Possibly getting back into this after a long break

[48Kaiser]

I use natural filtration, minimum automaton, and minimal maintenance. If you set it up with certain methods, equipment, aim to understock fish load or oversize the tank and take your time, it could be a lot of enjoyment with minimal work one day

If you want 10 fish, get a tank that can hold 12 or 14

If your limited by budget or space and can get a tank that can house 10 fish, get 8

Theirs are broad generalizations as fish vary in size and impact on the tank but it’s just to make a point. If you max out the tank, or over stock, your work and maintenance will be much more

I have several fish including a tang, they are just hiding/sleeping at the moment

This takes 10 min per week for work and is a system without water changes or a skimmer. The only thing automated is alkalinity. I don’t even use an ato

I know me and I’ll have a heavy fish load. My last tank(225 or 235) had several tangs, puriple, yellow, hippo, sailfish, naso, powder blue and chevron, fox face, 2 wrasses, mandarin goby, 3 or 4 chromis, flame hawk, long nose hawk, flame angel. I’m sure there’s a few others I’m forgetting.

 

[48Kaiser]

Hello and welcome. I think a skimmer is extremely important in a reef tank it has a few functions and all of them are critical to a healthy reef. Removes DOC. Lowers phos, and adds oxygen to your system.

So is the live rock, live sand and skimmer still a popular way to go? I just read something about the sand bed needing to be 4-6” deep. Mine was probably in that ballpark.

 

[p1u5h13r4m24]

Hello and welcome. I think a skimmer is extremely important in a reef tank it has a few functions and all of them are critical to a healthy reef. Removes DOC. Lowers phos, and adds oxygen to your system.

So is the live rock, live sand and skimmer still a popular way to go? I just read something about the sand bed needing to be 4-6” deep. Mine was probably in that ballpark.

Yes, but I’d only do 1-2” as sand beds hold a lot of DOC and there’s been studies of corals near the sand bed that don’t do well. This is why coral restoration programs will mount their corals off the sand bed

 

[48Kaiser]

I guess I misunderstood what I read. I thought it said something about 4-6” being good.

 

[edsbeaker]

I’ll likely end up with little automation just because of the cost. I have seen a couple people mention reagents and dosing in the little I’ve searched so far. I don’t know anything about that. What are those things about?

I’ll try and do my best to explain!

If you are going to have a reef tank, especially with corals, you will regularly need to test the water for minimally, salinity, phosphate and nitrate. If you keep coral, you will likely need to add on testing for alkalinity, calcium, and occasionally magnesium. Corals rely on these supplements to grow and stay healthy. They need to be kept in a certain range, and most importantly, the values should be stable without fluctuating much. These test kits need something called reagents. They are the liquid that when added to the tank water sample, per the test instructions, allow you to get the results. When you buy reagents they will only do a certain amount of tests before they run out or expire. You will need to buy more at that point.

Dosing has many meanings. There are various things people dose into there tanks to maintain health. The most common is alkalinity, calcium and magnesium. These are used up by things in the tank like corals, coralline algae, some inverts with shells growing, etc. as they are used up, they need to be replenished. When you make saltwater, the salt you use will have some amounts of these compounds, but each brand is different. Depending on your tank, and what you’re housing, water changes can replenish the loss, but for the majority of reefers with coral water changes will not be enough and will have to add these things either by hand or using a dosing pump that can be set with a timer or a controller connected to your system.

Here is a good guide that may help you. It’s pretty basic, but is still a good read.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-supreme-guide-to-setting-up-a-saltwater-reef-aquarium.138750/
Here is some other videos that you can choose from. They are from a store called Bulk Reef Supply and put out some very helpful videos. There is a huge library on just about any topic.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/content

 

[mmodo]

I think since you've been gone for so long, you'll see posts and commentary about different trends that have gone through the hobby. There was a time when 4-6" sand bed was very popular, 1-2" minimum is generally accepted (and cheaper), some people do a bare bottom FOWLR (fish only with live rock).

The most popular way to set up tanks now is:

Dry or live rock. Live rock is very expensive and harder and harder to find, maricultured rock is more common. Dry rock is usually around $3/lb with needing 1 lb rock = 1 gallon of water in a tank (100 gallon tank would need minimum 100 lbs of rock). There's a lot of discussion about dry vs live and the benefits buy dry rock has its place when it comes to budget or avoiding certain pests, plus it becomes live rock eventually.

