20141107 LiveRock for Reef Tank

How much Live Rock is enough for (insert Gallon #) Tank?
This is one of the most commonly asked questions among many new hobbyists.
So why live rock? What kind of live rock? How much?

Newly set up tank with Bare Tonga Live Rock

Liverock serves several functions in the saltwater aquarium:
1. Landscaping- Aesthetically, this is one of the reasons people want to get a salt water fish tank- to resemble a part of the ocean at your own home!
2. Landscaping- Place holder, live rocks serve as a foundation for any corals you wish to encrust over and grow onto.
3. Landscaping- Housing complex, in the wild, the reef, live corals and dead corals (live rock) serve as housing for both fish and numerous invertebrates. This provides security for your fish's night time resting as well as a territory separator should you have an aggressor in the tank.
4. Maintenance- Since live rocks are primarily composed of coral skeleton and fossils, they are extremely porous just like our bones. The porous structure enables rocks to house an enormous amount of bacteria to help breakdown wastes in the water column.

In General, most aquarist recommend 1.5-2lb of live rock for every gallon of water volume. This figure is only for reference and often times very successful keepers are able to use much less rocks with compensation of other means such as an extremely efficient filtration system. In all of my current tanks I use an average of .7-.9 lb/gallon. But the key is for the tank to find its perfect equilibrium, then things will settle down and stay stable.

There are various types of live/dry rocks one can establish their aquariums with:
Live rocks- like these seen in LiveAquaria, these are collected from the tropical coral reef and are packed with freshly dead algae/critter plus an abundance of marine bacteria to start your new tank's cycling. It is advised to "cure" these rocks as you let it sit in an aerated tank and allow the excessive ammonia/nitrate to be eliminated before you add them to your tank. They come in various shapes and sized. Some of the most popular ones are Fiji live rock, they are typically more rounded with rugged edges and very porous. There are also rocks from Tuvalu, Tonga, and other areas of the South Pacific to offer landscaping options with shelf and branch like rocks.

Dry rocks- These are rocks mined from the land. They are not "live" as they are dry, such as the ones sold by Marco Rocks. But the composition of these rocks are the same as live rock- coral fossils. So once you place them into the water, bacteria and marine organisms will culture the dry rock and turn it into a full functioning live rock. Compare to the live rocks, dry rocks are less mysterious as you do not need to worry about introducing harmful or hazardous organisms into the tank along with it. But it will take a bit more patience as you must wait for the rock to mature and be cultured.

Artificial rock- These are "man-made" liveroks that looks and functions like live rock. Such as the rocks produced by Realreefrock. They are artificially infused with all the necessary bacteria for your tanks cycling and waste processing. And since they are artificially produced, they have less impact to the natural reef.

LiveRock are not cheap, especially because of their weight often times you must also pay for expensive extra shipping cost. My personal suggestion is join a local fish club or keep your eyes on Craigslist, wait until someone is selling off their rocks, not only the rocks are much less expensive, easily accessible, no shipping charge, but also the rocks are already cured, cultured, and all ready for you to use. Unless, off course, if the rocks are currently covered with undesirable organisms then you might have some heavy cleaning on hand.
Good luck rock hunting!

Aqua Illumination SOL super blue- Controller set up

Hello again,
Today's episode is about the controller set-up. This is the most important part of your light installation as the controller is what really gives you the ultimate power to control and customize the color, timing, and even weather effect of your reef tank.
Drs. Foster and Smith will ship this new controller if you order it along with the light.

Controller basics: left square is select/enter, right square is escape/back
Up and Down arrow allow you to go through items
left and right arrow allow you to adjust attribute/value in these items.

Caution: Don't plug in the fixture until you have this set up, the fixture will run at its full intensity until this controller is programmed to link to it. I recommend you set all lights at 50% intensity and then increase/decrease as needed after you have connected them.

Step 1 is lighting. You can choose to go to the custom lighting set up to set the hourly color % of each light. Or you can cheat and do a simple set up by designate a sunrise and sunset time. The ramp time is a cool feature no other lights can offer- mimic sunset or sunrise in a slow-progressive way.

After pressing enter, you will come to this screen. You can choose the amount of energy you want to dedicate to each of the three colors offered in SOL super blue. You can also choose the % of light in the nite/lunar mode. I choose 3% royal and 1% blue to give it a slightly brighter look.

Or you can also pick the light condition to resemble some of the world's most famous tropical waters ranging from Fiji to Great Barrier Reef, Florida Keys to the Philippines.

If you keep arrow down on the main select menu, you will come to screen#2, the cloud icon is for weather effects.

You can "test drive" it  by start now. And you can set the chances of severe weather to happen, how often, and the time range it will take place. You can also choose to have lightning or not. If you are sitting in your room you can tell the storm is coming when all of a sudden all lights dims down to deep blue, to mimic heavy cloud.

The lunar cycle is another cool feature to allow your tank as natural of a light experience as it can.

Once you set up the lunar cycle, your tank will actually go through the cycle by having a few brightest nights with some totally dark nights to mimic the lunar cycle.

If your previous lighting system is less intense than this light, you can use the coral acclimation program to gradually increase the intensity of your light to where you eventually want it to be.

Now, to actually activate all of your settings, you must choose which light and what channel your fixture will be one (if you have multiple units) This controller can be use to control AI vega wirelessly, Sol and Nano with wire or wirelessly with an adopter sold separately.

Besure to pick the correct unit for your setting to function properly. You can now plug in your fixture to see it lit up, and make any necessary adjustment now.