15 Gallon 'Heavily-Lit' Tank

As I've mentioned elsewhere, my main tank is currently a 15 gallon aquarium lit by a 10KK 175 watt Metal Halide fixture. A Skilter 400 is currently running on this tank, although it's been modified to act as something of an algae scrubber in addition to it's usual functions (this is experimental; when I have some data accumulated, I'll post it on this site).
 

Maintainence consists primarily of a 2-3 gallon water change about every other week, although on this tank I do dose iodine. Admittedly, I only use about 1/4 the recommended dosage, but then again I leave the skimmer portion of the Skilter off most of the time.
 

The tank contains 10 pounds of fiji rock from Jeff's Exotic Fish (see the Links page), 20 pounds of dry (not live) sand,  a good size colt coral (which has given me numerous cuttings, one of which is in this tank and growing large), a small branching torch coral, a good sized red organ pipe coral, green mushrooms, a very small piece of cabbage leather, a very small amount of sun polyps (8 of them, to be precise), lots of halimeda, an occellaris clown fish, a banggai cardinal, a cleaner shrimp, 2 turbo snails, 8 astrea snails and 10 blue leg hermits. Many other organisms (including a few corals) have been introduced to the tank on the rock or on the other livestock purchases, the usual catalog of hitchhikers.
 
 
The images below are low resolution 'quick shots' of the actual pictures. Clicking on any will open up a higher resolution image. The quick shots are around 25k in file size, the higher resolution images are around 75k or so.
 

	This is the view from the left side of the tank, looking in. Several astrea snails are visible, along with the colt coral, occellaris clown and halimeda.
	Another shot of the the clown frolicking around the colt coral. On the left side of the rock in the background is a large valonia bubble. They've recently begun appearing, I've spotted about 6 of them. I'm still undecided on how to control them, but I'm leaning towards the purchase of an Emerald crab. These crabs supposedly will consume valonia.
	Banggai Cardinal hovering over the very nicely extended pipe organ. The heater and intake tube in the background are the only pieces of equipment which intrude into the tank.
	Another shot of the pipe organ. I personally am finding this coral very easy to keep. I believe this is due to the high intensity lighting I'm using.
	This shot was taken from a low position at a slight angle, just enough to show the metal halide lighting from beneath the water's surface.
	The right side of the tank.
	Front three-quarters view of the tank. In this shot you can see just how much the colt coral dominates the tank.
	Front left side of the tank.
	View of the pipe organ, the torch coral and the clown fish. The clown is, quite obviously, a ham.
	A lousy photo, showing my cleaner shrimp on the mushrooms. The orange blur in the right foreground is a narrow side view of one of the sun polyps inadverdantly added to the tank (on the underside of a rock). I've made little special effort to feed them, but they still expand gloriously every night. Possibly they are subsisting on the tanks sizeable population of copepods; they've been in the tank for six months.
	A nice shot of the torch coral. It's carefully placed just out of reach of the pipe organ to prevent aggression. It's usually not this shaded, but a stalk of the colt coral felt like flopping over in it's direction while I was taking these photos.
	Another view of the torch coral. It consists of about 16 'heads', each of which is no larger then 1/2 an inch in diameter.
	A view of the pipe organ from above. It's a very full specimen whose polyps extend more then an inch out of their tubes when extended.
	Another top down view of the pipe organ, this one really illustrates how full the specimen is. The top of the polyps are a snowy white with just a trace of green flouresence, but from the sides the polyps have a decidely pinkish cast.
	A top down view of the (largely obscured) mushrooms. If anything, they're even more green in real life then they are here.
	This shot of the water's surface shows a nearly complete reflection of my lighting fixture, mounted 10" above the water. And yes, that shrimp is upside down; his usual posture when he think's I'm feeding flake food, which has become his favorite. God only knows why.
	Another top down shot, featuring a partial reflection of the halide and a good view of the pipe organ. The yellow smudge on the rock to the left side is (I believe) a colony of porites sp. came with the rock. On the side glass of the tank you can see the growth of some purple coralline. It grows slowly in this tank (because of the intense lighting), but it does grow.
	Torch coral, pipe organ and clownfish. The clown has adopted the torch coral as a surrogate anemone, although he only retreats to it at night or when frightened.