Made my decision!

squidbait

squidbait

Member
After keeping an eye on the board, and asking questions, I have decided what my first reef tank setup will be. Here it is.
70 G. glass tank
10-20 G. w/d sump with bio balls
Sea Clone Skimmer (good choice?) in sump
4-110 W VHO
ls 40 lbs?
lr 50 lbs?
Patience
What do you guys think? Good starter?
 
flydan

flydan

Active Member
Hey,
Welcome! I hope you enjoy your new reef tank!
First of all, the Sea Clone isn't known as one of the best skimmers. They've made some modifications to it so it's not as bad as it used to be.
For your lr, the ratio is between 1 and 11/2 lbs per gal. so you could double what you've planned. To save $, you could put 50lbs of base rock down, something like tufa or lace rock are good choices since they don't displace a lot of water, and then put 50lbs of good lr on top of that. Eventually your base rock will become lr.
For the ls, if you're going for a dsb you want about 4inches. I don't know the dimensions of your tank but 40lbs may not be enough either. Again, you can put "dead" sand down and then seed it with a bag of ls.
You'll also want a few powerheads and a quality heater. Note, "quality" heater! Many people have fried their tanks when a heater malfunctions and boils everything.
You'll get many differing opinions on this so I've stuck to the basics. Good luck, and stick with the "patients and research" rule and you'll have far less problems!
Take care,
Dan'l :D
 
andymi

andymi

Member
I would also be careful with the wet/dry with bio-balls. Essentially I would start with some good live rock and maybe some live sand so that you have some bacteria in the system. Something like the natures ocean live sand or something from an LFS. If you are wanting to run a true reef system, I personally would not recommend using a protein skimmer because if you keep the skimmer on constantly and you have certain inverts, you will remove beneficial items from the water. There are many schools of thought on these systems, and my opinion is that of mine and doing research, speaking to many people who have been in the field a long time. The bio-balls tend to become a problem on systems vs. an asset over time. If I were you I would put in the DSB, maybe use a skimmer for a few hours at night, and add a lot of live rock, the more the better. Then have a tank with a lot of circulation.
That will give you a good setup in my opinion.
--Andy
 
burnnspy

burnnspy

Active Member
Forget the WD filter and Seaclone.
Get a different skimmer and put a bag of Caribsea Seaflor reef sand down first as a base sand with the LS over it so you can get 4+ inches.
You can add LR later if you wish. Check out my website Reef Basic for other helpful info.
BurnNSpy
 
spuds

spuds

Member
I am from detroit and have looked all over for Southdown Sand and cannot find it, if you do please let me know.
Also I have bought the Seaclone and it is not worth buying, try a Prizm, it costs about the same and works much better.
 
andymi

andymi

Member
I know of a place where you can get southdown sand in Dearborn Heights. At least you could as of a week ago. E-Mail me off-list for the location since they will nix the message if I post it here.
andy@glis.net
--Andy
 
andymi

andymi

Member
Southdown sand is a sand that many people are using because it supposedly consists of the same makeup of the more expensive Carib Sea brand of sands. It is like $5 for a 50 lb bag vs. $30 for 40lb bag of carib sea reaflor special grade araganite. I personaly will never use Southdown again after reading some of the articles about how they run their business (do a search on this board for Boycott Southdown for links to articles). I have used Carib Sea Reaflor Special Grade in my 70 reef and my 150 FOWLR and they are both doing great. I had a huge algae bloom with the Southdown , but that could have been because of my original setup. Anyhow, it is more or less personal preference. I like the carib sea araganite because I am comfortable with it and have had good results, therefore I dont mind paying the unfortunately hefty fee.
--Andy
P.S. - Again, there is a place you can get Southdown in Detroit. I have seen it and the guy almost always has it on hand. He orders it by the truckload usually. E-Mail me offlist at andy@glis.net if you really want it.
 
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