Lights and CUC

[the_fish_man]

Hi,
I'm not new to the hobby but I've had a leave in the community and haven't been keeping up to date to the newest and greatest. With that in mind I'm wanting to redo my tank as it isn't at it's prime right now. Currently I'm focusing on the lights and algae.

I have a Red Sea Max 130 and about a year ago I stripped the hood and installed 4 custom strips of Ecoxotic LED's which have quickly burned out (I'm running on 7-8 led's scattered across the strips) which I'm guessing was due to poor heating within the hood. With this in mind I'm wanting some new LED's and have found that people are now selling DIY kits made for the Red Sea Max called Retrofit Kits (http://www.rapidled.com/red-sea-max-130d-retrofit-kit/). Does anyone have any experience with these? Are they worth the money? I was thinking of going with a bluefish controller.

Now for the CUC. I have a terrible problem with both algae and aiptasia in my tank. I don't have any values out of whack in my waters, I have a skimmer (Custom built for Red Sea Max), use RO water (TDS is 0), and don't overfeed my fish. This brings me to the fact that I just have no cuc to clean up the tank. All I have is a few sand snails, a tiger cowrie, and a sea hare. I'm wanting to finally get a proper cuc but I am a complete noob to them. This brings me to my question, what would you suggest for a variety coral (SPS, LPS, Polyps, and Mushrooms) 34 gallon fish tank. I'm hoping that I don't have to order anything online as I don't have good luck with that so anything local to Colorado would be great.

Thanks!

 

[SynDen]

Hey there, Welcome back As for those light, they should work great on that tank. Many members have done those lights for various other builds and dont know of anyone that is dissatisfied with them. Although believe you will really want to think about your spectrum and may want to supplement some of their lens with others to get the exact spectrum you want.Im sure other members will be able to give you more info.

As far as clean up crew you cant go wrong with Astrea turbo snails, Margarita snail, nerrites, ceriths, Nassrius snails (sand sifters)
Blue legged and scarlet hermits also can be pretty good although they sometimes go after snails for their shells, esspecially ceriths, but they are always eating and cleaning the rocks

 

[the_fish_man]

Hey there, Welcome back As for those light, they should work great on that tank. Many members have done those lights for various other builds and dont know of anyone that is dissatisfied with them. Although believe you will really want to think about your spectrum and may want to supplement some of their lens with others to get the exact spectrum you want.Im sure other members will be able to give you more info.

As far as clean up crew you cant go wrong with Astrea turbo snails, Margarita snail, nerrites, ceriths, Nassrius snails (sand sifters)
Blue legged and scarlet hermits also can be pretty good although they sometimes go after snails for their shells, esspecially ceriths, but they are always eating and cleaning the rocks

Do turbos knock off corals very much? Also, as far as aptaisia what would you suggest? Aptaisia X works but it also makes the aptaisia make 5 babies and peppermint shrimp have a habit of disappearing in my tank.

 

[SkyShark]

I've had good luck with trochus snails. There is a thread for a group buy on them too. My turbos would knock corals around for sure.

 

[FishTV]

I have 2 tanks that have diy's from Rapid led. The components are top shelf, I wouldn't hesitate to use them again, and they're a sponsor so even better. As for the turbos, they are like little bull dossers. Personally, I like the trochus snails, they're great eaters, and not nearly as destructive. There is a group buy for them getting ready to close http://www.marinecolorado.org/forum...ochus-snail-group-buy/page3&highlight=trochus I do like peppermint shrimp for aptaisia, but I have a killer coral banded shrimp in one of my tanks that makes them hard to keep, so I use Kalkwasser paste when they pop up.

 

[SynDen]

Do turbos knock off corals very much? Also, as far as aptaisia what would you suggest? Aptaisia X works but it also makes the aptaisia make 5 babies and peppermint shrimp have a habit of disappearing in my tank.

I've never had a problem with astreas, others may differ, but mexican turbo snails are bulldozers

 

[Miah2bzy]

Do turbos knock off corals very much? Also, as far as aptaisia what would you suggest? Aptaisia X works but it also makes the aptaisia make 5 babies and peppermint shrimp have a habit of disappearing in my tank.

Yes. I had a turbo that knocked every coral off, even the ones that were superglued. Did a great job of clearing green hair algae though. I favor Trocus over all others as they're likely not to knock over coral and right themselves when they do fall off.
Apastia: I used aptasia x with some degree of sucres and then switched to a thick covering of calcium. Have to do it over time as it'll mess us ur chemistry if u don't but never had any come back after i used calcium.

 

[the_fish_man]

Ok, thanks for the help everyone!