20141104 What Light for your Saltwater tank? Part 1.

One of the most commonly asked questions is the choice of lighting. What's appropriate for your critters? What's the best color temperature combination to bring out those colors? All lights seem so expensive, can I just DIY?
First, I must say that without proper training in light, physics, and electrical, everything I am going to discuss is entirely based on observation and real life experience.

LED light reflecting from the surface

Currently some there are many options for aquaria lighting. Among some of the less expensive but least light output are:
Regular T7 florescent tubes, incandescent bulbs, power compact lights
These lights are suitable for fish only aquaria or some of the non-photosynthetic or least light demanding soft corals. But in most cases will not provide enough energy for higher end corals and inverts to thrive
Some of the more sophisticated lightings are:
VHO T5 florescent tubes, Metal Halide bulbs, and LED lights
These lights tend to have a higher cost and drains more electricity, but can sustain some of the most light hungry creatures such as small polyp stony corals (SPS), large polyp stony corals (LPS), clams, anemones, etc.
Another option is DIY- if you are skilled in electrical, you can also design and put together your own lights. You can find many light parts, ballasts that are suitable for your project. Warning, if you do not construct the light correctly it can result in fire.
There are many other aspects of lights such as PAR, light's distance from the water surface, water depth, and light color temperature. We can save all them for the ensuing parts of this series.

In the mean time, there are some good readings I recommend from a couple reputable online livestock retailer:
Liveaquaria Light article
Pacific East Aquaculture Light article

2014-05-16 Species Spotlight- Derasa

This is the third Derasa clam I've kept in my personal aquarium.
My first clam came as a birthday present, a 5" derasa, had the tiger spotted marking.
Second one is similar to the one below, also a 5" derasa, with a slightly lighter color. That one unfortunately died due to disease introduced by another clam.

The current clam I have is between 8-9" and has beautiful stripes down its mantle.

In many people's opinion, Derasa clam is one of the hardiest, and easiest clams to keep.

In my opinion, squamosa is the hardiest and easiest, but Derasa clam is a close second.

Like all clams, it does require full reef water condition with extra care in calcium level for proper growth. It will also need slightly nutrient rich water (i.e. plenty of fish waste) to thrive as it absorbs phosphorous from water to build its body parts. Hence it's nearly impossible to keep clams in an aquarium with no fish in it.

Although Derasa doesn't require as much intensity in light as Maxima and Crocea do, it still need a decent light source. I've been able to keep it healthy under power compact at at least 5W/gallon with slower growth. Currently I have it under my AI sol blue LED fixture at around 70% at peak time and it's growing rapidly. Many others keep it under Metal Halide, which is more than enough light but can really suck up your energy bill.

Unlike Maxima and Crocea, you should place this clam on a sand bed. And give it plenty of room to "rotate" as it has a mind of its own in choosing what direction it wants to face. Lastly, keep the tank free of potential clam eaters. I had a flame angel who would nip at my Squamosa before. That flame took its own life one day, and my flame angel II has been very well fed and has not touched the clam.

One other conscience complier is that most of these clams you find in the trade are now aquacultures with minimum to none impact to the reef. And the bonus of aquacultured livestock is they are far hardier than those wild collected.

Switching light

I felt the previous power compact lighting isn't delivering the kind of color I like in this tank, so I pulled out my old t-5 light 

Frag time!!

It been a long while since I fragged anything, last week one of the local pet stores in town- Animart in madison, WI was giving away some of their never used fixtures for free. So I took a couple coralife power compact 130w lights to replace what I had on the mantis tank.

For some odd reason the green star polyps just dont do very well in my 92 corner reef while most other sps and lps as well as soft corals are thriving. So before the entire colony comes to non-existence, I decided to frag it and attempt to revive the colony in my mantis tank.

I then also fragged some soft corals, mostly pumping xenia and Kenyan tree, they grow like weed.