Amanda's Updates

Progress!  Amanda’s tank is coming along nicely with the addition of live rock, and two damsel fish (the anemone was a 1 day temporary resident Aunt Sue was moving to another environment).  Once the kalkwasser trouble was resolved, the tank settled and cleared beautifully.  Once cleared up, it was obvious how poor the stock lighted hood that came with her tank kit was.  She purchased a new, inexpensive, much brighter LED light for just under $50.  While it made a significant difference to the visibility and beauty of the tank, it is only appropriate for a FOWLR (fish only with live rock) tank.  As Amanda intends to add corals at a later time, we would have advised spending the money now on reef appropriate lighting.  Even though it is a significantly higher expense, she’ll need to spend it at some point and she’ll be out the $50 on the light she bought now as she’ll have no use for it.  Hopefully they can make use of a site like Craigslist and re-coup some of the money when it is no longer needed.  Luckily, she won’t have to spend quite as much on a smaller light for a tank of this size than most of us do for our larger reef systems.  She’ll soon send detailed pictures of her fish.  Because of their popularity, we’ll be adding them as our first two “Spotlight Species”, a series where we’ll discuss individual aquatic species, from fish to inverts, in depth.  Check back soon for these additions.  As you can see, she's made quite a lot of progress since day 1!