New Reef
 

Okay i have decided that before next christmas i would like to start up a 33 gallon reef. Exept i plan on doing it 100 percent right and not cut any corners plus take all the advise you people can give me here is what i have decided on. Feel free to make comment.

33 gallon tank
pc lights (2 55 watt 50/50)
35 - 40 lbs of LR
3 inch sand bed
10 gallon fuge
not sure on what type of skimmer yet
not sure how powerful or what type or how many powerheads i should get.
For salt i will use wither IO or Kent

FISH
2 ocellaris clowns
firefish
2 neon gobies or a midas blenny or hectors goby

Cleanup crew
10 Red Scarlet Hermit Crab
10 blue legged hermit crabs
1 emeral Crab
5 astrea snails
5 bumble bee snails
5 cerith snails
10 Mergarita snails
10 Nassarius Snails
1 cleaner shrimp
2 peppermint shrimp
1 Lettuce Nudibranch (Jl said they are esy to keep still iffy though)
3-5 Hawaiian fetheur duster
bubble anemone (green)

Corals
assorted mushrooms (ricordea and furry forsure)
toad stool
hammer
Leather (not sure what type)
Colt
GSP
Clove Polyps
Zoo's (assorted colours)

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Everything sounds pretty good to me. I would go with no less than two Maxi jet 1200 power heads for flow, that would work really nice. Will your fuge be mounted under the tank, like a sump? The only thing I think might be off is the depth of your sand bed. 3 inches is certainly fine but a bit overkill IMO. Have fun! :biggrin:

Hey Ryan,

I have a 33g & I think if I had to do it all over again, I would upgrade immediately to a 66g. You very quickly run out of space in a 33 since you have a footprint of only 3 sq. feet. If you stick with the 33g, check out the difference in lighting & price between a 96w & 2*55w. I'm very happy with my 96w, but I found the 65w not bright enough, especially 50:50s by Corallife. 55w would be even dimmer. Go to the LFS & have them plug it in for you so you can do a side-by-side comparison.

Also, as suggested in another posting, start smaller with the clean-up crew & add more as you need since your tank may not have enough algae & detritus to support everything & some then starve to death & pollute your tank.

Larger water volume also makes for a more forgiving setup. Just my $.02.

Regardless, have fun with the setup.

Anthony

Ryan,

If you're going to do it right the first time, my suggestions would be:

1. Get MH lighting. Don't bother with PC because (as Seahorse) said, if you upgrade the size of your tank, your PC light may not be long enough and will need to be replaced. MH can be used, and if not enough you can add another one. For now, I would get 1MH 250W fixture going for corals (especially if you want to keep some SPS, I know you will eventually want to!). :lol:

2. Get a good skimmer. If you have a sump, even better because you can get an in-sump model. I run a Remora Pro on mine, and it's a huge eyesore although it's probably one of the best HOB skimmer on the market right now. Also, the pump is unsightly in my tank and would look even worse in a 33G. DON'T GET A PRIZM or SEACLONE!!!

3. Go with Tunze streams. You can probably put one 6060 in your tank if you mount it high enough. When you get a bigger tank, you can always add more.

All of the above is what I eventually upgraded or want to upgrade to. I spent so much money cheaping out or buying something that would only accomodate what I had then, and not what I might want in the future. I would have saved so much $$$$$

If only I could do it all over again......

Danny
The fuge will be like a big AC it will hang on the back and flow into the tank. A pump will suck water from the tank into the fuge. Okay so instead of 3 inches go to what maybe 1.5 or 2 inches of sand bed?

Seahorse_Fanatic
I only hane room for a 33 gallon this is why i am doing it this small. (Damb discus lol). I have both PC and MH here but i thought a MH on a 33 was over doing it. But if not i will build a canopy for it then. As for the cleanup crew this weas my plan to add it slowly it was just what i was goign to end up with. :biggrin: sorry for the confusion.

