Quote:
Originally posted by captbunzo
I think your lighting is fine for now. I might consider getting another one of those Coralife T5 Double Strips, as I don't THINK they are too much. However, that should be a lower priority on your list.
What I REALLY recommend you do with your next chunk of Reef Money is increase your flow and buy more rock.
Flow - maxijets are reliable little pumps. However, due to the fact that they only create laminar, firehouse type flow - I actually consider them rather useless for creating flow in a display tank. At a minimum, they are at least "ineffective". Spend about $40 a piece on 2 SEIO m620. You can get them only for that price, $80 total. Then you can remove t he MJ.
Don't worry - they maxijets are always useful for SOMETHING around a reefers existence.
Rock: I'd add rock until you can get some nice size piles, pillars, etc. I would recommend a rate of about 1-1.5 pounds per gallon. That is a low number as I don't think tanks need as much rock as a lot of people do.
However, ignore the numbers mostly - add rock until you feel like you have enough.....as long as it about twice as much or more (or a little less) then you have now.
For one thing, when you start adding more corals later, you'll need the real estate to spread things out upon. For another, Live Rock is very important from a biological filtration perspective.
Lastly, one thing that has become a staple of my water quality recommendation - a PhosBan reactor, phosban, and some carbon (marineland black diamond, for instance). For my 55g tank I use about 3/4 - 1 cup of carbon and about 1/4 cup of phosban. Replace that once a month. There are more details here, but that can come later if you take the plunge.
The nice thing is they are so cheap - $30 on Marine Depot. Phosban $15, carbon $10 (or so) and you are set.
I think a tank is greatly improved by the use of such a simple device to help reduce the toxicity of the chemical stew that develops in our tank.
Seriously, for what you have now, you can wait on the lighting upgrade.
Oh yeah - and make sure you feed reasonably. Don't REALLY overdue it. But ALSO do NOT underfeed. A softie/LPS tank will REALLY benefit from all those dissolved organics, etc, in the water to feed things - also referred to as a "nutrient rich environment".
Anyhow gotta run! 
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Thanks for the response Paul. Sorry I didn't get a chance to call you before you headed out on your trip but things got busy at work and that put a cabash on the call.
I will definitely look to add more flow then with the seios and slowly phase out the maxi-jets. What I might do to get more flow behind the tank is to do a mod that I saw somewhere on here. They took a long piece of pvc and cut holes on the top part and around it. They then hooked it up to a maxijet and laid it along the back pane to get some circulation back there. Thought that was a cool idea. I would love to get some Tunze jets but don't have the money for all that right now (gotta have things to wish for in the future).
About the rock: I am definitely planning on getting more. Right now I've been keeping my eye out for better pieces when they come through the LFS and I try to grab them up when I can. I will probably get another 5-10 this coming week and just keep adding til I get around 50 pounds or so total. I'm sure that I will end up with more than that but that's what I shooting for now. The LFS has been getting some really nice rock lately so the time might just be right for that.
About running the Phosban reactor and carbon. Since I don't have a sump, where am I supposed to be running this? I know that the phosban reactor itself is a seperate piece of equipment but where should I be running the carbon? Just curious since it's something that I will definitely look into. Right now I've just been sporadically running some Phoslock for a couple days at a time just to make sure Phosphates don't get out of whack.
Just get back to me when you get back Paul.
Any other suggestions out there?
Adam