newb here

[reeffreak1]

So, I'm getting ready to set up a 55 gallon long tank as a reef.

My plan thus far, is a 4"DSB, live rock, and a sump for circulation with an side mounted over flow.

How much sand would be required to get a 4 inch DSB in that tank?

I plan on building my stand and hood from scratch to match the room it's going to be in.

I have a 48" flourescent light fixture I was wanting to use. It has four bulbs in it.

I had been informed by Iowa Pet Foods here in WDM that using

1 Actinic
2 50/50's
1 10,000K

bulbs would be enough for my tank.

I plan on ONLY having a couple of softies (two mushroom leathers, cauliflower colt, and a cabbage leather), a Long tentacle anemone, a Condy anemone, and various Mushrooms and Polyps for corals.

Would that indeed be enough lighting for those corals?

Also, I have been looking into skimmers recently. I am on a tight budget at this point, and was looking into the Jebo brand skimmers that are being sold on Ebay at this point.

The reviews of those skimmers are so varied, it's hard to come to ANY sort of conclusion about their worth. Has anyone here ever used one, or know of someone who's used one successfully?

I won't have too extreme of a bio-load for the tank (I think). I plan on 5-6 fish in total, all small fish (gobies, 2 clowns, a wrasse, and a firefish), with various invertebrates for cleaning purposes.

Thank you for your time and suggestions. Any and all are welcome and appreciated.

 

[Nykademus]

First off


<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>To Reef Central</b></i></big></big>


I would not get any anemones at all until you have done enough research to feel comfortable with them.. they can be tricky, but I would say that no, your lighting would not be adequate to keep them properly. If you plan on keeping corals of any kind or anemones then the lowest form of lighting you should have is power compact. I understand that a good measure of light is 2-4 watts per gallon of water. If you are going to keep just fish they would be fine.

The sand bed shouldnt be hard to figure. There is a sand bed calculator on the front page of RC, but I would say that 60 lbs should give you plenty of sand bed in a 55.

Skimmers are expensive, yes, but gouge yourself when it comes to this piece of equipment. Get the best you can afford.. it will save you troubles in the long run.

And dont take this wrong if anyone owns/works at a pet store, but NEVER take just the stores word for anything. Do your own research (RC is a good place for that). A pet stores primary goal is to make money.. period.

hope this helps

 

[jtesdall]

Welcome to RC and I would reccomend for you to look further into the Greater Iowa Reef Society (GIRS). The information gathered from our memebership will save you thousands.

Jeremy's advice is dead on. Standard flourescents will not do much to keep corals alive. I would go with VHO or PC's as Jeremy mentioned. I have 4 VHO's on my current 55 reef for 440 watts but I am keeping quite a few SPS corals.

I might up the amount of sand though. I am currently (Today) putting up another 55 as a reef tank. I just dumped 80 Pounds of Carib Sea Aragonite sand into it and ended up with about 3 inches. I plan on picking up another 30 lbs to top this off and to add 20 lbs live sand. I figure this will end up at about 4 inches. By the way, the best deal on sand I can find is Dr Fosters and Smith $31/40 lbs with $11 shipping.

Also, if you haven't gotten your live rock, read a post further down in the GIRS forum. There is a company offering 50 lbs of Caribbean live rock shipped to your door for $110 until July 1. I should have my first box Friday and can let you know the quality.

Feel free to ask more questions. The folks on here have been through what you are about to encounter many times before. Myself included.

I will second the theme about pet stores. The best in Des Moines is Iowa Pet Foods (IMO) but you have to watch who gives you advice. There are only two (maybe three) people there I would take the advice from to the bank and one is the owner Scott. He won't lead you wrong.

 

[jtesdall]

Oh, one other thing. Since you didn't mention your experience with aquarium, freshwater or otherwise ......... Cycle your aquarium completely before adding livestock! Do not hurry this step or they WILL die. I do not advice to hurry this step with chemicals although amny do. Sorry if this is an obvious step but it is the most common mistake IMO for new tanks.

