioning this product.

Ive used it to fill in most of the space then capped it off with prettier looking sand but honestly it works fine and neither of my leopard wrasses have been phased by it and burrow just fine. Once algae and corals start to grow substrate look becomes less of an issue

 

[strich]

Amazon.com

a.co

Would something like this work fine for what I have?

Here are my notes on some popular brands:
- ViparSpectra
- $200 or so for big 100W+ lights
- Kessil
- Very expensive at around $500
- PopBloom
- Could be quite good!
- Apparently programmable?
- Orphek
- Seem similar to PopBloom in price and style
- NICREW
- quite good, if cheap build

- Noopsyche
- Becoming very popular and good pricing