I'm still planning and thinking things trough about my upcoming FIRST reef. But first things first...
After having a 60g community freshwater aquarium for a year, I found out it's not challenging enough for me. Once the tank is set up, there's not much to do with it. Also the plants and behaviour of the fish are not that exciting. In the past year I've seen a lot of threads about saltwater aquariums and the colors and the variety of creatures that live in there are... amazing?
On our holiday in France, I dragged the family to the largest aquarium in Europe called "Nausicaa". That was the moment I heard a voice in my head: "you want a reeftank, you need it!" (In dutch of course)
First I needed a plan of approach to convince my wife. She said: why didn't you go for salt immediatly? I thought: that's way too easy and unfortunately I was right. At the moment she's convinced the 60g is large enough, so I still need a new plan of approach.
About the aquarium: what's the plan in my mind:
After having a 60g community freshwater aquarium for a year, I found out it's not challenging enough for me. Once the tank is set up, there's not much to do with it. Also the plants and behaviour of the fish are not that exciting. In the past year I've seen a lot of threads about saltwater aquariums and the colors and the variety of creatures that live in there are... amazing?
On our holiday in France, I dragged the family to the largest aquarium in Europe called "Nausicaa". That was the moment I heard a voice in my head: "you want a reeftank, you need it!" (In dutch of course)
First I needed a plan of approach to convince my wife. She said: why didn't you go for salt immediatly? I thought: that's way too easy and unfortunately I was right. At the moment she's convinced the 60g is large enough, so I still need a new plan of approach.
About the aquarium: what's the plan in my mind:
- An oak cabinet is ordered together with other matching furniture in our livingroom and to be delivered by the end of the year. Dimensions: 55" x 18" x 33" (W x D x H)
- Custom build aquarium 52"x 23" x 25" (WxDxH) with an overflow box for 2 drains of 1,5" and a return of 1,25" (2x 40mm and 1x 36mm). Eurobraced and a lightcanopy
- All the drains go through the wall, through the stairs into the basement where the sump will come. I still need to cut 1 concrete stair out to guide the plumbing through and finish the stairs with tiles.
- Fishroom: plenty of space for the sump, QT's and waterstation. This is also where water enters and leaves the building.
- Return pump: Red dragon 3 100W should be enough to make a 5x turnover from the sump to upstairs (10ft)
- Skimmer: Deltec 1000i or Tunze DOC 9410dc
- Heaters: not decided yet, at least 2 for redundancy
- Lights: Mitras Lightbar 2 - 1x deep actinic and 1x ocean blue
- Streampumps: Tunze or MP40's?
- GHL profilux 4: I would like to monitor and control as much as I can with the P4
- RO/DI: Osmopure 100 GE Deluxe