Dirtyreefer
Ya like i said i had both lights and i thought the PC were over doing it. I have a 150 sitting here but if i am using a halide i will get some marine glow flouresent fixtures. No i am sorry to say with this tank i do not want SPS. too much care involved. (Damb discus take up enough of my time) Also i will drill the tank then and use a sump what Insump model should i buy. Maybe a red Sea Dez had one for sale i wonder if he still has it? Tunze streams? What r they like a wave maker or a giant power head?? I would like to stick with mare smaller power heads because i have timers i can use that will work with my computer so i can ave random motions.

Just a note: I do not hate discus if this is what u were thinking lol :lol: I love my discus. They are my life. Dont take the "damb Discus" wrong.

Yeah, you don't want some Tunze in your 33G. They put out massive amounts of water and are huge (imagine 2 Hagen 802 powerheads stuck together). Also, a 4ft tank is usually the minimum recommended on the Tunze as they don't achieve their nice wide pattern of flow before then.

I would also do away with some of the rock and perhaps cut it down to 25 pounds or so. The reason being that every time you purchase a coral, it is usually on a piece of rock. So, if you start out with your tank already packed with rock, then when you add coral you'll usually have to either remove some excess rock anyway or reduce the water volume in your tank and replace it with rock. Of course it all depends on the look you like though...the massive rock walls or the rock "piles" with a lot of open swimming space.

If you are going to drill the tank and run a sump, then for a return pump I would use a Mag 5 or 7 or even a 9.5 and get a SCWD wavemaker. This way you can almost do away with powerheads in your tank (with proper plumbing setup) which will give you more room in the tank for whatever.

Also, if you never plan on keeping SPS or clams, then your 2x55/65W PC lamps would do fine for your 33. I'm not sure why you would use 2 50/50 bulbs instead of 1 actinic and 1 10000K which would allow you to do the dusk/dawn thing.

Don't skimp on your skimmer, but don't break the bank trying to get one with all the bells and whistles. There are many very effective and cheap DIY skimmers such as the EAP (Easy As Pie) EuroReef knock-off which perform surprisingly well. I know a few local reefer who are running/have run them with much success.

Most importantly is to take it slow and take advice given to you from more experienced reefers. I know there is/was tension between other board members and yourself, but you just need to know when to keep your mouth shut and your ears open.

That's all for now!

Yeah, I vote for 1 10,000k & 1 actinic. The 50:50 from coral life are not-really up to snuff in the lower wattages.

Good luck on this project.

If you only have 3 feet to play with, maybe a 50g that's 3 long & 16-18 wide would be better. Just a thought. Once I put in some good sized LR in my 33g, there was barely any clearance in the front of the tank since its only 12 inches wide.

Good advice from everyone. To help you out further, here's how my tank is setup.

I currently have a 30 gallon tank with a 15 gallon sump. I have an unknown amount of LR+base rock, but I'd say its around 30-40 pounds worth plus another 5-10 pounds worth in my sump/refuguium. I have no sand bed (except for a little bit of sand that "hitchhiked" on my rocks). My refugium consists of baserock and is packed with chaetomorpha macro algae. I've stuck some of the algae in between my baffles as a kind of organic filter floss.
My return pump is a Mag9.5 plumbed through a SCWD. Attached to the SCWD's outputs are Ocean Motion Revolutions for additonal random flow patterns. In addition to my return pump, I have two medium sized Maxi-jets. I forget their model number, and they are of an older model... but I think they produce around 200-250 gph of flow each. I'd guess I have a turnover rate of around 30-40x an hour. Keeps the bottom of my tank quite clean :razz: .
Lighting consists of 2x175watt 10000k Ushio MH bulbs, powered by two M57 ballasts I got from Bartle and Gibson for 63 bucks each. I'm also using one 95watt VHO super actinic powered on a workhorse 7 ballast I picked up from another local lighting supply store. Reflector is a 36" reflector + socket combo I got from J&L.
My skimmer is a bakpak2r that I picked up used from a local reefer. I'm thinking about eventually building my own beckett skimmer when I have some time.
Top off is handled by a pair (at least it used to be a pair) of float switches connected to a relay. Plugged into the relay is a small mini-jet (606 I think) pump. RO water is pumped from a 5 gallon tank through and through my kalk reactor.
Live stock includes a pair of ocellaris clowns and an algae blenny. Cleanup crew consists of 2 astrea snails and perhaps two cerith snails... though I haven't seen the cerith snails in weeks. I hope to add another 6 astrea, 6 trochus, 1 cleaner shrimp and 2 peppermints in the very near future.
Corals consist of a few mushrooms, some zoos, pulsing xenia, colts, an orange monti cap and a green-ish digitata. Initially I wanted to go softies only, but after seeing a monti cap in person, I knew I wanted one... the digitata was an accidental frag that I decided to keep. I hope to eventually get my hands on a frogspawn frag (if I'm ever quick enough :lol: ), or maybe a BTA. I haven't made up my mind yet... which ever comes first :razz:

