So I have had a saltwater aquarium for approx. 6 months now. The creatures that reside in it include three damsel fish, one cleaner shrimp, one coral banded shrimp, one gobie, two small horseshoe crabs, and two indian river shrimp purchased at the local bait and tackle store, oh and some crabs and snails.

I also have some zenia and it is not growing as fast as I thought it should. I have an actinic light with a fluorescent light. Is this the reason why the stuff ain't growing? Do I need halides?

Sounds like a nice tank. I've had one for probably 8+ years off and on (they're hard to transport when moving around in college). I always used exclusively fluorescent lights with my set ups, especially when I had live rock and Xenia's (feather dusters). Talk with your local shop since you probably bought most of your equipment and fish there to see what they say though.
Also, some Xenia don't grow very big so you might want to check which specie you have verses the ones that do grow rather large.

I just tiled my entire house so I had to dismantle the salt tank and since then have tried the freshwater deal for the first time. I have all African ciclids which are very cool but I do miss the salt!

Funny to see this post I gave away my reef tank this morning. He left with it 10min ago. I started my first reef back when I was 16 working on a commercial boat collecting tropicals and live rock long ago I'm 33 now (it was legal then) aquarium science wow they will have you believe every gadget is the next best thing. Good lighting good flow and good balance and the thing should become very low maintenance! Good luck!

Go to www.reeffrontiers.com and you will find the answer to all your questions. I have done aout 200 hours of reading there over the last 6 months while I am getting my reef tank up.

Good Luck!

I would recomend throwing one of these guys in there. He will balance out the life in your tank.... By eating everything else in there:eek:
Just kidding, throw a pic of the setup on so we can check it out.

I will get some pics later this evening. It is nothing like some of the other tanks I have seen. I got my rocks from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station restricted beaches when I had my badges.

NSEARCH, you asked what variety of xenia. How do you tell one variety from the other?

What is your tank size (including dimensions), how much wattage of lights are you running (between the actinic and the flourescents), are the flourescents HO or VHO.

The recommendations I've seen are anywhere from 2 to 4 watts per gallon of water (less wattage the stronger the light). Halides are the strongest (and the whitest) then VHO (very high output) and then HO (high output).

There are countless ways to screw up a marine tank but, generally, overloading a marine tank is the easiest way to throw the tank off. Less is better. The damsels are hearty, difficult to kill. Everything else, well, don't get attached to anything expensive.

Good luck and post some picts.

Some pics:

check out this forum.
www.reefcentral.com
if they can't answer a reef question, God save us all !
LOL

I'm getting back into reef keeping this year as well.

What is your tank size (including dimensions), how much wattage of lights are you running (between the actinic and the flourescents), are the flourescents HO or VHO.

The recommendations I've seen are anywhere from 2 to 4 watts per gallon of water (less wattage the stronger the light). Halides are the strongest (and the whitest) then VHO (very high output) and then HO (high output).

There are countless ways to screw up a marine tank but, generally, overloading a marine tank is the easiest way to throw the tank off. Less is better. The damsels are hearty, difficult to kill. Everything else, well, don't get attached to anything expensive.

Good luck and post some picts.

It looks good. Maybe you could use a little more rock. I have several reef tanks, with the largest a 125(135 with twin overflows) that is stocked with corals, zoanthids, xenia, gorgonians, mushrooms, star polyps and many shrimp and fish. And probably 200 lbs of rock, all covered with coralline algae. I think that someone hit the nail on the head, with the most important thing being good balance. Marine water needs balance to be stable. Get a hydrometer and test kits. And do partial water changes weekly. Go to www.reefcentral.com for any info, and maybe find a reef club near you. You would be amazed at some of the nice tanks that beginners have set up and maintain. I am on reefcentral using stevemc(also my first screen name on spearboard, but my password got messed up and I just started anew) I am in 2 reef clubs that I basicaly help start both in Sarasota -ACROS , and Tampa Bay reef club, both on the reef club forum page. Steve in Sarasota. Good luck.

