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Old 11-28-2008, 07:26 AM
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Welcome to Canreef and Salt water.

I gotta say I agree with Niloc16. There's ways to save money, and then there's being cheap to the point of setting yourself up for disaster.

As an example, for water changes you can buy a 150 gallon pail of instant ocean for $40ish from J&L which is right in Burnaby for you. At roughly 60 gallons of water (total volume) a 10% water change is going to be 6 gallons. At that rate that $40 will last you 25 water changes or roughly 6 months (if you're changing weekly) so that works out to be $1.60 in salt each water change. I don't know about Vancouvers tap water so I'll recommend RO and let more local guys prove me wrong. If you have a grocery store or water store nearby you can typically buy a 5 gallon jug of RO water for about $4 or $5 here in Alberta. Hopefully it's the same where you live so that brings your cost/water change up to $6.60 each time. If that's really too much for you then I gotta say you're probably in the wrong hobby. Without a skimmer water changes are quite important.

I would second the recommendation for the hydor seltz line. I'm also using a quiet one 3000 and it works fine. I like your idea of a refugium that's almost the same size as the display but I would stay away from a DSB, if you want go with a couple of inches for aesthetics.

If you really don't want to spend a whole bunch on lighting right now, I would start it as a FOWLR tank with Normal Flourescent lighting. Even regular flourescent bulbs should allow you to grow some nice macros that will also contribute to nutrient export. Save your money and buy a quality used fixture when one becomes available and as funds allow.
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