Drilled holes in the bottom of the tank to go down to a sump, usually another tank below, ~30% volume of the DT (display tank). So, 100 gallon DT would need a 30 gallon sump. You can also add more rock here for filtration, so you could go up to 130 lbs of rock.

The sump holds whatever you don't want in the DT and that varies for a lot of people. Typically, reefers begin with filter socks or filter roller mat (removes large organics, waste, etc), a protein skimmer (removes smaller organics), a refugium (biological filteration), then a return pump with a heater fitting somwhere in there. All of these areas are seperated by glass or plastic baffles to control water height. Other things you would put here (but would not need immediately or at all) would be things like a GFO reactor, extra supplements, ATO (auto top off), or any automation really.

Maybe that gives better summary. The internet can give a lot information about a lot of random things that don't make a lot of sense. Usually it's because reefing is so customizable and there are people that have done it for decafes that it's hard to jump into the conversation and know how to even start. Everything I said above can be done multiple different ways, but it's a good jump off point to at least start pricing things out and seeing your preferred method.

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

I say go for it! You can also start a business selling frags. You definitely have the edge on many people since you kept tanks in the past. Skimmers are great but not everyone does it. I have one and dont need it because I have low nutrients.

 

[48Kaiser]

Things have definitely advanced since I was n this. I did pretty well with the corals I has but I didn’t get into things like sps. I joke it’s not a coral but I did have a bubble tip anemone, which reminds me that I had a mated pair if maroon clowns, the anemone split multiple times. Ended up with 3 or 4.

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

what corals did you keep? There are very easy SPS and very difficult SPS. The easy ones just need to have average lighting and flow, and alk doesnt have to be as stable, though it helps. Acropora are a whole different category, though the internet sellers like to lump all SPS into one category, which is ridiculous.

 

[48Kaiser]

Have to forgive my memory. Trying to remember all the names of things. Acropora is what I never got into but would be interested in. I had mushrooms, leather and past that the names are not coming back to me. I know I tried a gorgonian that didnt do well. I had a coral that looked like little bubbles that were like a very light pink, I had some Xenia that popped up on my live rock after a while. I know there was a lot more but, again, it was 25 years ago. I did have a giant clam towards the end that seemed to do pretty well.

 

[48Kaiser]

I think since you've been gone for so long, you'll see posts and commentary about different trends that have gone through the hobby. There was a time when 4-6" sand bed was very popular, 1-2" minimum is generally accepted (and cheaper), some people do a bare bottom FOWLR (fish only with live rock).

The most popular way to set up tanks now is:

Dry or live rock. Live rock is very expensive and harder and harder to find, maricultured rock is more common. Dry rock is usually around $3/lb with needing 1 lb rock = 1 gallon of water in a tank (100 gallon tank would need minimum 100 lbs of rock). There's a lot of discussion about dry vs live and the benefits buy dry rock has its place when it comes to budget or avoiding certain pests, plus it becomes live rock eventually.

Drilled holes in the bottom of the tank to go down to a sump, usually another tank below, ~30% volume of the DT (display tank). So, 100 gallon DT would need a 30 gallon sump. You can also add more rock here for filtration, so you could go up to 130 lbs of rock.

The sump holds whatever you don't want in the DT and that varies for a lot of people. Typically, reefers begin with filter socks or filter roller mat (removes large organics, waste, etc), a protein skimmer (removes smaller organics), a refugium (biological filteration), then a return pump with a heater fitting somwhere in there. All of these areas are seperated by glass or plastic baffles to control water height. Other things you would put here (but would not need immediately or at all) would be things like a GFO reactor, extra supplements, ATO (auto top off), or any automation really.

Maybe that gives better summary. The internet can give a lot information about a lot of random things that don't make a lot of sense. Usually it's because reefing is so customizable and there are people that have done it for decafes that it's hard to jump into the conversation and know how to even start. Everything I said above can be done multiple different ways, but it's a good jump off point to at least start pricing things out and seeing your preferred method.

 

[48Kaiser]

I know about the sump and refugium. I had a 30 gallon sump I think on the 180 and 225/235. I rigged up a way to do a 10 falling refugium above the tank in my homemade canopy. I did that because I was trying to make sure the mandarin goby had enough to eat. Not sure if that really worked or not.

