Those Wal-Mart lights are actually doing the trick just fine. The corals are looking good as well as the plants. They run a little hot though so I am going to replace one with a 50/50 like psychographic suggested, and remove the heater. That should keep me under budget, and the tank will be happy. My nitrates finally hit zero, after the after cycle spike. I have weak live sand, 2lbs of weak live rock, (all base- but I imagine their must be some life in their by now as I seeded a little from my snail holding tank), and 3 mangrove seeds that started sprouting. I took some pics, they will be up tonight. You will get to see the yellow lights making my water look dirty. I think the tank is done at two weeks old, I only plan on creating a sargassum tree with some driftwood I found. I did this before and it looked great. All I do is clip the sargassum into "branching shapes" and attach to a thin branch of driftwood. It looks great when done, (like a bonzai), and gives the inhabitants some shelter. Oh, I almost forgot, I added a small, (very small), spotted sea hare to the tank, as well as more codium. I removed one of the thorny oysters I had in there though.
My enrcusting sponge is also doing good, it has recently "infected" a rock, and hopefully it will grow out to cover it soon. I was too lazy though to put in the bubble wand correctly, and the wall of bubbles is only in one spot at the moment. I will get it across the tank soon enough, but the inhabitants could use a day off from my bumbling around in there.
The feather dusters are breeding. This morning I found 3 that now have two heads, and 2 that are completely new to the tank. Didn't really plan for that, so I am looking for locals (S. Florida) to trade with. Trades that are unfair for you and great for me come with a lesson on how to catch aquarium things.
Pics will be up tonight!
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