What I'd do differently next time.

[mseepman]

Hey, welcome back.

I would say that if I had to re-do things, I would ask more questions on forums than just trust my LFS and I would think more carefully about my aquascaping since it directly affects my ability to stock the tank.

[Buccaneer]

Hey Deb ... owning these living systems is a journey of discovery I find

[naesco]

I would set up a hospital tank before I set up the main tank to protect the main tank from aptasia, and ich to name a few self-created problems.

[Snappy]

If I could do it again I would start with a much bigger tank (at least 400 or 500 gal) and go straight to 400 watt MH's. I would also build a fish room first.

[MikeP]

Depending on the look you want, maybe a PVC structure for aquascaping your rock.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

I would think real long & hard about whether or not this is the best "black hole" for all my money to get gravitationally pulled into

Actually, over the years, I've run the gamut (woohoo, first time using this word) from total KISS to fairly high-tech reef setups. Its been interesting & educational to find that it is possible to be successful & have nice tanks using many approaches, from the ultra low-tech to the easier, but more expensive high tech tanks.

If I had to start up a new tank, I would want to get a 30" or 36" wide tank to have a more open sandbed. I know that this would have the drawback of making it hard to reach the stuff in the back though. Still, a wider tank would be soooo sweet, evn though I'm very happy with my current 210g setup.

Anthony

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by SeaHorse_Fanatic

If I had to start up a new tank, I would want to get a 30" or 36" wide tank to have a more open sandbed. I know that this would have the drawback of making it hard to reach the stuff in the back though. Still, a wider tank would be soooo sweet, evn though I'm very happy with my current 210g setup.

Anthony

My 330G was only 2 ft wide ( 8 ft long mind you ) ... but I hear ya about having a sandbed and some swimming room for the fish up front ... what I found was that after I stacked enough rock to aquascape it to the way I liked it there was really only about 6 or 8 inches of sand left at the front ... as a result I did not put as much rock in the middle to try to make it more open ( so that I had a little over a foot of open sandbed in the middle ) ... well guess where my large green BTA decided to call home ? ... yup you guessed it ... right in the middle with his foot attached under a rock overhang about 6" off the sand ... well when he " stretched out " the other fish had to be careful not to get stung ... if you have ever had a rabbitfish you will know they are not the smartest fish in the tank and would regularly brush up against that anemone and get a good welt ... but with a 42" wide tank I will be able to do some cool aquascaping and at the same time not make it look so crowded in there ... maybe open up the rockwork ... we will see

[trilinearmipmap]

1. I would have a single overflow with Herbie's silent overflow system.

2. I would feed the pipe from the overflow directly into the protein skimmer.

3. I would not buy any fish that require frozen food, due to nutrient issues.

4. I would have redundancy: two return pumps in case one failed, two heaters, basically take some steps to avoid a tank catastrophe.

5. LED lighting.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by MikeP

Depending on the look you want, maybe a PVC structure for aquascaping your rock.

Funny thing is that when I had my 330G I did play around with trying to build a pvc structure but could not make it work where I would not be able to see at least some part of the pvc ( which really bugged me ) so I tore it out and just tried to stack the rock in as open a architecture as possible

[Pescador]

The problem is that the tank would be right where the first reflection point for the right speaker.

Cool program, I haven't been to AVS in a while.
Are you doing multichannel or 2?
So what do you have to do, diffuser panels cuz of parallel walls?