New to hobby, setting up 150 g. questions if you have time!!

[kyle.nagel13]

You will need to size your pump according to the amount of GPH you will lose due to the head height. Most/All pumps have charts that give their outputs at different head heights. For example, check out this linkhttp://sicceus.com/aquarium.html for the Sicce pumps. The charts show max head height and the flow for their pumps on a graph.

I hope that helps, and isn't as confusing as I think I made it sound. And for what its worth, I love my Sicce pump. Good luck, and if you ever feel like :headwalls:, do this:beer:

 

[chefbill]

Sorry, I did not have time to read your whole thread. However I started with South Seas caribsea dry rock and I'm very pleased. I think it is good looking rock and a fair price and no phosphates issues

 

[lucky777]

Ty for the pics and pump info links.

 

[A.Astore]

My wife and fought about what we should start the tank with when we set up the 150 g tank. We ended up using all dry rock. Here are the reasons we went dry:

1. Cost- we were in no need of having the rocks be filled of both good and bad and it left us shift money onto something that DID matter.

2. Live rock can not always have the expected outcome- depending on where you buy from and the quality by the time you get it there may be very little left other than coralline algae anyway. We live in an area with no awesome saltwater stores so they essentially just drop dry rock in and cure it so it can be called live. I was not spending the money on airmailing rock and water. Just was not a must for us.

3. You have time to aquascape OUT of the tank without worrying about everything you just spent extra money for dying.

4. Did I mention cost? I got Pukani and ordered 3/4 of a pound per gallon let me tell you how much of it is in my sump because of the amount I received (it fills a whole section of my sump) You aren't paying for water with dry rock

5. Part of the fun for us is watching it evolve. The kids love it, we love it, probably wouldn't change next time.

It is something that is completely up to you and both approaches have their benefits and drawbacks. We have coralline showing up already and there was not a single piece of wet rock placed in our tank.

The other thing is unless you plan to try and throw coral in immediately you have some play with some of the equipment upgrades and needs. I am not saying I my 55 FOWLR tank was perfect, but it was pretty close with no skimmer at all. If you want to switch over you COULD start without the skimmer initially and add it. Same with the lighting.

I agree 110% that a sump is the best option because of what it allows you to hide away for only you to have to look at. It provides a chance at better water quality with little damage to what you see outside the cabinet (or in your case, the basement).

Prepare yourself to spend hours and hours reading a million different opinions only to wide up doing it how you want anyway. This hobby has not specific answer to most things, there are a few pretty definitive topic answers, but for the most part there is a spectrum of solutions that can work. This site has provided me with extremely valuable information and I should probably thank every single on of the major posters on here because they are sharing their knowledge so we don't have to make the same mistakes.

Can't wait to hear about your tank!

 

[lucky777]

Thanks for the info. I did order 2 40 lb boxes of a caribsea south seas base rock. I do plan on using pukani if I could find it. Its hard to fin around here. Your right about the reading it's endless right now. Big thing is the drilling of existing tank and plumbing to the basement.

Did you have issues with phosphates with your dry rock? Did you ghve it a acid bath first?

 

[A.Astore]

We did not do an acid bath simply because of the type of rock we were using. It simply didn't seem like overall it would really ever completely accomplish what we were looking for by burning it off essentially. We have not had a major issues with phosphates at this point. We are running a BRS GFO and carbon reactor and it was placed when the tank was established so maybe that has helped to keep phosphates minimal. We have only had very small algae cycles at this point. The first wave of diatoms started to show its face and didn't cover the rocks even and maybe a quarter of the sand. We added only 5 Astraea snails, 5 cerinth snails, 10 hermits, and an urchin at the first sign it was going to start. The Astraea snails were the real champs in that battle FYI. I think once the clean up crew were in we had four days of my wife complaining about algae being visible. A little later started another small wave which because the CUC is already in there has been minimal at this point.

None of them really wanted to mess with the back wall though and we added copepods because of wanting to add a Copperband Butterfly mid February and wanted to have them available. Well, the secondary benefit to those being added is the entire back, overflow, and front glass have been cleaned without any help from any other members in the tank. I had no intention of the copepods making it so I don't have to clean the glass but well mine have left the sides sparkly clean!

I am far from an expert, but this is how we approached it and it has been working thus far. I know there will be algae as we move forward but up to this point the algae waves have been minimal and seem to leave as quick as they had come. The other thing is we have been super slow to add bioload which has maybe helped as well because the system has time to build up rather than play catch up.

 

[lucky777]

Ty for the info