Blacknifes 50g Battle of SPS learning

[blacknife]

Pics, bah my tank is a mess of barely alive but recovering sps frags/mini colonies with rock covered in apistasia. When I was thinking of a new build i thought i would "cheap" out on mh for a while, really I have been keeping my eyes for used lumenarc 2 reflectors for a while, when one came up at the right price i got it. I need another or some led's by the time the new tank comes up. its amazing how much more light gets into the tank from lumenarc/pheonix/magnetic ballast than with the 250w DE cheapo fixture or the t5ho unit thats now on my low maintenance tank. Also i was not digging the t-5 look, though I could use some t5 or led actinic to extend viewing hours. The lumenarc also throws more of a square which does not evenly light up my 36x18 tank right now.
the pheonix in the fixture supposedly has 6 months on it so i figured get everything growing again then try radium out again once corals aclimate to having proper light.

honestly I am just trying to get everything cleaned up and growing so it looks good when it goes into the new tank.

[blacknife]

ok.. impending doom upon the fishtanks as stated a few months back.

my sps tank is slowly turning around. progress on new build is barely crawling along. low maintnance tank keeps getting forgotten about.

Playing with a few short term options.

Shutdown the upstairs tank, sell off what ever coral won't fit in the downstairs tank, sell or cook the rock. use any proffits towards new build.

move upstairs tank to the basement, drill a couple holes into it and tie it into the sps system, either the way it is or as a large LRR. thus adding a crapload of nutrients to the sps system, but who knows that might help things at this point.

hoping i wont have to renovate the house and sell it in a few months but that is not out of the picture yet either, hopfully if i have to move i will have the new build done for the new place.

on top of all that i REALLY need to get a controller and an automated feeder, in case i have to start going on the road again just to keep things sane around the house for the time being.... end of rant


ideas anyone ? buy a couple tangs for the upstairs tank to clean off all the lps and zoas then move all of them on? mostly HA a little other stuff

[blacknife]

90% done the transfer, Crammed all the rock into the sump, the 20gLRR and the stuff with corals on it into the DT. still need to transfer some frag sized corals, move the fish and other critters, and sell off/trade/give away some oddballs.

I woke up today minus my male maroon clown that has been around since the start, he was fine last night i assume he jumped and got nibbled, also while moving all the rock i saw none of my shrimp, last week i still had 2 peppermints and 2 fire shrimp. hopefully they are still there somewhere.

all the zoa's opened up under the Phoenix right away so i guess they did not get shocked to much by the move, if they start shrinking from ulns instead of growing i will have to re home them. At least for now they can be cleaned up by team algae munch.