My First Reef Tank

f1shman

f1shman

Active Member
I am ready to create my first full blown reef tank!! I'm very excited and after much research have ran into some opposing opinions! Here is what will be in my 40 gallon reef tank (so far all I have bought is the tank and the stand):
40 gallon aquarium 36x18x16
Coralife Lunar Aqualights Compact Fluorescent Strip Lights (36" 192 watt)
50 pounds of Live Rock
40 pounds of Live Sand
AquaC Remora Protein Skimmer
Maxi-Jet Natural Wavemaker System Model 600 (480 gph - 3 power heads)
At my LFS he says that for a tank to be succesful you need a sump (the reef tanks he has at the store are in very good shape) But I have e-mailed many online websites and they say that a sump is not neccesary, what do you think? And is the equipment I've chosen good, or is there something else you would reccomend?
Thanks :)
 
f1shman

f1shman

Active Member
Hmmm, this is my first thread and for that matter my first forum I have joined, I see that many people are viewing this, but not writing, how come?
 
jester805

jester805

Member
I'm new to reef aquariums, but I don't think a sump is necessary. The sump is simply a separate tank to have your filters & protein skimmer in. You won't have those things on your display tank so it makes it look nicer. IMO, you don't need to have a sump.
The equipment you have listed sounds good to me. I don't have an AquaC Remora, but everyone on here loves them.
 
f1shman

f1shman

Active Member
Thank you very much Jester, this message board thing is pretty sweet lol easy way to talk to smart fish keepers! Anyone else have an opinion on this?
 
kdogg721

kdogg721

Member
Sounds like a good start. I have the same dimensions for my tank and I'm thinking of upgrading my lighting system. Do you mind if I ask you how much your lighting costed?
 
jester805

jester805

Member
Originally Posted by kdogg721
Sounds like a good start. I have the same dimensions for my tank and I'm thinking of upgrading my lighting system. Do you mind if I ask you how much your lighting costed?
I'm sure you were talking to F1shMan, but I'll tell you about my lighting too. I just bought a Current USA power compact light. It's 48" long for my 75 gallon. It has 4x65 watts with 2 actinic blues & 2 LED's. I got it for around $215. You can e-mail me if you like and I'll give you the site that I bought it from. My e-mail is: dnolan@multi-ad.com
Thanks
 
f1shman

f1shman

Active Member
I didn't buy the light yet but where I'm planning on buying it, it is $209.99 and has 2 built in moon lights
Thanks for your comment btw
 
latino277

latino277

Member
just like Protein skimmer... sumps are not needed.... but make life a lot easier!!

a sump does the folloing for you:
keeps the water level stable in the Display tank (DT)
give you a place to hide all of you equipment... heater/skimmer/dosers....
give you a place to dose thing like CA/alk with out putting it directly into you DT
give you a place to do your top offs with out adding fresh water to your DT
and about 20 other reasons to go a long with these 4...
good luck :jumping:
 
f1shman

f1shman

Active Member
Those Are Some High Quality Reasons :p, I have an old 10 gallon tank, how would I go about making a custom sump?
 
latino277

latino277

Member
take a look at the DIY section of this forum. I think there are a few ideas there. but skinny is that you will need to get some plexi-glass and some silicon/weld-on and your going to divide the tank into two parts... you filtration/equipment area and the your return.
 
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