New 4 gallon project.

[smoothounds]

I havent posted here in a while so I thought I'd share my new tank with you guys. It is a 4 gallon tank with rolled front corners and no frame. The lighting came with the tank and is a 13w 50/50 powercompact... that I may switch out to a 70w metal halide once I see how the corals react. The current filter also came with the tank but soon will be replaced with a ViaAqua Multiskimmer(waiting on Fedex). The heater is a 75 watt ebo jager.
As for what's inside. I have maybe 3 pounds of CaribSea black sand and probably 7 pounds of live rock.
I've got a pretty decent collection of zoos and rics that this tank will eventually be home to but for other creatures I'm thinking 1 Citron goby, 3 sexy shrimp, 1 pom pom crab, 3 red legged hermits, and 2 astrea snails.

 

[jcrim]

Great tank... I haven't seen black sand in anyone else's tank before. Have any other tank with black sand?

 

[smoothounds]

this will be my first black sand tank. Its tuff to beat the look but its even tougher to keep nice and free of other "non-black" particles;-)
It looks like you have some black sand too. ANything I should be prepared for? Low PH?

 

[jcrim]

My ph does stay a little low... 7.9-8.0 but I'm not sure if that is because of my sand or my refugium lighting. You're right, I get a lot of particles that stand out in the black. I still love the way it looks though.

 

[smoothounds]

I'm with you on that one... particles or not it still looks great.
Hopefully once the tank is cycled my PH will be at the correct value... or at least not so far out of whack I cant correct it with some simple buffer.
How do you run your fuge lighting? Same hours as the display lighting?

 

[jcrim]

BTW, some of the particles can be removed by sifting the top layer of sand with a net. I do this sometimes.
I run my fuge lighting for 22 hrs per day. I also buffer my ph with no problems.