I used to run PC lights over my tank (192 watts), and it was doing fine. However, I noticed quite a difference in my soft corals (I didn't have hard ones yet) after I switched over to MH lights. If you can, I would suggest going with MH lights which will save you any trouble if you decide to change your mind with regard to the higher light demanding corals. If I went MH from the beginning, I would have saved myself quite a bit of dough, which I would have put into a bigger/badder skimmer.

HTH
-Richer

Ugh, Rich, do you have a condensed version? I don't want to read that essay of yours :mrgreen:

I think I can help you harvey... :mrgreen:

nuff said. :razz:

I'll condense it for ya if you give me one of those BTAs you have... :razz:

-Richer

Hey Ryan,
I have had my 27gl(same footprint as 33gl) running for 7 years and I'm really happy with the results :biggrin:
My tank is a little shorter, which I'm sure is part of the reason why I can keep many SPS corals alive and growing.
I would go with the PC's if I didn't already have a nice custom made light hood.
Check out my webpage if you want to see what's worked on my setup, lot's of pics there too!
http://members.shaw.ca/sumpfinfishe/

Newguy
I would like my rock pile looking like the edge of the reef with lots of caves and tunnels in it. I see your point i will definalty cut the rock down to 25 pounds. How do you supose i should drill my tank so i get the proper water flow? I hope to maybe get 1 clam in there eventualy but not realy that soon. I thing i will just stick with the halide. That way even if i do want to go to SPS then i wont have to worry about the lighting issue.

Richer could you post a picture of your tank?
Sumpfinfishe I wil definalty check it out I have to go to work now need to save money for this tank.

Since you will have a canopy and since your tank has a trim, you could almost try the Calfo style return manifold as seen here:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/imag...003/calfo1.jpg

I used this briefly on my current tank, but decided to go with something else later on since I was running an open top and all the pipes were visible. If you do it correctly, all the pipes can be easily hidden. I have mine hooked up to a SCWD wavemaker as well so that only 1/2 of the manifold would fire at one time. It worked beautifully. I would be cool if you could use 2 of those manifolds...one on the top of the tank, the other under your sand bed...

The problem with getting the right water movement is that it all depends on how you set up your rocks. Basically, you just want to avoid dead spots as much as possible.

Get in line man! :mrgreen: You are behind Muck and about 3 other people...

I don't have anything too recent, as I don't have my digital camera on hand.

Here it is in the beginning with power compacts:

http://www.telusplanet.net/public/me.../Tankshot1.jpg

Here it is with MHs

http://www.telusplanet.net/public/me.../Tankshot4.jpg

This picture was just taken a few minutes ago... quick and dirty (emphasis on dirty).
http://www.telusplanet.net/public/me.../tankshot5.jpg
-Richer

Here's my 27gl under NO's
http://members.shaw.ca/sumpfinfishe/images/fulltank.jpg

Looking good!

