Hey all!
A few of you have seen me posting in the newbie sections, but now that I’m building the tank, it’s time to continue things here
This is my first salt tank, but I’ve had freshwater for years. I’m looking to build a tank with lots of live rock, some of the easier corals, and as much diversity as I can get. I’m especially interested in some of the invert diversity, which is highly lacking in freshwater.
The biggest restraints on my build are this:
1) Money: I’m not putting it together from scrap, but I certainly can’t afford the high end equipment.
2) No major leaks: The better half is a clean freak. 20 or 30 gallons of water on the floor from cracked glass or a filter blowing an intake line would result in all my aquariums on the curb. :-<
As far as equipment, I’ve got a few pieces of used mixing in with the new.
The tank is an aqueon 54 corner with wood stand and glass lid. I’m running a T5 light on it, that hopefully will do the jobfor some of the easier softies.
I’ve got an oversized protein skimmer on the back, and a pair of powerheads rated at around 500/gph in the tank (not sure how much I believe that...).
I saw wildly different estimates for sand in this tank, so I purchased 80 lbs of live sand, and threw in another 10 lbs of dry sand, hoping to get to 3 inches. Well... I never opened the last 40 lb bag of live sand, as the 50 lbs got me to the depth I wanted.
I’ve got 40 lbs of dry rock in the tank, which I will supplement with true live rock once I know my water parameters are good and the tank has heated up.
Last night I got the rock placed and the tank filled. The water was cloud as expected, so I temporarily added a mechanical filter with a thick sponge filter to help clear things up. By morning this morning, the water was pretty clear, and the tank was nearing its temperature goal. A few thoughts moving forward:
1) Where do you guys typically add live rock to dry? On top? Next to? Does it matter?
2) I’ve seen a lot of competing thoughts on filtration, from almost nothing to science lab sumps. A sump may be an option down the line, but isn’t right this moment. However I’ve also seen a lot of people run tanks with just the skimmer and powerheads, with no mechanical filter at all, saying the live rock and CuC need what the filters remove.
Any thoughts on which way to go here?
A few of you have seen me posting in the newbie sections, but now that I’m building the tank, it’s time to continue things here
This is my first salt tank, but I’ve had freshwater for years. I’m looking to build a tank with lots of live rock, some of the easier corals, and as much diversity as I can get. I’m especially interested in some of the invert diversity, which is highly lacking in freshwater.
The biggest restraints on my build are this:
1) Money: I’m not putting it together from scrap, but I certainly can’t afford the high end equipment.
2) No major leaks: The better half is a clean freak. 20 or 30 gallons of water on the floor from cracked glass or a filter blowing an intake line would result in all my aquariums on the curb. :-<
As far as equipment, I’ve got a few pieces of used mixing in with the new.
The tank is an aqueon 54 corner with wood stand and glass lid. I’m running a T5 light on it, that hopefully will do the jobfor some of the easier softies.
I’ve got an oversized protein skimmer on the back, and a pair of powerheads rated at around 500/gph in the tank (not sure how much I believe that...).
I saw wildly different estimates for sand in this tank, so I purchased 80 lbs of live sand, and threw in another 10 lbs of dry sand, hoping to get to 3 inches. Well... I never opened the last 40 lb bag of live sand, as the 50 lbs got me to the depth I wanted.
I’ve got 40 lbs of dry rock in the tank, which I will supplement with true live rock once I know my water parameters are good and the tank has heated up.
Last night I got the rock placed and the tank filled. The water was cloud as expected, so I temporarily added a mechanical filter with a thick sponge filter to help clear things up. By morning this morning, the water was pretty clear, and the tank was nearing its temperature goal. A few thoughts moving forward:
1) Where do you guys typically add live rock to dry? On top? Next to? Does it matter?
2) I’ve seen a lot of competing thoughts on filtration, from almost nothing to science lab sumps. A sump may be an option down the line, but isn’t right this moment. However I’ve also seen a lot of people run tanks with just the skimmer and powerheads, with no mechanical filter at all, saying the live rock and CuC need what the filters remove.
Any thoughts on which way to go here?