Noob needs some equipment help

[Mcalk13]

Firstly thank you all for your time and consideration in my new endeavor, reading several hundred posts here I feel as though this forum is better geared towards my questions that a few of the FB groups I joined. They seemed to be rater snobbish towards new reefers.

So here it is about 14 years ago while in the AF I set up a FOWLR tank that had 3 fuzzy dwarf lions in it, then I was informed that I was to be medically discharged and would have to go home. Well the moving company was not going to move a full tank ( don't blame them) and I was pretty sure the Lions would not fair well on the 14 hour drive home so they went to the large fish tank underground.

Flash forward to today and I am now going to be setting up a reef tank. My current options for free tanks are a 10 or 20 gallon rectangle, a 30 gallon hex tall ( this was the FOWLR tank I KNOW not enough room for 3 FDL but I was younger and dumber) or a 55 gal that my dad has with a very nice already built stand. I am hoping to use this 55 gal, but the problem is that while the stand is nice putting a good sump in there with a HOB overflow just wouldn't work as sadly there isn't a lot of room in the stand.

I am thusly looking at HOB equipment. I have watched a BRS video on them setting up a 40 gal breeder and have to assume the equipment would be similar but larger capacity/flow/etc.

What I have pieced together that I believe will work is the following, please tell me if I am right or wrong and for what reasons so that I may further my education. BTW the tank will HOPEFULLY be a LPS/ softie (not SPS) reef tank with a couple of clowns a longnose hawkfish, a yellow prawn goby, and MAYBE a carpenters wrasse (with other suggestions as well please) If more fish are possible that would be nice but I don't know for sure.

There would be approx 55-60 lbs dry live rock and 60ish lbs of sand substrate

Tunze Comline DC 9012 Skimmer

CPR Aquatics MEDIUM AQUAFUGE2 HANG ON BACK REFUGIUM WITH LED LIGHTING SYSTEM

MarineLand Penguin 350 BIO-Wheel Power Filter maybe get 2?

CaribSea LIFEROCK DRY LIVE ROCK

CaribSea SHAPES LIFEROCK DRY LIVE ROCK

CaribSea SPECIAL GRADE ARAG-ALIVE! LIVE REEF SAND

Again any help and advice wold be very appreciated.

Thank you in advanced , Chalk ( also is it possible to change my account name to Mchalk13? I set up this account while my wife and I were in the hospital earlier this week with our newborn daughter so I was a bit tired.)

 

[Lowell Lemon]

I like where you are going with the tank in terms of Tunze. You might consider their internal filters with biomedia since they work great and will compliment the other Tunze equipment. You can actually buy a bundled filter, skimmer, and automatic water top off system from Tunze shipped in a 5 gallon plastic pail for the water top off. great way to go and comes in one neat tidy package.

 

[Slawman]

Go a big as possible, system capacity wise, this gives you the best chance of maintaining stability. The Tunze skimmer is great, I would drop the bio-filter as the rock will do the heavy lifting in terms of bacteria colonisation and waste processing. The bio filter starts producing crap after a while that is not great for water quality if you want to start keeping corals.

I don't know about the LED light.

What will you do for water flow and heating?

 

[Mcalk13]

@Slawman

Bulk Reef Supply TITANIUM AQUARIUM HEATER SYSTEM the 200W when its in stock would be the heater I'm going with

As far as the light is concerned that's my biggest hang up. The tank currently has a florescent bulb canopy that runs the length of the tank so I'm currently looking at the following but really don't know what to do as far as the light is concerned.
t5 ATI Coral Plus

 

[Slawman]

T5's are a great lighting solution. The coral plus from memory is very blue so maybe check the colour temp of the tube matches up with the look you are after. If there are two tubes I would match something towards 14k with something towards 7k.

 

[Mcalk13]

Sadly it's only a single tube system

 

[glb]

Sadly it's only a single tube system

T-5’s are great. I have a 4-bulb light above my 40g. I’m not sure one bulb will be enough to grow coral.
Also, are you sure you can’t fit a sump under your tank? I think in the long run it would make your life so much easier. You can check out my build thread in my signature if you’d like to see how I built a diy 20g long sump for my 40g. Good luck!!

 

[Mcalk13]

@glb Pretty sure I wont be able to cramfoo a sump in to the stand, my dad built it and it only has one door which is not very big, mostly used for storage of foods and nets etc. This build MAY be getting scrapped in favor of a Waterbox or Redsea setup in the 30-50 gallon range. If its AIO or reef ready that idk yet but I ma looking. Main reason being is if one T5 light wont work I may as well divert the almost $1200 i have figured in to setting up this tank in to a dedicated reef tank system that comes with everything I need minus rock and sand and then pick up the 30-40 gallon starter kit from BRS. Cost would be nearly the same and i would get a better setup out of it.

 

[glb]

@glb Pretty sure I wont be able to cramfoo a sump in to the stand, my dad built it and it only has one door which is not very big, mostly used for storage of foods and nets etc. This build MAY be getting scrapped in favor of a Waterbox or Redsea setup in the 30-50 gallon range. If its AIO or reef ready that idk yet but I ma looking. Main reason being is if one T5 light wont work I may as well divert the almost $1200 i have figured in to setting up this tank in to a dedicated reef tank system that comes with everything I need minus rock and sand and then pick up the 30-40 gallon starter kit from BRS. Cost would be nearly the same and i would get a better setup out of it.

Another thought is to build or buy a new stand to fit a sump.