My new 29g

[FatBaldingJerk]

I just bought a 29g with the intention of turning it into my first reef tank. I have had several other tanks before (55 discus, 55 FO, 20L cichlid, 10g with zebra danios, and a betta in a bowl) but sold them all when I went to college. I graduated a few years ago and now have the budget to do a reef.

Here's what I have so far:

70w MH @ 6500K
Vortech mp20
~4.5" aragonite
Heater of some kind (I don't remember and I figure the MH will probably do most of the heating anyway)
Emperor filter for when I want to run carbon

Ordered, but not yet received:

50# LR, from Walt Smith
AquaC Remora

Here are my questions:
-That light is probably enough for LPS/softies, but I really want an anemone, is it enough for that?
-I have a 150w bulb for my fixture, but my ballast is only rated for 70w. What will happen if I try to use that bulb with that ballast? I fear that ballast overheating/fire will result (although my official guess as an engineer is that the ballast won't have enough juice to arc the higher power gap and the light simply won't work)

Critique my setup, tell me what to do, oh wise denizens of RC.

-dave

 

[Aadler]

You can put some sps under a 70w metal halide, you might want to bump up to 10k though, but if you like 6500 go for it. neme will be fine, just hard to keep water quality high in a smaller tank, but you will be fine. people report keeping nems in less light than that by feeding them.

yea 150 wont fire, dont do it.

You can't trust the MH to keep temps up at night ;c) make sure you buy a decent heater, no sense in saving $10 or so to have a heater fail.

 

[reefworm]

ditto on the heater - why risk it? I have a 29 as well, and I'd back off on the LR if it's not too late - to around 25~30#. You want room for good circulation, swimming room and grow out room for the corals. I did fine with LPS under PCs, so I'd think you'd be fine with those. [upgraded to 250w MH and T5 actinics - planning on SPS and clam eventually]. The wise denizens of RC have collected a lot of their wisdom here:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1031074

and welcome on board RC!

 

[FatBaldingJerk]

I didn't mean to imply that I sized the heater with the MH in mind as secondary heat. I was just too lazy to get up from the couch and look at what kind of heater it was as I was posting. However, LFS said it was good for up to 55g FWIW.

There are a couple reasons that I went with what might seem like an excessive amount of LR. First, from all the tanks that I have seen here and on other message boards, I tend to like the looks of the ones with more LR. Second, since the LR is the primary biological filtration, I figured that erring on the side of more rather than less would be better. Additionally, I'm not particularly concerned about flow because that Vortech can really throw water around. Finally, if there's too much, I simply won't use some.

I don't have any experience with different color temperatures, that's just the bulb that came with the extra fixture and ballast that my friend had.

 

[reefworm]

are you planning on a sump? if so you can remove some of the LR to there - it will do the same job so long as it stays submerged. when you set up your rock, look for dead spots with little to no flow. no matter how powerful the pump, it's common to have "blind spots" which are an invitation to diatoms and cyano. you can rearrange, move the vortech or add another powerhead/Koralia