 

[leeweber85]

welcome!!! I think you would be better off getting better lights from the get go...and let's face it, after you get into reefs, softies will be the last thing you will want to keep. Again, welcome and thanks for checking out our club.

 

[jtesdall]

Amendment to my earlier recommendation on a DSB. I just added 20 lbs of live sand to my 80 pounds dry aragonite (its wet now ;0)). I am right at 4 inches after evening things out.

 

[glaspie69]

Welcome, sounds like you've got a pretty good game plan for the new tank. I would have to agree that you lighting will probably not be enough for even soft corals, but there are several places you can get high quality lights dirt cheap especially if your good with your hands. Secondly I would definitely NOT skimp on the skimmer, there are several good skimmers out that are very reasonable, most people look at it as a "scary" large purchase, it is. If you consider the problems you will most likely have if your skimmer is less than adequit, your saving money buying the good skimmer. Always feel free to ask questions. Later J

 

[vid151]

The best in Des Moines is Iowa Pet Foods (IMO) but you have to watch who gives you advice. There are only two (maybe three) people there I would take the advice from to the bank and one is the owner Scott. He won't lead you wrong.

I just cant take any advice from a store that has so many problems keeping things alive / except Aptasia that is
------------------
as for reeffreak1
Read up, find all you can, read the forums , then most importantly do it your own way and learn there is no lack of opionions on the net and every eco sysytem is unique in one way or an other .

universal truths : what ever you buy there is a better one out there
how ever much Light you have - some one has more and they think you need more ( you probably do )

most people are really trying to help so never take any advise as critisism

and as far as lighting goes I started with PCs ( 4 x 65 watts) added 4 more then went 2 x 250 metal halide now I have 2 x 400 watt metal halide .... if you want my advise buy the best lighting you can because you will buy them in the end anyway once you get in to it and you see all of the ausome Tank of the Month tanks.

and Welcome to RC and GIRS and GOOD LUCK

 

[jtesdall]

Vid151, I can see your point. But I know they have had problems with Vandals. Someone poured something into the shark/ray tank last year. I am not sure what happened to the large coral tank however. I have always had great luck with their livestock and have gotten good advice from Scott so I still recomend them over the other store in town that I cannot say as many nice things about.

Your advice to reeffreak is very good. The truths are very true!

 

[Ziggy692]

jtesdall what the other store.

 

[Pygmey]

I know where you can get some 400 watt stuff for cheap

 

[ipiniowa]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10049128#post10049128 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Ziggy692
jtesdall what the other store.

I believe he is talking about Adam's Aquatics

I would have to agree with Vid151's assessment of Iowa Pet Foods.

On another note the 250's he got rid of are now on my tank, moved from 175's to these and now want 400's just because of the way the 250's made the color's pop. I figure it can only get better.

 

[Tank Razed]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10045231#post10045231 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Nykademus


I would not get any anemones at all until you have done enough research to feel comfortable with them.. they can be tricky, but I would say that no, your lighting would not be adequate to keep them properly.

Agreed

 

[reeffreak1]

WOW!

Guess I chose the right place to ask my questions in.

"INPUT!" - Johnnie 5

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10045231#post10045231 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Nykademus
First off

I would not get any anemones at all until you have done enough research to feel comfortable with them.. they can be tricky, but I would say that no, your lighting would not be adequate to keep them properly. If you plan on keeping corals of any kind or anemones then the lowest form of lighting you should have is power compact. I understand that a good measure of light is 2-4 watts per gallon of water. If you are going to keep just fish they would be fine.

The anemones would be actually one of the last additions to the tank. Having read several books, many forum posts, looked at ALL of the Tanks of the Month...I figured that going softies for now (since this is my first reef) would be the easiest path to go down.

I had actually planned on first starting with the light fixture that I have with 4 x 40W bulbs, simply to start the rocks, DSB, and the polyps.

