Looks neat! Aquascaping is that of personal touch. As last by as you have good flow throughout it shouldn’t be an issue. IME all the ledges you have as well the flat rock will make perfect places for coral additions. :smile:

Finished scape pic
 

I was really unsure about how the scape looked but after I added the sand and the water cleared I really like it.2 Jebao SW-8 powerheads added today, These things are pretty powerfull for there new smaller size.
Currently lit with 2x 48" t8 5600k shop lights lol.
https://i.imgur.com/JnAmdfIh.jpg

Copepod bloom
 

My tank is still cycling and I added some copepods a few days ago just to see how they would handle the ammonia. There are now loads of them all over the glass and rockwork. I'm having a hard time finding some info on pod blooms, what causes them how long do they last, what are they eating(only dosed phyto after I noticed the bloom), will they disappear?
I wonder if I keep dosing phyto every day or two, can keep the population...
https://i.imgur.com/GvpMhO1h.jpg

Awesome, you have quite a few there.

From what I've read, they'll go as long as food lasts. Adding food every few days will certainly help. At some point the population will balance to the amount of food they have available to eat.

They'll eat loads of stuff, phyto, food scraps, etc.

I should lend you my hungry green mandarin to take care of your pods...lol

Best luck dude! and keep us updated

supplemental lighting
 

For the lighting on this tank I plan on using 2x 165w china black box led's. And I just got a great deal on a 48" sunblaster T5HO fixture that came with a broken 6400k bulb(not a reef bulb anyway).

So what would be the BEST choice for a bulb to add some pop and coral growth to the tank? I feel that the black box led's keep coral healthy & alive but growing quite slow.

With all the different brands and each one having many flavors I really don't have a clue what would be best. I can only pick 1

From reading online I'm leaning towards ATI Coral Plus, but I would like to hear from some long term T5HO users.

Thanks

The pic speaks for itself. Amazing

https://i.imgur.com/Penay2Fh.jpg

Love my YWG / shrimp buddies. I see you have 2 gobies - did they come as a bonded pair? I have no idea how to sex them but It would be nice to get my goby a mate. My goby was the first fish in the tank. JL told me it would change from grey to yellow & I was sceptical but lo and behold, they told the truth:)

In the 2 years I've had the tank, it went thru a few ebbs and flows. I took the advice of riding it out and it worked for me. I had a crazy amount of bristle worms, started thinking about traps, wrasses etc etc. Then over time they disappeared and now I see them occasionally which is perfect. Same thing with pineapple sponges. First they were cute, next thing I'm googling what will eat them. I had a huge number of pods too. At night, amphipods were swarming the rock like cockroaches. They only came out at night after my puffers went in the tank. Now with my mandarin, I think I need to boost my population.

My budget has made it necessary to add things slowly but I think that has its benefits as well.

I think the grey goby is female and the yellow is male. the grey one was yellow when I got it. I've googled and I don't think anyone knows what the colors mean.
As for the mandarin you should get it eating frozen food, I have 2 spotted mandarins eating mysis daily from a Gatorade bottle. Its a lot easier than people make it sound. The yellow tang tries very hard to get its flat self inside but has not succeeded.:biggrin:
https://i.imgur.com/7RdeyZ6h.jpg

I've tried to feed my mandarin everything (except nutramar ova, couldn't source it). I just tried live baby brine & think he might've eaten some. He runs away from offered food lol. He's been living off the pods for over a year now. I added some tisbe pods & think I'll try Algae Barn's mix as the Apocyclops pods sound good & will add diversity. I read the spotted are less picky - should've gone with those instead haha.