Looking good!

New guy
I have no idea what you are talking about becasue the link wont work are you sure you have it right?

Richer
if you are looking for a BTA I got 2 here at my LFS not too big eather about a 2 inch diameter. Still small. I like the look Nice clowns Here are 2 things i dont like about it thoguh. You put the over flow in the middle which i am sure works great but it is too visible. Second I dont liek the look of BB. This is just me but you have a beautiful tank.

Sumpfinfishe
I absoloutly love your tank. I looked at your site. Beautiful tank. Do you have pictures of when you were setting it up. Is that a little clarki in the back corner (reflection off the glass) you should put another Pink skunk in ther and have a pair. That would be awsome. They are one of my favourite clowns. How do you get your tank to glow like that. The corals realy do glow. And the colours are awsome.

I dunno. Link works for me? Anyone else having trouble loading the link?

when are you going to get rid of thoes NO's and move to MH :mrgreen: a couple DE 150HQIs would be awsome on that tank.

Steve

Stircarz you are crazy if this set up has been working for him for 7 years and his tank looks that good why would he switch? Kinda seems silly to me. Mind you i am not a big SPS guy.

:rolleyes:

Hey Steve:
You work on the boat don't you,
well if the ship's not sinking then why abandon it :mrgreen:
Or maybe your just jealous of how well my purple bottlebrush looks :razz:

Ryan:
If you PM me with your ?'s I would be glad to give you any input, and thanks for the comments :biggrin:

Nope, actualy I was noting the lack of even color :wink: :mrgreen: and if I want my coral to look that blue I can load up the atinics like anyone else :rofl: but I like them to look Blue (or what ever color) when the lights are off also.

Steve

Hi Sumpfin,

What is that coral in the center of your tank, next to you Acro (to the right)? It looks like it has an encrusted base, and a thin stalk and is pink.

Ryan, I've changed the link so that just a picture shows up now rather than the whole page describing the system.

I got the link to work That seems like a good system. I will probaly do that. What do u supose the size of pump i use?

Well, it all really depends on how far you need to pump the water and whether or not you will have any other sources of flow in your tank. If you want everything to be done with one pump (not the best idea) then you'd obviously need a larger pump. However, if you will have other sources of flow (be it from closed loops or powerheads) then you can get by with a smaller pump.

Personally, on your 33G (assuming that you are using a standard 30" tall stand, using a SCWD and the manifold as described above), I would use either a Mag 9.5 or Mag 12 if you needed to run the pump in the sump, or a nice small pressure rated external pump like a Little Giant 4MDQ-SC, or CSL T3. If you really want to splurge and spend $$$ on a nice pressure rated pump, you could do an Iwaki 40RLT. The reason I oversized the pumps a bit was from the fact that the SCWD and all those elbows and tees add a lot of headpressure to the pump.

Newguy,
That's my purpletip bottlebrush acro. It took awhile to branch as it formed a really heavy base, now it's branching out like crazy as you can see by all the new growth white tips.

Well i was going to do an over flow box in the left corner and just use gravity to feed it to my sump. From the sump i will pump via the flow thing you showed me and put in 1 or 2 other smaller powerheads. I have also decided to go with the 3 foot 50 gallon tank. 36*18*18 or a 48 inch model not sure what sizes yet we will see.

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Thats a pretty cool manifold, I should design a triangular one for my corner tank! :mrgreen: Also, I'd like to second the notion about not getting a Seaclone, they suck!

How did u rig it up wiht the SCWD so only half would fire. It is a close loop. You must have bloocked half odf it off them eh?

I just replaced the PVC part where the pump outputs into the manifold with the SCWD. Then since all water passes through the SCWD, it will only fire 1/2 of the manifold at a time.

