Newbie with lots of questions!

[rsalcedo]

After six years with FW cichlids I want to make that change to SW and I been reading, reading, reading, for over 1 year and several months. I finally decided to buy a 29 gallon tank. What kind of heater and power should I have and lights for fish, live rock and coral for beginner?

[StoneyK]

I would seriously consider a larger tank your going to want one later anyways...trust me...lol Everyone does
I would work on findind out what you want and what is realistic
if you just want fish lights arent as importent but if you want corals lighting is going to be an issue as well as water flow patterns... your question has soo many answers use the resources here or other reef sites and read read read some more.
Try to buy things right the first time instead of having to buy things twice costing more money. Fork over the cash for a good skimmer and lighting vho, metal halide, and personally I love my sea swirls...hope some of this helps

[supernareg]

yes, go larger... MUCH larger... u can use everything u use for FW... just take out the filter... and buy a protein skimmer and add a sump, and MUCH better lighting.

[JenDub]

true dat- I've never met a person who wasn't talking about "going bigger" after 3 months or so. I would recommend an 60-75-80 gallon tank to start.

If you are going with fish only (some fish & critters eat/killer live corals) a bigger tank is needed, maybe 120-180+ just so it won't fill up too quickly.

If you are going reef (live corals with reef-safe fish) a 60-80 gallon is a great start. It will fill up fast (you will be surprised).

For reef you need power compact(cheapest), t5, VHO or metal halide(most expensive) lights to keep the corals alive. Soft corals need less light/filtration than LPS corals, and SPS corals need the most light/filtration. For this reason, most people start with softies & some LPS.

A titanium heater is a must for all salt tanks. Won Bros pro heat are super nice (check out www.marinedepot.com).

Depending on how hot your house is you might also need a chiller to keep the tank under 84 degrees. Any hotter is bad news. Most reefs run in the 74-84 range with a 2 degree change from night to day.

A sump and a full-sized skimmer are also great ideas. Don't trust the skimmer ratings, they are often overrated. Use Euroreef's skimmer size/ratings for a more realistic picture of what it can handle

That's all I have for now, good luck & Welcome to RC

~Charles~

[Charles99]

Yes, use this site to your advantage.

Someone once told me, "Buy the biggest tank you can afford." It is true, you will always WANT to go larger. But make sure you tank into account all of the stuff to operate/ maintain a larger tank. Lighting, skimmer, sand, rock, etc. (not including fish and/or corals).

[reg828]

I agree 75 gallon is best start.

[laverda]

I agree on getting a biger tank. You will find it is almost the same amount of work and easier to keep. I have a 50 gallon tank and oak stand and canopy with everything you need I will make you a killer deal on. I need it out of my garage. It is up and running and has live sand, hang on back refugium, lights, skimmer, heater,live rock, hermet crabs, snails, star fish, pods and a few corals, and I wll frag a couple more easy to keep ones for you. It really was just a temporary holding tank that I just never took down. How about $450. for everything?

[rsalcedo]

Awesome Deal I just moved into small apartment and my space is very limited. I will have to do with a 30 to 40 gallon max., but I would like to know if hang on fuge work well? I have been reading for over 9 months I bought books, logged on the site and read articles, threads., etc. I was thinking of creating this:

1. 29 gallon reef only
2. aqua-clear 110 filter (no-rings, no-carbon) replace with live-rock and use Purigen in a 300 micro-bag with carbon-sponge.
3. 40 lbs live rock
4. 30 lbs of Fiji pink live sand
5. 30 % weekly water changes.
6. Titatium heater
7. 2 pumps max gph equal 600 - 700 gph
8. I need a 30-inch light fixtures any suggestions?
9. I need hang on skimmer any suggestions? (no sea-clone)
10. Stand and Canopy I order
11. after cycle introduce a few cleaning crew members, banded shirmp and star fish, snails.
12. create under - tank q-tank 15 gallon with live rock and live sand with aqua-clear 50 same set-up as above.
13. after q- tank cycle
14. introduce gamma to q-tank 2 week holding.
15. introduce gamma to main tank.

These are the steps I would like to take to establish a great looking main tank.

I only have my tank empty, filter, media, and going slow due to lack of deep pockets. If any of you that live in socal that know anyone geting out of the hobby hit me up at chrrsalcedo@hotmail.com.

[Salt Creep]

First off, what do you ultimately want to keep? What are your goals? Start setting up for your goal rather than figuring you'll upgrade later on; you'll spend less money that way.

A fuge isn't required but it can be nice if only to give you space to grow macroalgae to harvest for nutrient export.

Is there any way for you to incorporate an overflow and sump?

I used to run a 29 gallon reef, and if I had to do it again I'd definitely get the tank drilled. The siphon overflow was the most problematic thing about it. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-05/totm/index.php

Ken

[rsalcedo]

Wow your tank rocks! I came across your tank about two weeks ago, and some other 10 gallon reef thats awesome. I will go with the sump as soon as I figure out how to create it out of 15 gallon all-glass (DIY) fuge.........my long term goal is to house soft coral and fish (4 max) and few inverts.

[Salt Creep]

Thanks! That was a while back though, I've since moved on to a bigger tank. I did resist for years but things just outgrew the small tank.

What does your fuge look like? Any pictures you could post here?

[Wickednix]

Depending on how hot your house is you might also need a chiller to keep the tank under 84 degrees. Any hotter is bad news. Most reefs run in the 74-84 range with a 2 degree change from night to day.

:O You mean to tell me that my 77-80 degrees is wrong.

Slaps forhead. Damn noob I be :P

Wait i took that wrong. you gave a range. Ok my funny got shot down

[Salt Creep]

If your power is supplied by DWP you can subscribe to their time-of-use rate service, where you pay about twice the rate during certain daytime hours buy only pay half the rate at night. Then you can just run your lights at night (when you're home from work to see the tank?) and with a fan it'll be kept cool enough without a chiller.

Ken

[rsalcedo]

Originally posted by rsalcedo
Wow your tank rocks! I came across your tank about two weeks ago, and some other 10 gallon reef thats awesome. I will go with the sump as soon as I figure out how to create it out of 15 gallon all-glass (DIY) fuge.........my long term goal is to house soft coral and fish (4 max) and few inverts.

I haven't figure out how to DIY sump.........the pictures I saw from another forum confused me., . I will eventually would love to make that jump to a larger tank. I agree with your page about "all it took is one scratch" to dislike arcrylic.