Originally Posted by
wattsupdoc
i think you're making a good choice there, but there is a substantial higher cost in the reef. Not just because of the lighting. But also, corals can be pricey, especially if you're after the colorful ones, and you are. Also maintenence is more, corals generally need specific water parameters, and dont do so well when they shift much away from what they need. Greater flow is generally a concern for them also. you can get away with 10 x 15 times turnover on a FOWLR or even a reef with softies and LPS, but the SPS are definetly in need of more.(if thats what you're working towards) Also reef is more addicting.
Seee you're hooked allready!
But if you can get in with a reef club or find some local reefers that you can do some fragging with, that can help you out a bunch.
You just through a monkey wrench in my thinking. The problem would be stability of temp. I'm in a basement apartment and the temp swing down here are bad all year round. AC in the summer on and off and it heats up fast down here and in the winter gets cold pretty quick but I guess a heater will stable me in the winter but summer will be the biggest problem.
I put it in the nano section also because most people there are Reef people and I wanted to see what they think about colorful tanks such as reef as compared to FO