So how does the dry rock become live? Is that due to starting with live sand and that continues to reproduce into the rock?

What is a sock? Read that in a couple other threads. That wasn’t a thing 25 years ago. At least that I knew of

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

for a 180, you'll be spending some money to light the tank for acro.

Mushrooms are hot these days- especially the popular ones. And they self propogate easily.

 

[48Kaiser]

for a 180, you'll be spending some money to light the tank for acro.

Mushrooms are hot these days- especially the popular ones. And they self propogate easily.

Back then I had 3 metal hallides and 6 fluorescents. Are those still being used? I see some stuff about LED.

 

[mmodo]

for a 180, you'll be spending some money to light the tank for acro.

Mushrooms are hot these days- especially the popular ones. And they self propogate easily.

Back then I had 3 metal hallides and 6 fluorescents. Are those still being used? I see some stuff about LED.

It's mostly LED now but the other varieties are still sold

 

[mmodo]

I know about the sump and refugium. I had a 30 gallon sump I think on the 180 and 225/235. I rigged up a way to do a 10 falling refugium above the tank in my homemade canopy. I did that because I was trying to make sure the mandarin goby had enough to eat. Not sure if that really worked or not.

So how does the dry rock become live? Is that due to starting with live sand and that continues to reproduce into the rock?

What is a sock? Read that in a couple other threads. That wasn’t a thing 25 years ago. At least that I knew of

I wasn't sure if you did a sump or not, so I was covering my bases. When you mentioned skimmer, I didn't know if it was a surface skimmer or protein skimmer, so I might as well go through it all.

The process of building an appropriate ecosystem builds up the dry rock to become like live rock. You'll have good bacteria and coralline and other critters as you add them. That's why people want the live rock because it boosts the ecosystem on day 1. So, instead dof having the benefit up front, you're kind of watching it happen in real time.

It's basically a plactic ring with fabric to form a way to catch large particulates. Usually they come in 4" or 7" diameter sizes and a variety of lengths. The most common filter density is 200 micron, I think. You have your pipes from the DT pour the water through to catch anything large and then you remove it every few days to empty it out and clean it. The automatic rollers do the same thing but its more automated, just more expensive.

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

Back then I had 3 metal hallides and 6 fluorescents. Are those still being used? I see some stuff about LED.

halides are still considered the best by some sps keepers. T5 too.

 

[48Kaiser]

Going back to my bubble tip anemone that had split multiple times back then. I know lighting is important for them. There were people online that said it was splitting because it didn’t have proper light, which didnt make sense to me. There was a guy that wrote, at that time, 2 books. I can’t remember for sure but I feel like his last name was Shimek maybe? Anyway, he did a seminar near me that I attended. When I told him about the anemone and what people were saying, he said they had no clue. He said for an organism to reproduce it must be getting all its needs met so I must’ve been doing something right. Well, i didnt replace bulbs as often as people recommended and I was lazy with water changes. I don’t know.

 

[kingranch2003]

I’m 55. Wife and I had a few reef tanks years ago starting with a 75, then a 90, then a 180 and finally a 225 or 235. It’s been about 25 years, can’t remember for sure. I was the one who took care of it. I wouldn’t say I was any kind of expert. I did a lot of things the wrong way but had pretty good success with the last 2 tanks. I never did a quarantine tank. Didn’t even know that existed until the internet came along a couple years before I got out of it. I did water changes but not as much as I probably should.

Anywa, kids cane along, wife wanted to stay home, I started working 6 days a week to give her that. Just couldn’t keep up with the tank and traded it for a bunch of tools and stuff. Kids are grown now, wife and I are taking about getting into it again. I just starts a business so money is tight and this will probably be a year or 2 down the road till I get the business off the ground but though I’d look into what’s changed in 25 years. I had live rock, live sand and a skimmer for filtration.

I did a little brief searching on here but nothing extensive. Did see where some suggest no skimmers anymore. I read the thread on how to do a quarantine tank. That’s a lot to digest for me but I’m not opposed to it even through I never seemed to have problems not doing it. I see people buy fish and coral online and have them shipped direct. That wasn’t a thing back then.

If I do this it will be minimum 180, preferably bigger if money and space allows. I guess I’m looking for advice on how to run the tank. I would like it to be as automated as possible if it’s not too expensive.

Welcome!

 

[Jimbhoy13]

Welcome to R2R and back to the salty world.