Originally Posted by
Zoo Maniac http:///forum/post/3131920
K and im just getting a checklist of what i should buy and good reccomendations. I still have to take the gravel out take the backdrop away from the back of the tgank and all the so which will be a pain.
1. Roughly 80lbs of Live sand for starters(about $35 for 40lbs, just do some shopping you will find it cheap). Up to you what your preference is. But most will agree to stay away from crushed coral, its harder to keep clean since most sand sifters dont like it(too big to suck on).
2. 1lb of LR per gallon. You don't need to buy all LR, you can order base rock for dirt cheap, PM if interested, I have a great site that shipped me 50lbs for $130 and it looked absolutely amazing! Got a a couple basketball sized pieces, and a dozen others ranging from baseball to football sized. With your base rock, you can seed it with live rock, it will just take some time.
This is a cost cutting method, and is not a bad one to do.
3. Lighting,for fish and inverts it doesnt matter one bit. But you said you want a reef tank. Kudos on choosing the "Big Boy" part of saltwater, all the rest is lame by comparison.
That said: the cheap method is PC's/T5's and such. They will give you a descent variety of corals to choose from. They are cheaper to buy/replace and your electric bill will be significantly cheaper. I would guesstimate $15 a month in electric, but someone with more experience in lighting a 100g with T5's please step in.
Now the Middle ground and what most of us for reef keeping use, Metal Halide. From hear you can grow any any coral you want, so obviously your gonna have a lot more colors in the tank, plus corals do better under MH anyways. As a bonus, the MH makes the water have a "Shimmer" to it that is aesthetically pleasing to look at. The con is a mid range cost to start up. By mid range I mean $1800-2500 to light your system if you bought it brand new. I personally payed $400 for mine used(it retailed $2400 at time of purchase). For your tank I would recommend 250wx3. Electronic ballasts are a little more expensive but they save electricity. That said your still going to shell out about $50 a month to keep 3x250 lit 8hours a day. Bulbs each cost anywhere from $75-$125 average. And should be replaced yearly. Choosing the lighting spectrum also matters. 10k-14k is general accepted as the "Growing lights" 16k-20k are preferred for "Looking good". The lower number the more yellow like the sun. The higher the more blue tint it gets. Now if you want both check these lights out:
https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/358181/twin-arc-metal-halide-bulbs
I believe they were $100 a peice, and they did both 10k and 20k in the same bulb. Another con for MH is the temperature. Tanks need to be well ventilated to prevent over heating.
4. Filtration....there is too much to cover in one post. But I would recommend looking into skimmers,carbon/GFO reactors, and Turf scrubbers.
