Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeT
Sorry 'Myka' I do appreciate the long post you wrote but it was mostly straight forward and I understand it ..... except the empty tank for 6-8 weeks allowing the cyle period, thats along time.
I won't be drilling the tank so a HOB skimmer would be my best option. I think I'll be looking in the DIY section to see about lighting, a good light will break the bank so soon after Xmas.
Can I start the tank as a fish only with live rock, add more live rock over time slowly building up to a small reef. I know I would need to get reef safe fish , but could those reef safe fish survive with only some live rock in the tank?
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Your tank wouldn't be empty. It will have the live rocks, then the cleanup crew. Not to mention all the little critters that will start popping up on the rock, in the water, one the sand, and in the sand. It seems like a long time, but it will go by soon enough. My tank didn't even see a fish until it was 8 months old. Haha! Mostly just because I couldn't decide what to put in it. I had lots of corals though. I think the first coral went in around week 8.
If you want to add live rock to an existing tank the best idea is to put the new rock in a bin with a heater and a powerhead for 4 weeks to cycle it before you put it in your tank, otherwise you'll have a mini cycle from the die-off on the rock. You can buy "cured" live rock, but there will still be some die-off, and it will cost you more.
The reef safe fish will be just fine without corals.
Spend as much money as you can afford on a skimmer. There are only two brands of HOB skimmers I recommend, AquaC Remoras and the Deltecs. The Deltecs are faaaaaaaaaaar superior to the AquaCs, but also cost quite a bit more. I don't think any other brand of HOB skimmer is worth the cost of taking them to the dump. For your tank, you'd need the Remora Pro (~$265), or for Deltec the MCE300 ($290) would be sufficient if you don't plan to stock heavily. The Deltec MCE600 ($495) would be a better choice and would help to buffer the newbie mistakes you
will make.
Deltec also makes a skimmer that sits
inside your aquarium called the MC500 ($450), but you lose tank space.
I would recommend you use T5 lighting because it is strong enough that you could try some lower light corals like mushrooms, polyps, and maybe zoos without having to upgrade your lighting. As well, if you do eventually want to keep higher light corals and want to upgrade your lighting to MH you can still use your T5s for actinics. You can buy retrofit kits for fairly cheap, and the bulbs are all fairly cheap as well. T5s run fairly cool, and have really nice color as well as lots of bulb selection.