Need Advise on good set-up for Rics and Mushrooms

[mboley1]

I am an experience Aquarist but mainly with SPS and LPS corals. I am about to set-up a tank at work, so low maintenance and lack of need for water changes is a goal. After a little thought of what to keep in the new tank, I went to this Forum for the first time.

I now understand why you guys are nuts about Ricordia and the other Corallimorphs. You don't see the Rics for sale much in San Diego LFS and when you do they are expensive and there is no variety. Mail order though seems like a viable option.

Set up is a 55 gallon tank. 30L x 20W x 24 deep. I bought a 6 x 24" T-5 fixture with three 10K and three actinics. Tank is completely open at the top with no bracing.

I was going to run a ETS Reef Devil Skimmer but I am now questioning whether that is too much Skimming for this type of tank. Opinions please! Also on the lighting, seems about right to me but let me know what you think. And finally, I was going to run a 4" sand bed, but without a great need for Nitrate removal, should I use less, considering that tend toward using more Rock with my reefs? and can I actually get away with less or smaller water changes?

Any other "keys to success"? Thanks in advance for your wisdom.

 

[akrimmel]

not sure of the skimmer but if you want less water changes then use a skimmer to acieve this IMO.

 

[geoxman]

i have not run a skimmer on my tank for the past 4 months. your new tank is 24 inches deep so i would run at least a 400w-i do not know a lot about t5-but you should be ok. medium flow and high light is best for them-jmho.

water changes will still have to be done. i also feed quite a bit. good luck

 

[mikekman]

You know that sps need some pristine waters and they let you know it. With rics, they are not too picky and are very resilient.

For lighting, PCs are great! They are cheap and rics look great under pc actinics and also mhs too but if you don't want to spend too much money, pcs are fine with rics.

Mike

 

[Scuba Josh]

You can definately get away with PCs as I do on a 29BC. But it sounds like you might want to use the new tank eventually for frags and such. So you might want to gowith the tronger and better stuff initially so that you wont have to spend twice.
Something to think about.