30 gallon reef help
 

i want to set up a 30 gallon reef tank.

going to put live rock, some fish and corals in it.

my problem is that i dont have room for a sump. i am thinking of using a hang on back filter and a canister filter. i do have a hang on back protein skimmer.

can anyone give me any advice if this will work with minimal maintenance?

i dont want to be having to do water changes all the time.

any help is appreciated.

What kind of skimmer do you have? You can run carbon in your hang-on-back filter but get rid of all your media and foam in your cannister and run live rock rubble.

Nothing wrong with a hang on filter. My 90g has two on it and a Tunze 9010 skimmer. I run carbon and phosphate remover media in the filter and sometimes run the particulate filters that come with them to clean. I have a Regent type and the largest Aqua Clear.

I dont like canisters myself, although they work fine if kept clean.

tank
 

do you find with the hang on's that you have poor water quality as opposed to a sump. are you always running phosphate sponge and carbon sponge?

Not at all. A sump is more convenient in some case but thats about it. Large overflows do a better job on o2/co2 exchange but there are other ways to help it in a sumpless situation.

I did run a good quality skimmer for one thing. Also lots of water movement with stream pumps and/or something like the Hydor pumps churning the surface.

I ran the same amount of Phosban and carbon either way, sump or sumpless. Amount just depends on tank size and bio load amount.

help
 

can anyone make any other suggestions to help me out with this and avoid a crash.

"Steam pumps"? And here I thought reefing was a high tech thing. ;)

Go slow. If your live rock is cured you can put that in right away to start your cycle. Get yourself some good test kits and I wouldn't add any fish for at least a month, longer for corals.

go slow
 

i used all dead rock. the guy at the store told me that this was the best. he said that it would come alive without the curing period and that i could add fish and corals asap.

Your LFS is stupid or corrupt or probably both. That said you will need to start over, sorry.