5ft on a budget? Where to save where to spend

[Atlan]

Evening Fellow Reefers,

I have purchased a 5ft /400l Tank with Sump for practically nothing. I don't really know why, other then I love a challenge. It will run in the side of a room that isn't used much, so looks arnt the most important thing, I just want to see what's the absolute best I can do with it, on a budget.

So my question is simple, what would you buy 2nd hand? what would you only buy new?

My initial thinking is things like pumps and heaters, Critical Equipment, buy new, I want to know 100% they haven't been abused. Things like Skimmers, Reactors, lights, buy second hand. If they fail, they arn't going to cause catastrophic issues that require immediate resolution.

My idea is to FOWLR / Softie tank. Maybe some LPS further down the line (Acans, Trumpets, nothing crazy).

I have a bag of "live sand" lying around which I plan on mixing with dry sand to get things going. Same with live rock, seed a few KG from existing tank to some ocean rock / dead rock in the new tank. Probably some cheato in the sump

Where would you go with lighting? 5ft is a lot to light. Maybe T5s? LED in the middle (what I call volcano style scaping?)

I already have RO unit, although 50l to 400l will go though the resins much faster.

All views welcome, I'll probably end up with a 5ft gold fish tank

A

 

[X-37B]

4' OR3 light bars. 2 should be good. 1 day and 1 blue sky.
1 is equal to 2 T5's.
Used T5's would be good also.
I have a 36 and a 48 6 bulb T5 that I will never use again because the OR3's are that good.
New return pump.
Large oversize skimmer, new/used.
New heater.
7" Filter socks.
Small reactor for gfo/ carbon.
New ato.
Live rock for FOWLR system.
That should be a good start.

 

[MarshallB]

I like your line of thinking. Biggest thing will be the lights. I'm using blackboxes. They are cheap, like 10% of what I would pay for mid-high end lighting.

I do hate the color with blues at max and whites on low ( it just looks white ). I plan on upgrading those lights this year. I do no regret the black boxes since they allowed me to get the tank up and running since i did not have the budget for lighting.

 

[mrlavalamp]

I took this approach with my tank.

Used tank, skimmer, rock and sand, heater (but new Ranco control).

I bleached the rock, but in hindsight I should have acid washed it (even though you loose rock to the acid, fighting phosphates now is no fun).

Seconding the black box lights, I have the same opinion on the costs and color too.

I went new on the lights, return pump, and the ranco heater controller though. Just made more sense cost wise/risk factor.

 

[Atlan]

I took this approach with my tank.

Used tank, skimmer, rock and sand, heater (but new Ranco control).

I bleached the rock, but in hindsight I should have acid washed it (even though you loose rock to the acid, fighting phosphates now is no fun).

Seconding the black box lights, I have the same opinion on the costs and color too.

I went new on the lights, return pump, and the ranco heater controller though. Just made more sense cost wise/risk factor.

When you say black box lights, you mean the cheapo Chinese LED reef lights (In a black box)? Its not a term ive come across before.

What kinda wattage are you running? 2x 165w?

 

[mrlavalamp]

I run 3 of the Viparspectra 165w. My tank isn't straight but is pretty deep at 27" and they do ok for softies/LPS so far.

They are VERY white to the eye with the whites even at 5 ot 10% and blues at 80%. I would take some pics for you but my phones camera doesn't handle the light well though, I have to turn the blues off to get "white" pictures. Even with whites at 50% my phone picks up the blue more than anything, but thats just because its a junk camera on my cheapo smartphone.

 

[Atlan]

I run 3 of the Viparspectra 165w. My tank isn't straight but is pretty deep at 27" and they do ok for softies/LPS so far.

They are VERY white to the eye with the whites even at 5 ot 10% and blues at 80%. My phones camera doesn't handle the light well though, I have to turn the blues off to get "white" pictures. Even with whites at 50% my phone picks up the blue more than anything, but thats just because its a junk camera on my cheapo smartphone.

Sweet, I think this is W20" x D22" L56" so maybe 2 to start with and go from there? Should have pretty good lighting. Have you considered a separate blue LED bar to boost blue spectrum? dont know if that would work

 

[mrlavalamp]

If I was going to supplement the Vipars, I would really love to add some T5s, but with the half cylinder shape of my tank, the curve is hard to layout a light and get good coverage.

I had tried to swap out some of the white channel LED chips for blue/UV on my lights, but they are glued down hard so I didnt risk the damage to the board. Its doable but not as easy as older models that were thermal pasted vs. this newer adhesive.

 

[James_O]

I would get new heaters, because you don’t want an old one malfunctioning.

You really have a choice: Do you want outdated equipment? Or do you want the new tech, that has Bluetooth and such?

You can find a lot of great equipment from local reefers who are shutting down their tanks.

 

[dedragon]

I like your line of thinking. Biggest thing will be the lights. I'm using blackboxes. They are cheap, like 10% of what I would pay for mid-high end lighting.

I do hate the color with blues at max and whites on low ( it just looks white ). I plan on upgrading those lights this year. I do no regret the black boxes since they allowed me to get the tank up and running since i did not have the budget for lighting.

I would go Orphek or T5 over the viparspectra, unless you are looking to add higher light demanding corals. Viparspectra are amazing for cost to par in a budget sps tank but dont look the best like marshall said imo