My Plan For Starting My First Saltwater Tank.

[Jeff000]

-The 18"x20"x26" tall 37g tank, fill with water, get salinity correct.
-25-30 lbs live sand (crushed argonite I believe), should give me 2" depth for the tank.
-Live rock, I have found places that will ship fuji or other for as low as 5.00 a lb, half what my lfs is. I figure about 45lbs is lots.
-2 Seio 620 power heads, 400 gph each.
- I have 2 coralife compact lights (2 - 9W 6700K Lamps in each one)
-Salinity Refractometer (its 50 bucks, figure its worth it)

I figure I will get all that up and running, figure on 2-4 weeks for curing the live rock without a skimmer (I am thinking I will need some curing time after shipping).

While the live rock is curing and stuff I will build a 10"x12"x14" refugium.
-Coralife Super Protein Skimmer (up to 65 gallons), to sit in the refugium.
-I dont know how the water will go between this and my tank yet, as I have no sump hole. (I do have some ideas though for a syphon type)
-simple light (not sure yet)
-enough live sand to make 3-4" deep
-the live rock that I dont use in the tank

Figure run all this for a few days to make sure its all good.

At this point I would get the clean up crew (as provided by SkiFlech)
10 - Cerith Snails
10 - Nassarius Snails
05 - Nerite Snails (or Trochus snails)
01 - Small Brittle Star
01 - Mexican Turbo Snails
05 - Mexican Red Leg Hermits
01 - Blood Shrimp

And then at this point I would be looking at fish. This is where I am most lost.

I want at least one clown fish so my gf can name it nemo and stop bugging me.
but I want a few fish to keep things moving and interesting.
then inverts, I am even more lest then with the fish (althoug the cleanup crew has these too)

Then after a couple month of running like this (or rather untill march 3 when my last payment on my jeep is made) and after I get the formation I want from the rocks (as i doubt its easy to change the setting like with a freshwater tank) I will get a 175w metal halid to get some nice corals, anemone, and I am sure by this time I will have a huge list.

Then my tank will be "done"


lol, done, ya right.


So my main question is does this all sound good?
How is the overstocking or over coral or over invert or whatever determined with a marine tank?
What kind of options to I have for stocking a tank such as mine to take full advantage of the depth?


Thanks again for all the help so far.
Edit: sorry I ment for this to be a post on my last thread, I wondered why it needed a title. Sorry if this adds clutter.

Edit 2: Is VANUATU Live rock better? it seems to be more porous, and a general live rock question, can I break it? like use a hammer and chisel to break peices in half or what not?

 

[Eelzor]

So my main question is does this all sound good?

S'all good! Just with anemones, it would be best to get a matured tank before puttin' them in. Maybe make it the last thing you add to the tank.You mentioned 'after a couple of months' - Perhaps let the tank mature for about 6 months then you may add it.

How is the overstocking or over coral or over invert or whatever determined with a marine tank?

No such thing as over stocking with corals, just ensure you got enough space. Inverts don't have a big effect on bioload too, but obviously room/scavenging food must be taken into account. As for fish they do have a big effect on bioload. Since your going reef I would minimize fish quite greatly - a reefer will be able to give a better estimate on that. You may have your nemo fish (occelaris clown), and perhaps a few other small ones. Your aim with the reef aquariums is absolute 0 nitrates - with 45lbs of LR I reckon you'll be right though.

What kind of options to I have for stocking a tank such as mine to take full advantage of the depth?

A vision came to me thinking of your tank. Since it's a little taller then most, a rock wall/tower aquascape would look quite good imo. As for stocking, most fish won't really notice/care about the difference. I'm not sure there are much fish that will take advantage of the slight depth difference.

Edit 2: Is VANUATU Live rock better?

Not too sure on the differences on that one.

it seems to be more porous, and a general live rock question, can I break it? like use a hammer and chisel to break peices in half or what not?

Sure can, but may I ask why? Best to keep the rock in it's big chunky pieces rather then have heaps of lil pieces around the aquarium. I guess if you want to fill up space n' all it'd work fine.


Eely B)

 

[Jeff000]

So my main question is does this all sound good?

S'all good! Just with anemones, it would be best to get a matured tank before puttin' them in. Maybe make it the last thing you add to the tank.You mentioned 'after a couple of months' - Perhaps let the tank mature for about 6 months then you may add it.

How is the overstocking or over coral or over invert or whatever determined with a marine tank?

No such thing as over stocking with corals, just ensure you got enough space. Inverts don't have a big effect on bioload too, but obviously room/scavenging food must be taken into account. As for fish they do have a big effect on bioload. Since your going reef I would minimize fish quite greatly - a reefer will be able to give a better estimate on that. You may have your nemo fish (occelaris clown), and perhaps a few other small ones. Your aim with the reef aquariums is absolute 0 nitrates - with 45lbs of LR I reckon you'll be right though.

What kind of options to I have for stocking a tank such as mine to take full advantage of the depth?

A vision came to me thinking of your tank. Since it's a little taller then most, a rock wall/tower aquascape would look quite good imo. As for stocking, most fish won't really notice/care about the difference. I'm not sure there are much fish that will take advantage of the slight depth difference.

Edit 2: Is VANUATU Live rock better?

Not too sure on the differences on that one.

it seems to be more porous, and a general live rock question, can I break it? like use a hammer and chisel to break peices in half or what not?

Sure can, but may I ask why? Best to keep the rock in it's big chunky pieces rather then have heaps of lil pieces around the aquarium. I guess if you want to fill up space n' all it'd work fine.


Eely B)

Ok I can do all that Thanks again for all the help.

The reason for breaking the rock is to shape it, being I have limited space and have a specific tower type design in mind finding the right LR naturally might be very hard.

 

[SkiFletch]

Definitely sounds good, only a few things I'll add

Since you dont have a drilled tank, you'll need to use an overflow box to get water down to your sump/refugium. You can purchase them from ebay on the cheap, or if you're REALLY crafty with your hands and want to waste some time, you can make your own overflow. Having made my own, I'd advise purchasing them... real PITA to get it done right. Also have a look at melevsreef.com so that you can get some knowledge about sumps/refugiums in you. Melev has some great examples from big to small

Drop your sand bed thickness down to 1-2" deep so that you dont reisk developing bad pockets of cyanide

For fish reccomendations, you've got your work cut out for you a bit with a tank of those dimensions. You could go with a carpenters flasher wrasse or any other Paracheilinus genus wrasse. I'd stay away from the Cirrhilabrus genus wrasses as they like more lengthy swimming space. I'd strongly reccomend a pseudochromis springeri for a tall tank like yours as they hover all around the rock stack and are not necessarily open-water swimmers. You might also want to research some gobies as many of them are not big open water swimmers. That size tank would also be a great home to a cardinal or two Do yourself a favor and stay away from damselfish as the close quarters will not bode well for other fish

Other than your cleanup crew I wouldnt add any other invers really.

As for the LR, you want some that is as porous as possible. The place of origin means nothing really, you're more interested in porosity. And yes, you can break or chisel LR to get it to form to pieces that you want whether it be to stack better, or perhaps to make frags down the road. You'll also want to invest in some superglue gel or reef putty to hold your rock stack together since you're gonna be forced to build tall and also be forced to mount a lot of corals on the side of your rock formations