Thinking of setting up my first salt tank

[fkshiu]

Originally Posted by Ephraim

I'd prefer not to drill, I don't mind doing a little extra work for maintenance. I enjoy messing around in my tanks, that's half the fun.

I don't plan on keeping any fish in here so that should reduce my filtering requirements, correct? Basically all I want to have is snails and hermits to keep the tank clean and have a few type of soft corals growing on the rocks, more of a "still life" that's why I like planted tanks.

I've seen a few fishless reef tanks, but a low fishload is probably more beneficial to corals than no fishload. This is because fish are a natural part of a reef ecosystem. In fact, most corals actually eat fish poo. Think of the fish in a planted tank providing their natural fertilizer to the plants.

[Joe Reefer]

Originally Posted by Ephraim

what's wrong with using lava rock?

This is my opinion and other people believe it is ok to use. I dont. Lava rock can have traces of copper, silver, zinc, iron and all sorts of other metallic things that will kill or at least harm your reef tank. Your best bet is live rock and in your case to cut costs some base rock.

[Ephraim]

Good point, i never even thought of the metallic content. Would Tufa have the same problem? I have a ton of that lying around to that I'm probably not going to use anytime soon.

If the fish will benefit the corals, then I'll look at keeping a few fish as well, maybe some blennies or gobies. I can keep a blacktip reef shark in this size tank right? (j/k)

[woodcarver]

Hi Ephraim , I too will be soon making the plunge after keeping freshwater for many years and dabbling in saltwater many many years ago.
Just reading the thread and understanding that your pockets are not deep ,it may be a good idea to rethink the size of your proposed system.That is one pretty large tank and as the guys say will soon bust your budget.( you will need more and bigger sizes of everything )
The cost of a tank is only a small percentage of the cost of the whole system so why not go a little smaller ?
There are some amazing medium size set -ups on this site .
I am going to start with a 30 gallon cube that I picked up from a member for $60.00.
FISH ,( chad)Has a cube currently being set up and is giving us a blow by blow account of his progress. Don't be confused by the motorbikes at the beginning
............................ Dave.

[Ephraim]

I'm willing to spend alot more money if it's needed, I just want to keep it to what is nessesary. I'm a "go big or go home" type, ya know all or nothing. Plus all my other tanks have I plans for after i move. This is the only one awaiting inspiration. And i don't have enough wall space for another tank...literally, i doubt i have enough plugs in the house too

[woodcarver]

Way to go Ephraim ,I admire your chutzpah.Maybe I have got timid in my dotage !! Hope things go well and you show us what the journey is like .
.............Dave

[kwirky]

Welcome to canreef and welcome to the addiction

If you want to keep it simple, I'd say focus on these important things:

• your lighting
• good skimmer
• sufficient liverock
• a sump
• either the dedication to dose your calcium/alkalinity daily, or a system to do it for you
• a sump

or you can run a sumpless and skimmerless system if you feel daring enough.

those are the most imporant things and you can keep those simple as well.

Lighting your tank, because of it's long and narrow dimensions, would be best with T5 lighting. I'd recommend a sunlight supply fixture. If you're planning on softies and LPS (like my own tank), I'd recommend a 4 bulb fixture (four 72" lengths of bulbs). Make sure they're High Output (HO) driven and have individual reflectors for each bulb (so in other words, NOT the coralife fixtures heh). The PCs you have now are not enough, and if you were to add more, I'd just recommend a new fixture. The 6' length would make finding a proper length fixture hard. You COULD run two 250W metal halide bulbs if they're up high enough with a good reflector (a PFO parallel or something). They should be good for most softies. It would be cheaper to DIY. Some stuff would have difficulties in the far bottom corners though, and the middle bottom.

Next to your liverock, your skimmer is your most important means of filtration. Do your research and don't skimp on it. Go for something a little bigger than what you need too. I recommended the sump, because it opens up your choice of good skimmers drastically. Be careful, some brands are truthfull in their rated values, while some are enourmously overzelous in their skimming capabilities. (unless you go with a skimmerless system, explained later)

I'd recommend getting in touch with reefers in your area, or maybe keeping an eye on any local buy&sell papers for people selling liverock, or selling entire systems. You can get liverock for much cheaper than the store from a fellow reefer (or ex-reefer if they're selling or piecing their system out). If you can find some of good quality though (not overgrown with macro algae, covered in undesireable polyps, etc).

Like I said, a sump is VERY beneficial for a reef tank. You can put a skimmer in it. It keeps the display tank's water level even. It just makes everything so much more simpler. Plumb it off the back, instead of the bottom. You can keep it even simpler by drilling for your drain, instead of an overflow.

As for dosing, you'll have to maintain your calcium. You can go cheap, and mix kalk or two part mixture every day. I hated the daily chore of top-off, so I made a ghetto style DIY air driven top-off that doses kalkwasser mix for me. Plenty enough calcium for soft corals and LPS. You can spend the moolah on a litermeter to do it for you if you want, too. Just keep in mind it gets tedious to do it every single day, and if somone misses their dosing the animals feel it. If you're looking at something automatic, dosing pumps are the simplest to run, and for the same price as a high end calcium reactor, you get something MUCH easier to setup, and very easy to adjust down the road as your calcium demand changes. (no dosing required in a skimmerless system. more later)

And a sump. Did I mention a sump? lol

(i know some of you run sumpless and go you; i just know there's so many others that swear by their sumps. unless you have a skimmerless system. more later lol)

Whatever you do, you'll wish you had done some things different 6 months after you set it up

The gung ho attitude is great

You probably have an RO system if you have a planted tank, unless you have soft water in the first place. If you do have the RO, add a deionizer on a valve you can turn on for your saltwater, and turn off for your freshwater.

Oh!

Oh yeah! skimmerless systems! If you want to go REAL simple, you can do some research on skimmerless systems. They do weekly water changes, and it's quite doable if your bioload is kept way down (fewer fish, more inverts). You'll go through a lot more RO/DI water, and a lot more salt, but you'll have a more natural system, and dosing would be almost unimportant because your salt mix will maintain everything. Weekly 10-20% changes are usually sufficient to run skimmerless. Your liverock will take a lot longer to cycle though if it's not cured in any way in the first place.

[Renegade]

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

[Manny]

You should check out the pictures area of this board (top left of the home page) and have a look at some of the systems on there so you get an idea of what things look like in astablished tanks.

The best advise I can give you is do your reasurch, and buy the right equipment that is to the right specs. for your tank. Don't cut corners, this will only give you more trouble than it is worth and you will have trouble keeping things alive or healthy. Also TAKE YOUR TIME... Don't rush things.

If done properly this is a very rewarding hobby. Good luck

[Manny]

I use a Coral Life Super Skimmer that is rated up to 200gal on my 65gal tank. Thay can be used as hang on or in sump. I am very happy with it but the skimmer is rated for a tank that is almost 4 times larger than the one I am using it on, so keep that in mind.