hey I've been in this hobby for almost 2 years now. And its not until the last couple weeks that i have been truly happy with my tank. I to "budgeted” to ensure that I only bought the essentials. And that turned out to be ALL the wrong things. Like you I just wanted to dabble in it, get my feet what keep just a few corals. But my set up did nothing but kill things over time and made me spend way more money then doing it right the first time.
Oh BTW My first tank was a 44g corner tank 2ft tall as well with some corallife PC 50/50 to light it with a hang-on skimmer. As well I ran a XP1 for filtration.
Mistake 1: XP1, let your live rock filter your tank, this caused nothing but problems for me and I could never keep up with maintaining it b/c it was so much work cleaning it, once a week just never seemed enough.
Mistake 2 Hang-on Skimmer: b/c your tank is constituently change level’s you can never really dial in the skimmer to properly skim, so you must have some kind of top off IMO to truly make a HOS work.
Mistake 3: lights tank is too deep. There nothing else to say really buy the write on the first time b/c otherwise every time I bought a coral it would just die not write away but in time it would slowly wither away.
So what I’ve done now and in 2 weeks and I’m not even kidding my tank is a whole new tank I have never seen it this way before. I added a overflow, put in a sump, took off my hang-on skimmer, bought a decent in-sump and in the process of buying 250w MH.
One of the biggest things with salt I’ve notice and this is just my opinion but some of the nicest tanks out there, water changes are done once to every 3 months the maintenance on salt is a whole different kind. Remember you are creating a sum-what self-sustaining ecosystem. Mechanical filtration just creates dumping grounds for waste.
Anyways do it write the first time to the best of you ability go to local stores or fellow reefers houses and check out there systems ask about filtration, check out what the use filter canisters for if at all, (some people empty them and fill them with crushed coral) honestly I wish someone just told me this is what I needed and there was no other way b/c even though skimmer less systems are possible, as someone new to this if you look at the people that run skimmer less systems that are truly remarkable have a lot of experience in my opinion and know exactly what there doing
but honestly GO SLOW and save your money nothing says you have to build it overnight, as you mentioned you have lots of tanks, so what if this one takes you 6 months to set b/c you buying the quality system that you’ll be happy with in the end
Kyle
anyways Good luck keep us posted
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