Help Getting Started

[chandigz]

Questions are good. The only stupid questions are the ones you don't ask. Most of the people here "have been there, done that" and are giving advice from actual experience and know what works and what doesn't. What sort of worked 5-10 years ago is outdated and better ways have been created. Some things are the same with fresh and salt, some are not. You have to try to forget what you do with f/w and open your eyes to a new way of thinking. I have to agree with everyone else, forget the canister filter and use a skimmer. The only people who sometimes use only a canister filter instead of a skimmer are people with fish only tanks. The live rock will take care of your biological filtration. It also acts a source of denitrification(breakdown of nitrate into nitrogen gas by anerobic bacteria) . The protein skimmer is used to remove organic wastes from the water before it has a chance to turn into nitrate. One of Your goals in keeping a reef tank is to have a non existant nitrate level. Nitrate will cause major algae problems and interfear with coral growth and survival. Best peice of advise I can give you is take it slow, research(make sure its current)/ask questions, and do it right, it will cost you less in the long run and save a lot of headaches.

[c_scherer123]

Not much SW experience (yet...), but I have spent many hours researching and lurking around this and other forums.

I would skip the canister, and use the money towards a good skimmer (which removes the waste before it enters the nitrification cycle). Do LOTS of research on the skimmer before buying so you don't have to replace the skimmer.

Depending on stocking I would go with a pair of koralia 3's or 4's. SPS like really high turbulence, while mushrooms and other softies prefer slower flow.

With that lighting I would go more LPS and some deeper water SPS.

I would use two smaller heaters, in case one heater breaks the other can pick up the slack until you notice.

It is easier to design the tank around what you are planning to stock. That is how I am planning my 90g - I knew which fish and corals I wanted, and I narrowed it down to those that could coexist in the same area without (hopefully) any problems arising. After that, it is relatively easy to figure out what lighting the corals need, what amount of flow is suitable, and so on. I drew a rough sketch of what I wanted the rockwork to look like, which corals go where, where to place powerheads to direct flow where it is most needed, and so on. The sketch greatly helped me plan and pulled all the pieces together for me.