Hey I have a 150 gallon reef tank. The light you have should be sufficient. It looks like current-usa Orbit or something of that nature, correct? I would say you need to put more rock in ASAP. That will bring the xenia closer to the lights and the more rock you have the better. It is best to go with 1 pound per gallon atleast. It's like having more trees, you can never have enough to clean the air. I also recommened Alkalinty Plus and Hardner, or "Purple Up". That will boodt your corraline algae. I have a wholesale account through the aquarium supply store, so what ever you need, write me a PM and I will shoot you over a price. I can get live rock in 50 pound boxes for like 3.25 a pound. Maybe cheaper. Ill give it to you for what I get it for. No need to charge a fellow spearo. Hope that helps. Have a great night.

Wholesale reef tank equipment? Hmmm. I may need to talk to you. I have a 100 gallon too. I have some new Xenias and some other new soft corals but they arent doing that great. I had a few critters in there that probably didnt go well with them. SOme kinda snail thingy I found and a couple starfish I got im my crab trabs. Got rid of that stuff so we'll see.
Do the bulbs wear out after a year? They still work OK but may not be as bright as they once were. The are not the M Halides.

I've tried alot of different corals in the past and it seemed the xeina was the least hearty af them all. The pulsating ones would never make it . I've had much better luck w/leather corals. I have a tube xenia that has lasted the last 6mnths. Half of it died, but when i added a large sponge to the tank it seems to help the balance. How many of you have tried to catch your own tropicals .

I catch most of my own fish. If I did get some from a fish store, I traded some I caught for ones they had. I used to be a commercial tropical fish collector here in Florida and then in Hawaii, then again back here.. I lived on the North shore of Oahu, and shipped them back to Florida. I dont do it commercial now, it is too hard to get a restricted species permit to do it. But I do still collect for my own tanks.

How would you bring them up from 60' to 80'. I was told they get bent real easy.

There is actually away to do it with a syringe and removing some volume from there swim bladder. I don't know the details though.

The syringe and hypodermic needle usually kills them, if not quickly, then with infection and they always will swim funny, like on one side. Usually die from that though. We are talking about 2" to 3" fish. To deco from deep-as I said, the bigger the fish the longer the deco. I figure a minute a foot. I also do it kind of like with people. Say at 50' water depth. I would immedietly put the fish in a jar, and in a bag, and swim him up to half the depth- 25'. 100'=50' , 130'=65' and so on, just like people. I would clip it to a float line that has loops every 6'. At the end of the dive, or 15 minutes what ever came first I would move it up to next loop. If I am out of water, I would swim float over to boat and tie it off with 6' tag line so it wouldnt jerk if wavy. Every 10-15 minutes I would roll up to next loop, until time fish is up. I usually dont bring fish right up, to sit in the warm water in the top 3', but maybe leave it at 5'-6' and then pull it right up. I had been wanting to catch some of the purple chromis and yellow tailed blue chromis in the middle grounds, but obviously that would take 2 hours to be safe. They are only found on deep reefs. Maybe at the end of the day on a 2 or 3 dayer, on my own boat.

Ed, you are supposed to change the lights every year or so with the T-5 lighting. But it is not a huge deal if only have fish or soft corals like mushrooms. Only the Hard corals really need that kind of light.
About the deco fish, I dive with a guy that tries to collect them while I am shooting. most of the time the fish are fine, but I remember he got this angel fish the size of your hand, and when he got it up, it was swimming on it's side. Obviousloy Bent. It was already in a plastic bag with no air. He attached the plastic bag to a fishing pole line, and lowered him all the way to the bottom. Then every couple of minutes would bring him up a little bit. I thought he was crazy and it wouldn't work. But I needed surface time in between dives anyway, so laughing at how cautious he was with it was amuzing. Well the fish made it back up fine, not bent at all, and it is in his tank still to this day. Pretty funny.