Just a little advice please

[jimspurs]

Good afternoon and thank you for letting me join this fab site,



Firstly I've had both freshwater and marine setups before but after a 4 year break I'm now setting up a new marine tank in my new home. I,m a little limited for space so have opted for a 180 ltr Juwel Rio tank, I've notice many people discussing the use of live sand and rock to almost instantly seed a tank and use as main biological filtration.



This I haven't tried before but am ready for any new ideas, The Rio has a standard internal filter with a 200 ltr per hr pump, this I'm going to supplement with an external canister filter rated at 1800 lph c/w UV 9watt sterilizer, also fitting a Tunze 9004 internal skimmer.



I'm planning on adding about 30 kg of live pre packed live sand and about 20 kg of cured live rock from my local suppliers, can you please tell me if you foresee any problems with this system, will eventually have about 4-5 fish, hermits, snails, and urchin.

Lighting is a 120 watt LED system suspended about 12" from the surface.



I would also like to have some soft corals too but was worried about the amount of light I'd be using, Water movement will be by both returns from the two filters plus two 1400 lph power-heads / wave-makers



Thank you for any information, Jimspurs, Lowestoft, United Kingdom

 

[Dr. Reef]

welcome to addicting hobby.
everything seems ok to me for softies. they dont require a whole lot of strong light.
one thing u can do is bring down the light from 12" to 6" and see how much of a difference that makes on coverage of the entire tank.
as long as u have decent light coverage and water movement softies should be easy to keep.

 

[jimspurs]

Thanks for the info, going to be towering live rock on acrylic spikes in the centre of the tank so light spread should not be an issue, any ideas how easy or hard it is to drill live rock? got 8mm acrylic rods so will use a 10mm masonary drill bit via a power drill, also been told not to use hammer function because this vibration can split the rock

 

[SushiGirl]

With LEDs 12" above is good. We have ours 12" above our 20L tank & had to dim the whites for the zoas to do well.

 

[Reefmedic79]

[WELCOME]

All this metric, Lol.

Things look good with your set-up for your plans so far. I agree that lowering your lights may help, but I would start off where your at and only move if needed.

Just a suggestion, I'd save your money, forgo the livesand and just get some dry sand. I personally don't believe the prepackaged livesand has all that much of "life" in it any longer.

 

[jimspurs]

Thanks for the advice guys n gals, have changed my mind on tank, just ordered a 40 gall with sump filtration, also will go for just dry sand too (thanks reefmedic79). One more question for now please, I don't own an RO unit and cant afford one really so what precausions can I take when starting up and water changing, I know I can mature the water for 24hr to remove chlorine, can I also skim the water? would this help to remove any dissolved nastys from the water?
many thanks again jim

 

[whiteshark]

I'd save the money from the UV sterilizer and use it to get an ro/di.

 

[Savant]

^^ +1 What he said

 

[cap032]

No doubt, you would be much better off with an RODI unit as opposed to a UV. The RODI will will spare you many headaches down the road.

 

[oscarinw]

I agree with WhiteShark. Much more issues will be avoided by the use of RO/DI than by the use of the UV sterilizer.
I didn't get a brand name for mine and was able to get a 120 GPD for waaaay cheaper and with all the bells and whistles of the expensive ones...
I believe in the value of RO/DI so much, it's the first thing i bought before anything... this is from someone who used to not have one.
Good luck with things... long live the metric!!

 

[jimspurs]

Ok guys, just found 50 gpd RO unit for £70 ($105) so that should do and scrap the UV idea lol, as before was going to have internal skimmer and bought a Tunze 9004, will this unit work ok in a sump or should I change for a normal pump powered tower skimmer?

 

[jimspurs]

Thanks guys n gals for all your advice, just got delivered my 150ltr tank c/w 50 ltr sump. R/O unit on way too, think my marine fishkeeping days are long numbered because of you. will try to upload a dry tank pic and others once i get her moving