Tim's 43 Gallon Reef Project - New Fish, PICTURES 16/12/12

[Tim]

Ok, the thread was getting a bit off topic in the "All Other Fish" forum so i'll start a thread here.

The tank is about 20" deep and i would like to have ample lighting to try all sorts of different corals.
If possible, I would like to stick to the hood arrangement of lighting that came with the tank to keep things neat but if that doesn't cater for enough lighting i'm willing to change it.
the standard setup is 2 30" tubes and a 24" tube built into the hood, at this stage i have two (2) white 25w t8s and one (1) 20w "marine blue"

I had an interesting brainwave on a refugium, which i can make by replacing the filter pads in the standard trickle filter with sand and live rock.
This way you can't even tell the difference but it means i have somewhere to hide my heater and an extra bit of bio-filtration going on at the same time. It could also provide a little haven smaller organisms to assist in clean up

Going to have a look on ebay at protein skimmers, if anyone can assist in pointing me in the direction of some reliable brands, that would be a huge help

cheers,
Tim

[JohnL]

Can't help much with the salty side but wanted to give words of encouragement.

Go Tim Go.

[Tim]

Thanks John, I think i've finally jumped the hurdle of committing to a marine setup. I've now got over the daunting feeling of being in over my depth and am just gonna go for it.
i feel very confident that I can provide whatever i keep with what they need from my experience with freshwater once i have the knack for testing and monitoring the different chemistry involved in saltwater.

I'm very eager and excited to get this show on the road!

[k0y0te]

You going to need stronger lighting to grow coral. However the light setup you have now will be good for FO or FOWLR. As for skimmers there is alot of good brands out there. CPR, Reef Octopus, AquaC just to name a couple. For protein skimmers dont go cheap. Its a valueable peice of equipment for the salty side that can make u or break you.

[Tim]

I figured that might be the case with the skimmer... what sort of Litres per hour should I be looking at on a 165L tank?

As far as lighting goes, do you think i would be able to make up enough out of the 3 places availiable in my hood or should i go without that and get a standalone lighting setup?

[k0y0te]

For the lighting i would go get something better. Depending on the depth of the tank you could get t5 however if you was to get ho u probley could grow just about anything. I have seen where people went to lowes or home depot and purches the materials to build the light fixture themself to save money but i am one who stinks at diy so i purched the light bar from my LFS.

as for turn over rate im not to sure. for my skimmer, i got one that was for 2x the tank required. (but this is where i made my mistake i brought a cheap cyclone and had to mod it to get it to work ok) You want to make sure you have good current through out the whole tank. Try to keep it from haveing dead spots. My tank has about a 10x turnover for filtration. Sumps work the best for salt tanks. Canisters and hob filters can be nitrate traps if not cleaned every few days.

Live rock helps alot. the more the marrier . with salt just take your time. once the cycle is done just add 1-2 fish/ coral at a time. patience is diffently need when salt tanks are at hand.

[callen]

As for skimmers there is alot of good brands out there. CPR, Reef Octopus, AquaC just to name a couple. For protein skimmers dont go cheap. Its a valueable peice of equipment for the salty side that can make u or break you.

Ditto! Are you planning a hang on or stand?

With the lighting not sure. Lighting is not my specialty so I will let others chime in on that. Have you thought of what you want to keep?

Did you get the Bob Fenner book yet?

Is this tank drilled?

Posted same time as k0y0te

[Alan]

good luck with it mate

[Tim]

I'll have to take some photos of the setup to help my explanations a little bit, I'm not sure how common the sort of setup is. Maybe google "aqua one AR850" and it might come up with something helpful

If possible i would like to hide the protein skimmer in the cabinet underneath. If that's not possible then i'm happy to hang it out the back.

the tank is not drilled, the pump that I was considering using for a refugium works by:
1)Sucking the water out with a power head
2)spraying it out over the filter media in a large compartment in the hood of the tank (this is where i was going to put live rock and sand etc)
3)the water level rises in the filter compartment until it reaches an over flow at the other end of the tank
4)the water spills in over the overflow and the cycle starts over

the whole system works left to right across the back section of the hood.

I haven't been able to get to many places to look for the Bob Fenner book yet, the one LFS i got to didn't have it so i may have to look online.

Thanks again for all the advice so far.

[Tim]

Oh, I meant to add...
I would like my lighting to be up to par coral. Even if i don't have it straight away, that is the direction i want to go. I figure if i'm diving into the salty side i want to do exactly what i like

as for lighting is there a ballpark figure in watts per gallon i should be aiming for in order to grow all sorts of coral in a tank that is 20" deep?

I found these on ebay, not sure how good they are, but look interesting:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/120w-Reef-LE ... 857wt_1141

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/120w-LED-Mar ... 003wt_1141

Thanks for reading

[Tim]

just found an old thread on an Australian forum with exactly the same tank as mine.
here it is to give you an idea:
http://masa.asn.au/phpBB3/viewtopic.php ... 2&start=30

[Nathan]

If you want corals, you will need specialized lighting; stock hood lights won't cut it. At minimum you'll need VHO, Power Compact, or T5 lighting for soft corals. For hard corals or anemones you will need Metal Halide or HQI lighting. If a reef tank is set up right, filtration is unnecessary (a reef system becomes its own biological filter), but you need lots of circulation. If you have a sump/refugium setup, that's a great place to put the skimmer. Stick with live rock rubble and live sand for media. If you really wan to get creative, look into building an algae turf scrubber.

Do some research on the algae stages for saltwater. Algae is your friend in establishing a saltwater setup. It can get annoying, but the type and amount of algae you have will tell you how you're doing in your set up, and where you are in cycling (cycling for a reef tank entails much more than just determining where you are with the nitrification cycle).

[Tim]

I don't know a lot about lights so I'll have to look into what some of the abbreviations mean
I really would like to be able to add both hard and soft corals and anemones so i want to get the lighting right.
I take it the ebay ones i found wouldn't be any good? they seemed to cheap to be any good but it was worth a look.
Thanks for all the help so far

[Nathan]

I actually don't know much about LED reef lighting, except that it's fairly new, and when I looked into a good-quality set-up from a reputable manufacturer two years ago, the $8000 price tag made me rethink it really quick. In a 43 gallon tank, a 120 watt Metal Halide, HQI (Hydrargyrum Quartz Iodide), VHO (Very High Output) or other type of HID (High-Intensity Discharge) lighting would be a pretty good start (it's good to have a lighting mixture to simulate different times of day), and you could set yourself up with any one of those for much less than the 120 watt LED lights you linked to.

[Tim]

I was under the impression that metal halides were overly expensive, I'll have to have another look. I'll have a look at the HQI as well.
Thanks heaps for the direction, I would be completely lost without it