New Member, New Build, Hello All :0)

Sooo glad I found a place like this to pick some brains and share highs and lows.....

I will start by saying that my marine experience, to date, consisted of a 55 gallon FOWLR tank that took a really long time ( and lots of learning) to work the bugs out of, only to have to sell it due to a long-distance move....

I just bought a 150 gallon well-established reef tank. The former owner took all the rocks/livestock and the lights. I did manage to acquire the sump and refugium though...........It had a 10 gallon refugium draining into a 20 gallon sump with a trickle filter and skimmer in it....

I changed things around though. I made the 10 gallon into the sump and transferred the plants and mud into the 20 gallon (after I installed baffles). I filled the 10 gallon with live rock and put the trickle filter over it. So now both overflow drains go to the 10 gallon (1 through the trickle filter), and the water runs through the live rock. Then it drains over through the 20 gallon refugium and pumps back up via a Vaiaqua 4900, through a 4 pipe rack. I have a Phosban reactor with the new bio-pellets too. Replacing the in-sump skimmer with a backpak ( no room  in sump anymore).

I would like to have kept the substrate in the tank for biological reasons, but it was crushed coral and I intend to have several wrasses and such that need sand, so I had to replace it with aragonite.... 

Water's in, pump is running, new rock is on it's way home with my husband right now, and I am sooooo looking forward to adding corals and fish!!  I would love to make it a softie tank with anemones. My fish of choice right now are:

Radiant Wrasse

McCosker Wrasse

Carpenter Wrasse

Exquisite Wrasse

Mandarin ( will wait until tank and refuge is teeming with pods)

Midas Blenny (LOVE these guys!)

Pair of Black Perculas

Blue Assessor

Yellow Assessor

Black Cap Basselet

Fridmani Pseudo

Powder Blue Tang

Flame Angel ( only if it leaves the corals alone)

A very large cleanup crew including cleaner shrimp for the fish

Honey just arrived with rock! Will post photo when we get it put in :0)

If anyone has had any good/bad experience with these fish on a reef ( or has any ideas for another colorful, peaceful fish) please let me know!

Forgot to ask, since I kept the original filter media and mud and plants from the sump/refugium , it should be a quicker cycling time right??

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flower 

Welcome to the site!   LOL...only the tests will tell when the tank is cycled.

 

I can't help you much with your wish list. I swore off wrasses because they want to commit sushi and jump out of the tank. The basselet and Fridmani will fight. I am not familiar with the assessors either.

 

I know about the wrasses. I already have a glass canopy in place :)  The fish info said that you can have one Pseudo per tank ( I chose the Fridmani, had one in my other tank), and that Basselets are peaceful. So I figured the two would be okay..... I'll look it up again :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flower 

Basselet and Friedmani are both basselets...only one per tank. They have the same body type and so they fight. You can't have a basselet with a Royal gramma either.

 

Now for the real problem..the glass top needs to go. You have to cover the top with egg crate and mesh to keep a wrasse. Even then I had a little door made to feed the fish, as soon as I opened the door the wrasse jumped to it's death behind my tank where I could not get to it fast enough. Glass cooks like a magnifier under the lights (think green house) not only that, but it inhibits gas exchange. The top of your water needs to boil with movement. saltwater has less oxygen in it than regular freshwater.
 

 

I am planning to buy a full canopy for the tank. I can remove the glass then. Right now it's on it (without fish) to keep my kids from playing in the water.... Does the water not get enough movement and air going into the overflow and down into the trickle sump, then through the fuge too??  

Will the canopy work for the wrasses? I am getting LED's so they won't get burned if they hit those, I also won't have to spend a fortune on a chiller either....  Halides really aren't an option with small children in the house because I can't leave the top open or the kids will find a way to climb up and fall in.......

Does having a big tank with lots of hidey places not make it possible to keep the two fish?