The sand bed shouldnt be hard to figure. There is a sand bed calculator on the front page of RC, but I would say that 60 lbs should give you plenty of sand bed in a 55.

Thanks for the hint! I never saw the calculator before in all my days of lurking. :thumbsup:

Skimmers are expensive, yes, but gouge yourself when it comes to this piece of equipment. Get the best you can afford.. it will save you troubles in the long run.

This is where I'm curious. Isn't it possible to "overskim" your tank? If you put too big of a skimmer on it, wouldn't it pull everything out of the water?

Also, has anyone heard of/used Jebo skimmers at all?

And dont take this wrong if anyone owns/works at a pet store, but NEVER take just the stores word for anything. Do your own research (RC is a good place for that). A pet stores primary goal is to make money.. period.

hope this helps [/B]

I'm not sure who it was that I talked to (short light brown hair, in his 30's, kind of a long face...very helpful and very knowledgable), but he really didn't try to sell me anything. On the contrary. He was trying to save me money.

His opinion was that a daylight bulb, 2 50/50's, and an actinic would provide me with 160W of light. On a 55 gallon, that would translate into just under 3.5W per gallon. This amount wouldn't be enough to keep polyps, mushrooms, and a couple of softies?

 

[reeffreak1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10045633#post10045633 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jtesdall
I might up the amount of sand though. I am currently (Today) putting up another 55 as a reef tank. I just dumped 80 Pounds of Carib Sea Aragonite sand into it and ended up with about 3 inches. I plan on picking up another 30 lbs to top this off and to add 20 lbs live sand. I figure this will end up at about 4 inches. By the way, the best deal on sand I can find is Dr Fosters and Smith $31/40 lbs with $11 shipping.

I had heard of someone successfully using silicate sand (the kind used in ashtrays in hotels) for their DSB. Apparently it's very fine sand, is quite clean, and works well for the DSB. That, and it's very cheap.

Any thoughts on that?

Also, if you haven't gotten your live rock, read a post further down in the GIRS forum. There is a company offering 50 lbs of Caribbean live rock shipped to your door for $110 until July 1. I should have my first box Friday and can let you know the quality.

I would LOVE to be able to get in on some of that action to be honest. I read that post and my jaw dropped to the floor. However, I won't be ready for the live rock until probably August. I'm still in the planning phases right now.

 

[reeffreak1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10045671#post10045671 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jtesdall
Oh, one other thing. Since you didn't mention your experience with aquarium, freshwater or otherwise

OOPS!

Sorry about that.

In the past 10 years or so, I've had several smaller tanks. I started with a 20 gallon freshwater tank with cichlids and other livestock.

A couple of years later, I decided to move up to the 55 gallon. Salt water intrigued me, so I chose to go with a fish only SW tank. Because of how neat they were, I decided to have a hostile tank. :eek2: And by hostile I mean Huma Trigger, Lion Fish, eels, Yellow Tang...anything that would eat something smaller than it was.

I had this tank running very nicely for about 2 years. Then the Lion died. So, I went to Petco to get a new one. :mad2: It was sick. It got my whole tank sick. It killed EVERYTHING. And of course, Petco told me it wasn't there fault.

So, I put the tank up for a few years. We recently just moved into a LARGE house out in Adel that actually has room for the tank again. So, I'm going to have some fun with it.

 

[reeffreak1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10046535#post10046535 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by leeweber85
welcome!!! I think you would be better off getting better lights from the get go...and let's face it, after you get into reefs, softies will be the last thing you will want to keep. Again, welcome and thanks for checking out our club.

As much as I would love to be able to get MH or VHO's, right now I simply don't have the funds available to me. I do hope though to be able to upgrade over time. The hood I plan on building would allow me VERY easy access to change out the lighting fixtures.

The softies are going to be my "learning" corals. Figured they are easier to raise and maintain than the LPS/SPS crowd.

 

[Nykademus]

Glad we can help.

