Need Answers For MY Tank ASAP!

shrimp134

shrimp134

Member
Ok, I have 2 pep's shrimp in my tank, 1 red scarlet hermit crab, 2 bumble bee snails( to eat my diatoms"brown" algae" off of my LR and sand) and I am wondering, My ammonia is at .20...It might be .15 and then I am also wondering if Metal Halides are too much for aneneme's and other corals in my 29g? Cuz i read in some other thread that MH's are too intense for my tank..is this true..and is it ok for me 2 get a pair of perc's this weekend? And maybe get a anenneme later?
 
gregvabch

gregvabch

Active Member
bro, if you're still registering ammonia, your cycle is not over. so no, it's not a good idea to put anything in your tank. you're very impatient. give it some time. ammonia needs to be non-exisistant in your tank before you add fish, or anemone's. what type of metal halide lighting do you have for your tank?
 
nacl-man

nacl-man

Member
Do some waterchanges to get that ammonia under control before considering adding anything, especially an anenome to your setup. Either your cycle is not done or something started to decay in there.
As far as the lights are consered how may watts are we talking? I've seen some pretty insane light setups with crazy watts per gallon numbers, it all depends on what you want to keep IMO.
Metal Halides get hot, does your tank temp stay pretty constant? How far off the water do you have them?
EDIT:
Whoa.. all those replies in the time it took me to write mine lol.
 
shrimp134

shrimp134

Member
Wait wait..sorry I meant the nitrites are that....or is it the nitrates lol...whichever one can be a little bit over 0 is .2...the other two " ammonia..and the other "nit" are at zero.....i am using a 175 w mh with a 10k bulb
 
gregvabch

gregvabch

Active Member
you don't want nitrites either, you should figure out which one it is. nitrates=ok in moderation, nitrites=bad
 
nacl-man

nacl-man

Member
A 175 should be ok for a 29... just over 6 watts per gallon is a very respectable number IMO.
Fighting Conch for sand. Astreas for rock and glass. Unbeatable combo for survivablity and availability IME.
 
nacl-man

nacl-man

Member
opps.
why not? only care about kelvin measurments with them?
the only research I did on metal halides stopped when I realized how hot they got and wouldn't work in my canopy.
 
shrimp134

shrimp134

Member
Correct....how come it says on some testers..that like .2 and .3 are safe for ammonia...just wondering, and are the bb snails good?:notsure:
 
gregvabch

gregvabch

Active Member
i'm not an expert, so i'm sure somebody is gonna swoop in and stomp all over me, but here i go. with metal halide lights, the wattage is used for water penetration. the deeper your tank, the higher the wattage you should go. for a 29 gallon, a 175W metal halide is fine. the kelvin is basically the spectrum of light, 10,000K is middle of the road. for acro's and what not you need a kelvin rating in the 6,000's, which is pretty much like looking into the sun, where as 20,000K is very blue, simulating what's left of the suns rays in deeper water. that's my understanding of them.
 
shrimp134

shrimp134

Member
So are bb ok...lol come on someone...and for h2o changes do i just empty some of the top water ..like 1 gallon and replace it with 1g of Ro/Di water?
 
nacl-man

nacl-man

Member
I was wondering if it was something like that... but I was under the impression that penetration to the bottom of the tank was of concern for any lighting source? IE - if my tank is 56 inches deep i'm gonna need a heck of a lot of any lighting to reach the bottom of that tank.
Just one more aspect of the hobby I don't understand... I should be getting used to it by now.
Give me a dog to train. I can DO that :) lol
 
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