Old account (probably 15ish years)...can't recall email. Finally getting into it. I would love to hear suggestions. 240g tank...fx6 filters...

[mjethier81]

So I am not set in stone with anything beyond the 240 gallon clear for life tank I just bought from petsmart on some ridiculous deal. I ended up getting a 2600 dollar tank for the equivalence of 1500ish dollars after rakuten and petsmarts 20 percent off deal.

3 or so years ago I bought (2) Fluval FX-6 canister filters...I happened to look at them sitting next to a pile of inventory boxes about a month ago and I had a few drinks and decided to look for a tank again.

Anywho...I do NOT need to use the Fluval units if they aren't recommended. I am thinking tropical/freshwater...but I'd love to do a saltwater setup. Just worried between the 2 dogs, my high maintenance girlfriend and life at 41 owning a business I couldn't possibly keep up with a salt setup...atleast a 240 gallon one from the start.

A little about me...I do low voltage electrical work...I am a high voltage electrician but don't do a damn thing with that beyond pull permits for low voltage work...home automation is an understatement for what I do...but we can leave that for another day. I guess what I'm eluding to is that I am capable of setting up just about anything thrown at me...I have an uncle who is a master plumber...another who is a master carpenter...and you'd guess, another who is a master electrician like myself. So ANY solutions, however ridiculous they may seem on the surface I will research and consider for both fresh and salt possible systems.

So I have those (2) filters but I can't help but look into 6+ stage water filtrations systems just for changes regardless if its fresh or salt and so on. The 240 gallon tank I bought I just received information on that. Don't flame on my choice. Gotta start somewhere and at that price with their holiday sales...I couldn't resist! I am also open to hearing about other brands, better brands/solutions.

What I am hoping to learn about AND I WILL be researching while going through the forum posts is what people recommend for several necessary and even unnecessary tank pieces that I need to add.

-heating systems (what's the best, why?)
-lighting systems (I am not sure based on multiple review sites what's imported chinese crap and what could be good chinese crap?)
-filtration (currently thinking of freshwater but I would absolutely LOVE to start a saltwater system with a gorgeous reef. I'd most likely stick with reef only for a good chunk of time but would love to have a few friends to appreciate in the tank beyond pretty reef colors...but I am getting ahead of myself!!)
-tank frames/cabinetry (I have a CNC machine that's 6000lbs and I could make basically anything as far as cabinetry is concerned. I'd like it to be presentable but I am not sure if it's going to be at my place of business for now or at my home...thinking I'd like it at home ONCE I could do things on a professional hobbyist level, scaled in some way from whatever may go into my shop.
-automation/metering system that measures multiple values in tank and lets me be proactive while initially being reactive to the tanks environment.

I have researched quite a bit about fish, aggression levels and size tanks they should be in to be healthy...I've looked into quite a few filter systems as well...but unlike the majority of you all...I am not even a novice.

I am sorry for the massive typed out message...I am also excited to be here with something of consequence where I'm finally moving forward with a build of sorts. Looking forward to everyones input.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[Reefing102]

Welcome to RC!

There are plenty of tanks ran with canister filters nowadays. @OldReefGuy runs canisters on his tank with rubble in them.

Many tanks are run with Titanium heaters but I use the standard glass heaters without issue. It is encouraged to use a temperature controller due to possible heater failures.

Lighting honestly depends on what you want to keep. Cheaper but still decent brands can be NiCrew, SmatFarm, Viparspectra and Noopsyche. More expensive brands such as Kessil, Radion, and Mithras are great as well. All can be run on a reef successfully in my experience and from what I’ve seen. Your more expensive brands will generally have better warranties and customer support.

@n2585722 did some amazing wood work in his build thread - Hex Tank Build

Automation - there’s a variety of controllers from Apex, GHL, Hydros, and ReefPi. I run an apex at the most basic level. It tells me my temp and PH and I will be using it for dosing but you can always add something like the Neptune Trident to the Apex for auotmated testing of Calcium, Magnesium and Alkalinity and have it linked to a dosing pump to automatically dose based on test results. All other systems you can set up dosing and things like that as well I believe.

Hydros is very versatile as well and @n2585722 has a great write up in his build thread for that as well.

GHL Profilux I’ve heard is a good system but I’m not sure who here runs it and they have a lot of automatic testing add ons.

