How Much...

[K.J.]

Okay, a few questions:
1: What's a good size for a reef? Small enough to keep water quality good.
2: How much will it cost to set up a reef w/ fish of that size?

And I'd appreciate it if you don't tell me a ton of things that don't pertain to the topic. Just thinking about going marine right now.

 

[SkiFletch]

Well KJ, you can do nano tanks as small as 10g or less for a reasonable cost. A full reef 10g nano would prolly cost you around $200-300 including livestock. Water quality would be tough to maintain though. IMO a great starter tank would be a 40 breeder or a 50 breeder. You could go simple and if you have decent DIY skills, you could probably set it up for around $600 or you could go crazy high-tech and spend well over $1000 on it. Its really a matter of how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go

HTH

 

[K.J.]

Haha great, just the awnser I was looking for. I was terrified you were going to say 10,000 or something. I was thinking of after a couple of breedings from my bettas I would convert a 36 bowfront into one, is that still too little to be a starter tank? It is possible for me to get a hundred gallon for free, just the tank, no stand or hood, but I still don't have room for that quite yet. Curious question, how much is an average lb of live rock? I've heard it mentioned but I can't remember. We live just next to a neighborhood bay, is it safe to get water a bit out from the shore if I test it to make sure everything is okay for the tank? I don't have a saltwater lfs within reasonable driving distances (I do have some but I can't go to it often) so I'll have to locate one, so I can't really buy saltwater and I don't know if I trust myself to mix it.

I've been reading up but I don't know exactly what I need. I mean, I know livestock what I'd like but I'm not a mechanical whizz. I think an RO unit, a skimmer, a filter, a heater, a sump, a powerhead I'm still stuck up in the freshwater state. Also, what light is good for corals?

 

[SkiFletch]

A 36 bow will work nicely for a saltwater tank. I personally wouldnt ever keep a bowfront just cause I hate glass scraping but the size is nice. You CAN use natural seawater, but I wouldnt reccomend collecting it anywhere near the shore or surface... You dont want to be putting pollutants into a small closed ecosystem like an aquarium. I'd get used to mixing your own, its way more convenient and really not that hard.

Filters aren't used in saltwater except for carbon and phosphate filtration. LR does all our biological filtration. You can find LR for as low as $3/lb if you buy from a local aquarist breaking down a tank. You can get it online for around $4-5/lb, and most LFS' sell it for $6-10/lb depending on the LFS.

And for lights, what type of corals do you like?

 

[K.J.]

Well I don't have a problem mixing, just thinking that knowing me I'll end up not using enough and nuking the tank. \

Really? That's interesting! I wish plants could do that for freshwater aquariums, I'm quite sick of scraping off gunk in the filter pad. :eyeroll: I sound so unprofessional... But I do like the "wavey" ones, the tentacled ones, whatever you call it. Honestly I don't really care, all corals look beautiful to me.

 

[SkiFletch]

The wavy tentacled ones are usually tentacled plate corals, bubble corals, or euphyllia corals (hammer, frogspawn, torch). All can be kept under a dual Power Compact setup as a bare minimum. A 4xT5 setup would be pretty ideal for them though.

 

[K.J.]

What exactly is a T5? I've heard them mentioned but I don't know if they stand for something. Sorry for the storm of questions.

 

[SkiFletch]

T5 stands for the diameter of the flourescent bulb in eights of an inch. A T5 is 5/8" in diameter, T8 is 8/8" in diameter, and T12 is 12/8" in diameter. The thinner the bulb the more light it can output.

 

[K.J.]

Okay, great. What kind of light would they go in? the normal strip or something like this?//

 

[SkiFletch]

Something like that. We marine guys would refer to that as an over-tank fixture of luminaire. That specific type is a dual Power Compact (PC) and that particular maker is very reputable. Coralife also makes similar fixtures and are reputable as well like this one. CurrentUSA also makes a good similar fixture.

Here's a good T5 fixture. Costs an arm and a leg but really well built and puts out a LOT of light on corals

 

[K.J.]

Thinking about that. I might go with the most expensive one... I just know if I buy a cheaper one everything'll probably die and I'll have wasted 180 bucks. That's sort of neat, though, only problem is the tank I'm looking at has wood trimming and it might look ugly against that. Then again, could be a good excuse to upgrade to a 46g, which has black trimming.

 

[SkiFletch]

Heh, actually those are all the good manufacturers. The cheapies are made by Jebo at around $110 for the same fixture...