Ya but the manifold is a loopd so did just one nozzle at a time fire as it reached it? I mean wouldnt the water eventually work its way all the way around?

yeah....2X55watts...is not enough light...hammars and frogspawns might require more light..and later on u will see something u like..but realized it requires more light...

i have a 33gallon reef tank also...which you are planning too...i put a metal hailde on it with two atinics....gives me 235 watts....i can grow anythig in there...

and in my opinon....dependin on ur rock structure....try to build wif smaller rocks...i made a mistake on pickin out the big pieces..and it got stuff up quickly..and i had to remove some of them to make room for more corals...i have stuff in 20 pieces of corals in there.with 5 fish....it si pretty filled up....so if u plan on more corals..maybe u should consider a 48/50 gallon 4ft long.....up to u...jsut an idea wat and how much things u can put in a 33 gallon from expereicne..

as for my skimmer..i just use a seaclone 100 and a fluval 204...water circulation is by a maxijet 500

good luck....have fun......33 gallon is a nice beginingn reef size...easy to maintain...and not too much to build up to make it look beautiful

MCC: Well I hate to burst ones bubble here, there's a lot of belief out there that SPS and LPS will only live and grow under MH lighting.
For larger and deeper tanks this does hold truth, however for a 33gl reef I am 100% positive that you would be able to keep almost anything under HO T5's or PC's.
A tank of this length and depth would reguire no more than HO T5's in my opinion. My tank has a 33 footprint and all I have is normal output tubes-yes a whopping 90watts=3 per gallon. By the time you add sand and rockwork, one should have more than enough areas to keep softies, LPS, and yes even SPS :exclaim:

For the last three years I have fragged my Frogspawn and Hammer corals numerous times and have probably sold or traded around 70-80 frags just of these two corals. Below are to images, the first taken in July when I fragged the mother colony, the second in November. After only four months the mother colony had produced more crowns and full extension was back :biggrin:

As for the MH issue, I'm not saying that they are not brilliant lights, because if my tank was 6" deeper and 3ft longer then I would be running MH without a doubt. I'm simply stating that for a 33gl they might be a bit overkill. When you decide to upgade to a larger tank, chances are you wouldn't use a single MH fixture and the system may be outdated by then, where as if you used T5's or PC's now- you could use them again for your actinic spectrum later. JMO :mrgreen:



http://members.shaw.ca/sumpfinfishe/images/frogprop.jpg
http://members.shaw.ca/sumpfinfishe/images/frogham.jpg

I agree. MH should be used for punching through the water of deeper tanks, but T-5's are adequate to keep SPS in shallower ones.
Aqualine (makers of the Aquaspacelight) has now come out with an all T-5 light fixture. I think Wai's has them in stock now here in Calgary.

Mitch

I'll agree that PC's will keep pretty much any LPS and softies in a 33, but you will not get coloration in SPS unless they are kept higher up. a 33 is 18" deep (which is what my 94 was when you included the sand bed originally and stuff at about the 8 to 12" dept grew very slowly and was unexciting for color. when I went to MH that all changed growth went through the roof and color changed dramatical. SO I can say you can keep SPS under less than ideal conditions and you can ever Use NO if you keep them about 2" below the water surface (I think that is what yours are?) but you are not providing them the best conditions in your power.

Ryan, Rich's tank is an exception to the rule and is deceiving because of the placement of his corals, for the most part if you can afford MH do it, if you can't go VHO or PC.. If you want to try T5's go ahead but they are still new and a few tests I have seen show them to be over hyped. In an 18" tank you should have enuf light to keep anything alive, the only difference will be growth rate and coloration, but slow growth isn't a bad thing in all situations.

Oh, by the way I am going to shoot the next person that useses the watts/gal thing.. it is useless and doesn't mean a darn thing. say I got a 90 watt light on a tank that is 10 gal but only 5" high and I have a tank that is 10 gal but is 36" tall. is this 90 watts of light having the same effect at the bottom of these two tanks? nope but they are both 9 watts per gal. :rolleyes:

Steve