ReefPi is good for the DIYer from what I hear and generally results in a much cheaper alternative with similar quality to the above but I have no experience with this set up.

I hope this helps!

 

[griss]

What Shane said ^ is spot on.

For lighting, I'm running 175 watt metal halide with LED actinics.

For controller, I use an Apex to control lighting, temp, and some Sicce powerheads. When (if I ever get around to it) I upgrade, I'll be adding the pH probe and moonlight to the Apex.

Also, if you recall your old username, I'm sure @JohnL would be able to get you access to your old account.

 

[Timfish]

Welcome back!

I've been an advocate of simplicity and redundancy for decades. I don't like canister filters myself (never met one that didn't leak sooner or later) but if that's what you find easiest to maintain by all means use them. Plumbing and filtration should be about what's easiest to maintian, not what might connect the most equipment together with some hypothetical ideal (biology doesn't care much as long as there's good water flow and appropriate lighting). Lighting has certainly changed a lot since you last kept tanks but you can keep lots of stuff and have a pretty tank with the cheap stuff and have money left over to buy more livestock.

If you're interested in some of the advances in our understanding of reef systems here's some links:

"Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" This video compliments Rohwer's book of the same title (Paper back is ~$20, Kindle is ~$10), both deal with the conflicting roles of the different types of DOC in reef ecosystems. While there is overlap bewteen his book and the video both have information not covered by the other and together give a broader view of the complex relationships found in reef ecosystems

Changing Seas - Mysterious Microbes

Microbial view of Coral Decline

Nitrogen cycling in hte coral holobiont

BActeria and Sponges

Maintenance of Coral Reef Health (refferences at the end)
Maintenance of Coral Reef Health

Optical Feedback Loop in Colorful Coral Bleaching
Optical Feedback Loop in Colorful Coral Bleaching / Curr. Biol., May 21, 2020 (Vol. 30, Issue 13)

DNA Sequencing and the Reef Tank Microbiome
Aquabiomics: DNA Sequencing and the Reef Tank Microbiome

Richard Ross What's up with phosphate"
What's up with phosphate? by Richard Ross | MACNA 2014

15 Answers
How 15 Answers Changed the Way I Look at My Tank Forever! 10 Months of Biome Cycling 12 Aquariums.

 

[JohnL]

Also, if you recall your old username, I'm sure @JohnL would be able to get you access to your old account.

Yes, just send me a message. Welcome back.

 

[OldReefGuy]

120G with 3 FX6's, skimmer and HOB refugium. 10% monthly water changes and dosing Kalkwasser(daily) and Iodine (weekly) and Formula 28 blocks. Maxspect 300w Razor lights. Pic shows small HOB in front running Phosban (temporary had a small spike in Phos). FX6's contain LR rubble, and one sponge before water out to pump. Clean out every 6 months, but only the sponge. Pretty much maintenance free.....mixed reef. Not the best/prettiest tank, but works for me. All the HOB's in the back will be covered this weekend. I'm adding a white board in the back so it will all be hidden.

 

[OldReefGuy]

They are too small and lack any flexibility in how you can use them. The pumps are very week as well.

LOL...I take it you haven't met the FX6's yet.........

 

[OldReefGuy]

". I am thinking tropical/freshwater."......
Just re-read your OP. If thats what you are doing (and dont want a wet/dry system), those FX6's will be more then enough. You can youtube cichlid owners.....almost all of them use FX6's (when no wet/dry present).

 

[mjethier81]

Thank you all so much for the responses and information. I've been scouring youtube and subbing to several channels that I find informing etc.

I am now leaning towards going with a full reef.

Been doing the 7 day a week work thing lately. Tank came Monday and is sitting at my office/shop.

Insanely excited to start doing cool things!

 

[mtnbike101]

Before anything else, determine your goal. As mentioned above, for a top shelf reef system you are looking at investing the price of a new car. The tank will be the cheapest expenditure. I hate to admit I have about 20k in my 100g Acropora tank setup. Some of that could have been avoided, but that is part of the hobby, learning by mistakes...and make sure not to do them again. Planning is key; don't buy anything twice. Also, don't buy anything before it is necessary. For example, buying dosing pumps in the first year of setup. I made that mistake. You will not need to dose anything until there are corals that uptake those elements (strictly a saltwater perspective here). Things will be much simpler with freshwater, but maybe not as flashy or exciting. That choice is part of determining your goal. Within saltwater, there are different approaches as well. FOWLR (fish only with live rock) is often a good way to begin. Later, add a soft coral or two and see how things progress. Different corals will have different requirements including light, flow, feeding and perhaps dosing (Alk, Mg, Ca, etc.).

