couple of questions, feather dusters, greenstar polyps

[OARrocks]

well lets see i have a 55 gallon tank with about 55lbs lr 50 lbs ls and a little 6 inch rock covered with green star polyps my only coral.
my critters include a 2 inch sebae anemone with his buddy an anemone crab. a 3 inch cherry grouper, 7 hermit crabs and5 snails

my setup like i said is a 55 gallon tank with a 270 gph powerhead, and an aquaclear filter/protein skimmer. the hood i have has 2 15 watt fluorescent lights.

right now my ph is 8.2
amonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates close to zero

my questions are; i had a really cool feather duster (white with brown stripes) and i woke up this morning and it looks like a firecracker was shoved down his tube and now theres undiscernable flesh sticking out of where he used to be, who did this?

This same piece of LR has a couple other big feather dusters about the size of a quarter and hundreds of other microscopic to quarter inch in size. some are purple some are whiteish. what is the best way to get them to spread? Do the little ones grow?

my lighting as far as i have read is not sufficient for my tank seeing as i have an anemone and a green star polyps, i also heard that more intense light helps spread corraline algae. The hood i have came with the tank and the light bulbs are about 17 inch across. Any suggestions as to where i should go and what i should purchase to up my wattage would be really appreciated.

I currently Hand feed the anemone shrimp and add micro vert once a week to feed the filter feeders feather dusters GSP and the anemone. I add purple up every other day and thats about it.

I know theres a lot of info here so anything anyone can contribute is appreciated.
thanks

 

[SnowManSnow]

Hi and welcome!

If you have the basic strip light you're probably correct in assuming that your lighting isnt sufficent for the anemone. The GSPs are actually not a high light coral, so they may actually be ok.

As far as upgrading your lighting goes the main thing to consider is #1 what you want to keep. #2 how much you are willing to inveset. If you are planning on LPS and softies a Compact Flour or VHO setup will probably work just fine. IF you want to get into clams and sps corals you will probably want to up it to a MH fixture of some sort.

Lighting, I feel, is one of the BIG 2. The other being skimming. YOU dont wanna skimp on a skimmer or on lighting if you want to have long term success.

for some lighting options you may want to brose around at www.marinedeopt.com or www.hellolights.com just to give you some ideas.

AGAIN WELCOME!

b