Hello, converting form reefkeeping to dart frogs

[deranged chipmunk]

Welcome to frog forum and frogging. I'll try to answer your questions best as i can.

First off, led's will work just fine for growing plants, but your color temps are too high. 6500k-6700k is ideal for plants. The 10000k's are great for algae, as you noted that they grow corals incredibly. You can always go trial and error on number of leds and the spreads. 40degree optics are seeming to be the trend in the planted tank world, but i haven't played with them.

I'm thinking that is you are not having a water feature, a sump is overkill. I'm all for filtering the water reservoir, but a sump and protein skimmer are just a bit much for water that is just going to be removed. Unless you plan on breeding, in which case an algae sump where the tads can live and grow and feed on algae would be helpful. I have one for my mantella tank and trust me it is actually a pain to grow algae......lol:

[rockytop47]

Nice! Hadn't thought of using the sump for tadpoles! My sump is actually set up as a refugium as well, so having a refuge for tads may be an idea down the road. As far as the 10,000's Kelvin? Yea OVERKILL, however I forgot to mention I can install a dimmer AND driver to the lights to dim and simulate dusk/dawn features. I'm hoping for the price I put into the lights already, I wont have to switch back over to t-5's. I would only run my "whites" anyway and @3 watts per bulb @ 25 bulbs, 75 watts is hopefully doable? And dimmed even more? And I'm a fish guy at heart, so the protein skimmer was just my idea of keeping the water clean and circulating under the false bottom. Suppose I could just still do water changes every so often as my water gets brown. Thanks Bill!

[deranged chipmunk]

no need to switch to t5's. especially if you can get 6500k leds for your set up. but i would play with the 10k's first. i know a few guys who keep planted tanks with 10000k bulbs. the plants grow nice, but it's just too darned blue for me. you'll just need to play with the dimmer for a few weeks to see where you get the most optimum plant growth. going to be a lot of trial and error there, i'm afraid.

it's funny, i too, am a fish guy. been keeping tanks for 30 some years, and it took a bit of adjusting. kind of like what? i don't need $10k in equipment? no way!!LOL so as i was reading your original post i was like cool, a sump. that would be awesome. wait, he wants to do what with a sump?? i had to read it a few times to get it straight in my head because the fish guy said yeah man, but the frogger was like, overkill!!LOL but hey, you're water can never be too clean, right??LOL i run a fluval fx5 inline with an ocean clear canister on a 75. my tank doesn't even look like there's water in it.....LOL so believe me, i understand over kill.

good luck with your build and if you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask

[rockytop47]

I KNOW right? I have a 65 tall w/20 gallon sump/refugium. I have an Eheim 1400 GPH return pump, Reef Octopus NW110 protein skimmer, LED'S, 2 Hydor Koralia 450's, 250 pounds of live rock, Blah, Blah, Blah! I wouldn't ever run my blues, because, quite frankly, they're too blue (makes my golden headed sleeper goby look like a freak of nature when it's just the blues.) I would however, incorporate a moonlight strip into a driver(Eco Tech is the way I'll go). I just HATE selling anything I couldn't at least TRY to use on a vivarium!

[deranged chipmunk]

nice list. i love koralias, i won;t ever buy anything else again. want to hear the truly funny part? you could probably get away with a $20 shop light from home depot and the plants would be just as happy. i actually have one running a 60g viv. my ferns LOVE it....lol you can always pick the plant geeks out in a crowd, we're the ones talking about lighting, and not much else....LOL

so a 65 tall? please tell me you're gonna put a species in there that will use the whole thing!!

[rockytop47]

Oh Yea! Luecs all the way! Would LOVE to get my hands on some French Guiana's. But would just as happy with standard bumble bees. I am going to start my journey next month as my LFS has a buy back policy on fish, not inverts or corals, which sucks because I have a nice 4 headed Duncan, a candy cane trumpet, several species of mushrooms including fuzzies, a Sebae anemone hosting true Percs, peppermint shrimp, skunk shrimp, brittle star, the list goes on and on... I will use the styrofoam/concrete background technique(hate the look of the Great Stuff) on three sides, tear out my overflow box, lower my return pipe. I'll post pics the whole way!

[deranged chipmunk]

a Sebae anemone hosting true Percs

ya had me there. one of my fav inverts was an arrow crab i had back in the early 90's. in fact, that was my last reef setup. let me know when you start, i want to be sure to keep track of the build

[rockytop47]

Would like to keep the head on my outflow, however. It already has a Durso and syphon breaks built in to safe guard against power outages and in Mobile, Alabama during the rainy season, power outages are commonplace...