Please help to decide what pieces to upgrade when.
 

Hi all!

I've made the plunge from fresh water to saltwater with the intent of building a reef w/fish tank. I bought a sweet starter unit that may not be so sweet when I look at all of the upgrades I need to make.

It was a 54 gallon bowfront corner unit with stand. It came with a Rena XP-2 canister filter with spray bar, a Red Sea Prizm HOB skimmer, a 9 watt Tetra pond UV clarifier, 2 1048 eheim return/draining pumps, three koralia powerhead and a jager heater. It also has a compact florescent hood unit (I think Coral life), with fan for actinics and whites.

My first upgrade of choice would be to go with a sump however I have cats, lots of them, and nothing mucks up the works like cat hair, plus with the corner stand, I really don't know where I would put it and the bottom is tempered glass, so it cannot be drilled . That leads me to think that upgrading to a larger canister filter would be a great idea but then that would limit me to the hob skimmer, would it not?

I've got some great liverock with lots of corraline algae that has been cycling for over a month and a half now. It came from a 7 year old mature system. However, I would love to invest in a RO system so I can use tap water as getting RO water is a pain due to where we live. My parameters are all in check but I can see my phosphates slowly creeping up with the growth of hair algae and cyano.

I really don't know where to begin as I read and read and read and I think I've got it narrowed down to replacing a component but then worry that I might be missing something.

Any system tweaks suggested? Additions? Deletions? Right now, this is as big as a tank as I can get as we have many, many other freshwater tanks resulting on a limited amount of real estate in our home for anything larger.

Please share your expertise and make suggestions. TIA!!!

I would get rid of the filter and invest in a better skimmer. :biggrin:

Thanks for your reply. So then no filter at all, just upgrade the skimmer?

Yes

SkimmerKing has one for sale a Deltec 500. He has it on here for a great price by the way.
You may wish to go bigger though it depends what you plan to keep. The bigger the bioload the bigger the skimmer.

What are your plans for the tank for fish? And what corals you wish to keep?

PM'd you.

My plans for the tank are mostly softies with lps, so nutrient rich waters. I'm not sure about fish yet as I want to strike the right nutrient balance with the corals first before I increase my bioload.

Is it possible to have a sump in a bowfront with the middle compartment shaped like this / \ ? I've been doing a lot of reading and for the tank I hope to run a sump would make more sense then a hob skimmer. Is there a way to cover the sump partially to protect from the cat hair, screening it possibly?

tank
 

if you can,drill the back of the tank for your overflow to your sump and use a herbie or bean animal.also look into the return-how are you going to bring the water back up.you also need water movement in the tank-whether it's powerheads or a wave box

you can also but HOB overflow boxes and as for the sump try to get one with a lid to keep cat hair out mine for my 75G has one that should keep cat hair out:mrgreen:

I've got 2 eheim pumps used for draining the tank that could be used for the return and 3 koralia powerheads for water movement due to the bow front.

Yeah, I was wondering what kind of overflow would work because I don't have a whole heck of a lot of room. Right now the Rena canister, eheim pumps and the tetra UV sterilizer fits in this cramped area (with the eheim pumps and the UV unit off the ground and attached to the sides).

/ \ Ideally, I could build a sump looking like this with a skimmer and the
l l l return hoses at the apex. And if I could fit the entire unit inside, there would be a smaller chance of getting cat hair in the water, but I still might screen it.