New to saltwater
New to saltwater
Sorry but this is long winded.
Hi my name is Klayton I'm 24 I live in Lynchburg, VA I have my B.S. in Physics and I work for a nano tech company out of Roanoke, VA and I've been keeping freshwater fish for 12 years, I currently have 2-29 gallon fresh water tanks and a 20 gallon aquascaped hospital/quarantine/refugium/sump for both 29 gal tanks.
One is stocked with an 8 inch Featherfin Synodontis, who is my pride and joy and just turned 9, and 6 black ruby barbs as mates. A guy at my dad's work managed to breed his pair of featherfins and I got mine as a fry from him so that's how I know he is 9.
My other 29 gallon tank is stocked with 2 adult (f) mollies, 2 adult (f) blue gourami, 13 baby mollies, 9 are 1 month old 4 are 2 weeks old and all have yet to be sexed, and 4 ghost shrimp.
The 20 gallon is a heavily planted and aquascaped tank that is hooked up to both 29 gallon tanks via custom made hob overflows w/ durso standpipes. On both inlets to the refugium and both outlets there are 36 watt uv sterilizers. This ensures that nothing harmful comes into the refugium and none of the algae from the tank or disease from a quarantined fish comes out of the refugium. I've been told this is overkill before but I believe in quarantined environments and this ensures that.
With this setup all of my fish are happy and the only fish that have died died at the end of their expected life cycle.
Anyways, the reason I'm here is because I was at my LFS, let me say I've seen corals before but they'd never caught my eye, and he had received a shipment of blueberry Gorgonians and when I saw them they took my breath away. The most beautiful coral I've ever seen. So now I've been infected with saltwater fever and I'm here to learn as much as possible about how I need to set my tank up to house those blueberry beauties.
It killed me when researching them that they are some of the hardest corals to keep but this only makes me more determined to have them. I plan that within a year of my SW tank being set up that I will get a small blueberry to get acclimated to caring for a NPC and to make sure I don't blow $400 on something my tank won't keep alive.
What I plan on having:
A 50 gallon custom made tank that is of radical design to be viewed from 360 degrees. It will be 6-5 gallon acrylic spheres and 1-20 gallon acrylic sphere interconnected by 3 inch diameter clear acrylic pipes. Since the acrylic is going to be structural it will be 1" acrylic. The 5 gallon tanks will be in the shape of a large diameter hexagon and from these 6 the supports for the 20 gallon sphere which will be raised in the middle will slant upwards. Where each of the pipes connects to a sphere there will be a shut off valve that will allow for periodic cleaning/fragging of each individual sphere/coral through a 6" diameter cap on top of each of the 5 gallon spheres and a 12" diameter cap on the 20 gallon sphere while not having to shut the whole system down except when cleaning the 20 gal sphere. Each of the 5 gal spheres will house an individual aquascaped coral species that will highlight that particular coral and the 20 gallon sphere in the middle will house the blueberry gorgonian.
For filtration, the 5 gallon spheres will all run to a center 1/2 sphere that serves as support for the 20 gal tank and has a pipe the runs straight down into the stand that goes through a wet/dry filter to a 50 gallon aquascaped refugium/sump/quarantine that will house the heaters, and if need be a chiller, and will be connected to a Cal reactor and protein skimmer and return pump. The refugium/sump will be visible through a cut out in the stand but everything else will be hidden. In total the tank will have over 120 gallons of volume which should make it easier to maintain.
Water circulation doesn't need pumps, except for the return, because it will be gravity fed and to control this the pipe running down will have a flow adjustment valve to tweak things so the corals aren't damaged from the rapid flow of water that would result w/ unrestricted flow.
The lighting is what I'm having trouble deciding on. The guy who I'm going to have it manufactured through thinks we should put it in the caps but I don't want visible wires. I'm considering having a suspended light canopy that will focus a beam on each of the spheres and the particular coral species. Any ideas here would be appreciated.
My questions are:
How different is keeping a SW tank over a FW?
Keep in mind I test my tank parameters: KH, GH, PH, NH3/NH4, NO2-, NO3, CO2, and salinity b/c I run mine slightly brackish on my FW tanks every day and log them in an excel sheet on a dedicated computer that sits near my tank. This sheet also has the weights of each type of food I feed my fish and the volume of supplements, i.e salt, water conditioner, NaHCO3, etc. This lets me see exactly what affects my tank and how.
Should I start with a conventional tank to get used to keeping a reef?
I figure with how I keep my FW tank is probably more intensive than most people keep their SW tanks so I might be able to skip this learning curve.
Is there anything else I need to know about keeping a SW aquarium?
I do intensive research on a topic before I make an endeavor into it so i believe I'm well suited to start a SW tank.
Any feedback or ideas on my custom tank?