new fish tank

[nabisco]

this is the best salt water fish forum i have found so far btw, thanks for being here.
I recently moved my oscar out of his cramped little 37eclipse tank in to a 75 so he and his buddy the tinfoil barb can stretch out some.
After alot of thought i decided to make the 37 in to a salt water tank. Its a 30inch wide, something like 22 inches tall tank.
i put 40lbs of crushed coral (now its looking like live sand is the way to go... great) as a substrate.
currently have around 24lbs of live rock (i plan on putting in another 10 or so... damn this stuff is expensive)
for the first two weeks filtration was getting done by a fluval 204 canister, and the eclipse bio wheel/filter setup on the hood of the tank.
The eclipse hood has since been removed and a coral life light unit installed. Its a dual 65watt light setup. Is that too much lighting?
I plan on buying corals and anemone.
in the tank now is a small damsel, and a goby that the LFS had taged as a yellow watchman goby but looks nothing like the pictures of them on this board. both are happy eaters.
i also have 8 or so hermets, a peppermint shrimp, two red hermets, a arrow crab (who is a brat), and a clawless anemone shrimp who lost his claws due to the arrow crab. (i am sure he will be "missing" by monday.
my levels are good, i wish there was a digital test system for things like amonina and what not. color is too subjective if you ask me. but everyting seems happy and healty.
what my main questions are is:
do i have too much lighting? (can you have too much lighting?)
is crushed coral really the root of all evil, and should i start pulling it out and put in Live sand?
do i have enough filtration?
once my tank is reef ready, should i put in a small power head? and for powerhead placement, should it be right allong the top of the live rock? or higher.
How much live rock is enough? should i go another 10 lbs?

 

[trainfever]

You would have been better off making the 75 gal a saltwater aquarium instead. You can never really have too much lighting. Sand would have been a better choice over CC. I just switched to sand myself. It looks a whole lot better. I would put the powerheads in now if you have them. You want to have a flow rate of 10 times the amount of your tank for fish only and 20 times if you intend on corals. In your case, you will need 370 gallons per hour for the fish only. With the liverock, they 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of rock per gallon of water. This would mean that you need between 50 and 70 pounds of live rock.

 

[nabisco]

Originally posted by trainfever
You would have been better off making the 75 gal a saltwater aquarium instead. You can never really have too much lighting. Sand would have been a better choice over CC. I just switched to sand myself. It looks a whole lot better. I would put the powerheads in now if you have them. You want to have a flow rate of 10 times the amount of your tank for fish only and 20 times if you intend on corals. In your case, you will need 370 gallons per hour for the fish only. With the liverock, they 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of rock per gallon of water. This would mean that you need between 50 and 70 pounds of live rock.
thanks alot.
yeah i know the 75 would be better. if things go well with this tank i will upgrade.
the FW tank had top priority however, especially since the SW tank did not even exist until the 75 was installed.
So lighting should be fine? i have the light up on a spacer that keeps it from resting on the hood.
Ok so for coral and what not i will need to install a powerhead. where should the location be? will too big of a power head in there cause any harm? how many powerheads will i need? this tank really is not that big.. more of a tall tank if anything.
the LFS is a good place to go, but there are about two guys there that know what is going on, the rest are pretty vapid.

 

[wax32]

A couple of maxijet 900 powerheads would probably get you into the flowrate you want.