New to the SW family

[turbotsi]

Hello everyone my name is Dave.. I am a avid fish fanatic and have a 75g community FW setup and a 75g (long) Oscar/Irr shark tank.... along with a 10g Convict pair...
I recently aquired a 55g setup (tank hood/ canopy, stand) for 50.00 so I decided it was time to take the dive into SW reefs...
I have ditched the lighing system it came with and want to scrap the canopy too... I am going with a CoraLife 260w lighting setup (includes 260watts-includes two 21" 65watt actinic and 2 21" 65watt 10000K bulbs)
I am using Carb-Sea Aragonite sand I currently have 40lbs (need more) but not sure how much I shoudl use for a nice DSB
I am going to use 1 maybe 2 Filstar Xp3's along with a Prizm Skimmer, a 300watt heater (stianless steel) and 2 Azoo powerheads (317gph each)
I can use ANY help/advise u can give.. I hope to have my lighting and possibly one filter or the skimmer in the next week or two then begin adding live rock
Dave

 

[tony detroit]

If you haven't yet, buy a good book. It will save you money long term. If you plan on getting really into reefkeeping, I will also recommend you spend the money now and get metal halide lighting and a revers osmosis/deionized water filter. It is not absolutely necessary, but you will be very glad you did it.

 

[tony detroit]

also a local reefkeeping message board is
michiganreefers dot com

 

[rbmount]

Welcome! The best thing you can do is read, read and read. Ask any questions you may have(no matter how dumb you may think they are), use the search button at the top, and read some more. our Host sells many books(check out the dry goods section) The Conscientious Marine Aquarist is the best.

 

[jlem]

Your size of tank I would reccomend VHO or PC's instead of Metal Halide. You will have to have a chiller if you get MH's and chillers are very expensive. Now if you turned you 75 into saltwater then MH's would be cool but you will spend 3 or 4 times on MH's once you take into account the chiller.Also if you start with a 2-110 watt VHO retro kit you could run one 10K bulb and one actinic and be able to keep most corals anyways. Once you decide to go with higher light corals then you get you MH's and use the VHO's for actinics which is what you would want to do anyways and it cost you no more than buying it all at once. It would suck to spend 1,000 plus bucks on a good MH/VHO kit and another 500 plus on a chiller just to find out that it is not the way that you want to go and a 175 dollar VHO or PC kit would have done just fine
Also do a search for recent threads on DSB's. Lots of people are switching to a shallow sand bed because the DSB was not all it was cracked up to be and took up alot of space. Lots of peole are going with refugiums or a refugium DSB combo which don't take up a ton of space in the display tank and accomplish the same thing if not more.

 

[turbotsi]

yeah I will use the PC lighting (the coralife I want to use)
as for the refugium... I forgot what that is
I was told a good thing to do is use the larger CC on the bottom and then add the aragonite sand on top.. is this that or is the refugium the one style where u have the tank below with the sump etc in there?
Dave

 

[tony detroit]

If you hang your metal halides/pendant fixture you won't have any overheating issues. You will have much more variety in what you can keep, you will also have better growth rate.

 

[tony detroit]

There is a used pendant fixture right now for sale on the board I posted for you.
Refugiums are ok, but a bit overrated in my opinion. I had one and didn't think it was all that great. The idea of an ecosystem in an aquarium is a good idea, but really is not achievable. Refugiums are not bad by any means but I won't be setting one up again.

 

[eg_hatch]

I wouldnt use canister filters, theyre not too good in biological filtration because there isnt much air/water contact. You should probably get a wet dry filter instead, its a lot better, and if you do go with that, switch out the bioballs and put live rock in place of it.

 

[jgonier]

Originally posted by turboTSI
I was told a good thing to do is use the larger CC on the bottom and then add the aragonite sand on top.. is this that or is the refugium the one style where u have the tank below with the sump etc in there?
Dave
Don't use CC at all. Others can probably explain better as to why. If you do it like you stated, the sand will end up sinking down through the CC and end up on the bottom anyhow and your CC will end up on top.