A little clarification on the lights. When dealing with lights you should be mainly concerned with light penetration. The lights you have listed would have 160w at the bulb and it would be considerably less at the coral in the tank due to refraction of light and floating matter in the water. You might be able to keep a few softies under them, but they would not be as happy/healthy as they could be. It could be compared to cutting the amount of food you eat in a day to one quarter of that current volume. At first you would be fine.. over time though you would see the effects on your health.

The silicate sand is a debated issue (personally, half of my sand bed is made up of it and the other half is southdown sand that is hard to come by anymore). The whole issue is that due to silicates in the sand, if the water you use is substandard then you may have issues with algae growth in the tank of the types of algae that are not wanted. Which brings us back around to the lights. Everything moves in cycles in marine aquariums. Algae will generally use the same nutrients in the water to thrive and coraline algae, which takes a long time to grow anyway, would take even longer under those lights if at all.. which means that those nutrients would be in the water for the bubble and hair algae to have free reign. You are most likely going to have some unwanted algae anyway, its very common in tanks that are in their first year.

Skimmers. Yes, you can over skim. However, you dont need (and probably will not want) to run the skimmer all day every day. I personally have mine set on a timer, when the lights go out, the skimmer kicks on. So, its only running for a few hours a day. If I start to notice problems though, that can be changed to help resolve the issue.

Like Vid was saying though, every tank will have its own personalit, so it would be hard to say how yours will be. You will just have to jump in and tweak the system as needed. It really isnt as hard as most people make it out to be... but keep that part a secret

 

[jtesdall]

Overskimming: I just don't think that is something you need to worry about with the skimmers we have discussed here. If you bought one of the $1000 skimmers on the market with a motorized external pump rated at 2000 GPH maybe.

Jebo: I have seen them on Ebay, but I now in this hobby you get what you pay for. I was in the same boat many years ago and I just couldn't get myself to pay for a "good" skimmer. So I tried to buy used and cheap. I did buy some two good used skimmers on ebay for $70 each that nevr worked well until recently. Then I figured out (after reading on RC) that maxijet could be modifed to make one heck of venturi. The part tat come with them suck at created a venturi. I considered erecently trying a Jebo, but defaulted to previous experience. If the Jebo was good it wouldn'tbe that cheap. I would buy used before going that route.

Silica Sand: I considered it as well recently and read many threads and articles. I arrived at the same conclusion as above. You get what you pay for. AND if it doesn't work it can be disaterous to change a sand bed. And remeber diatoms feed on silica. I couldn't ignore these facts which made the $100 for a sand bed worth it.

PETCO: I think we have all had this experience with PETCO but don't want to admit it. I will admit it. IT WAS THER FAULT! There salt water fish are usually diseased. here we have a two options 1. Don't buy from PETCO or 2. Keep a hospital tank and keept there for quite a while. Most would say #1 and I would agree. I have never lost my whole tank but I went thorugh a bought with saltwater ich from there that I was able to supress with garlic and Ginger. Or as many wuld say the Fish just fought it off themsleves.

NO Lighting: I think your plan is OK but don't get tempted to buy anything but Zoo's and easy softies like toadstools. I would not be comfortable with a Colt but there are very easy keeperes so you might be OK. I started for 6 years with 220 watts of VHO on a 55 and was able to keep zoos, toadstools and star polyps very nicely. Now that I have doubled the light the absolutlely love and now Iknow what real growth is.

All in all I think you will be OK to start, but make the plan to upgrade through time.

Two more thoughts:

1. If you know someone that has a successful tank setup (I am sure there are many on here) ask for about 20 gallons of water from a water change to begin your tank with. Obviously make sure it is an established and successfult tank. I can do it for you, but I am in Boone. Also I am using this method to start my new tank this month.

2. Get a clean up crew, you will ned it on a new tank.

I see Jeremy just beat me to the punch again :strooper: but here goes anyway. I hope we are of help. Well atleast me, I know the others are of help as they have been for me in the past.

 

[Pygmey]

Hey ReefFreak.. You support the whole internet?? Wow that is awesome!