Noticed you mentioned you are doing the 7 day work week thing. If that is normal, you might want to opt for a big terrarium! LOL I spend a crazy amount of time with my two Acropora tanks (100g, 60g). It seems there is always something that needs to be done. I'd suggest LOTS of research before going in any direction.

Looking forward to seeing where you go with this adventure!

 

[mjethier81]

Thanks again for all of the replies.

Question.

If in essence I can save roughly 40 percent off on random products from Petsmart. What is worth investing in aquatics wise?

I think many gorgeous videos/photos of reef tanks has me sold 100 percent on going that route. But should I be looking at random smaller tanks to work hand in hand with a skimmer and so on?

I use Rakuten (my mother showed it to me years ago)...and then Petsmart who takes care of my pups hairdoos always has a 20 percent off deal. Today its 20 cash back from Rak...plus the 20 from the site on basically everything beyond services.

All in all, I got my 240g acrylic tank for around 1700 bucks after the cash back.

Also not against doing a small tank of sorts (75g) maybe for the pups to have some friends at the house. The 240G unit is going at my shop/office I think until I can get good enough to take a piece of real estate from the mrs at home!

 

[Reefing102]

At the sale price, it wouldn’t hurt to pick up a couple spare tanks and filters for quarantine and holding tanks. Perhaps even one of those python siphons that connect to a sink.

Beyond that, my petsmart doesn’t carry much saltwater supplies that I’d want but that’s just me

 

[mjethier81]

So I've been insanely busy...I've been absent from anything but work lately trying to catch up on my backlog and I'm happy to say now I'm back to 3 to 4ish weeks of "if I had to finish everything" status instead of 4 to 5 months.

I have decided I'd like to go with a full saltwater reef/few fish setup for my 240 gallon tank. I will be building a customized cabinet system for the tank itself and technically have no limits on size, I'd like to keep it uniform, also would prefer not to pipe through the slab into the basement at my office but will do nonetheless if I find massive benefits in doing so based on everyones input.

If I were to set a budget of 10,000 for filtration...is that an overestimate for a 240g tank?

What would you all do. I am concerned in this order of importance of things..

1. health of the tank/animals
2. display of the tank/animals
3. upkeep being ideal
4. price.

I have been following/watching hundreds if not thousands of hours on youtube of 'professionals' in their field who do this all of the time. I am not naming channels themselves...I enjoy all of them. But I don't know if they are actually pros or just nerds who love it like many of us. That's how I got into business doing what I do. I was a techy...but that's a story in itself.

Anywho, I have had the tank on the ground...can someone give me a rough idea based on budgets and my hope for automation/remote operations what would be the best solution...while providing ideal water changes. (if I pipe to basement, I can pipe into a sump pump and then just run fresh water through it. My location is beyond wet to say the least. I am pretty sure theres a river running under it as I have 3 sump pumps that during a harsh winter run constantly...either way not concerned about the salt affecting the pumps, just an idea.)

I have researched from the help of you, the forum and youtube...protein skimmers/sumps, automated chem measuring devices, filtration and so on. But I am doing my first salt tank. I expect failures don't get me wrong...but I've had one concept in my life that's worked well for me. Go big or go home.

I am not afraid to spend the money to give myself an overkill setup for a 1000 gallon+ tank...while my first one will be 240 gallons.

It's 8 feet long, 2 feet wide, 2 feet tall.

Also I would love to stimulate local businesses but I don't know of a single one in my area on Cape Cod.

Thanks again everyone.

 

[Jposch]

You say "full reef," but what do you mean by that? Keep jn mind kosr all social media and YouTube is only showing the good. If tou are going to be wanting more time looking at the tank, and be able to gwt away with slack maintenance. Not none, but I mean 30% or so water change eveey few months, and limited testing and dosing the various things, a soft coral dominate tank will be much more forgiving. Some people all LPS "soft coral," but they are stony coral with large fleshy polyps. They still consume much more calcium, alkalinity and magnesium than leathers, gorgonains, zoas, etc.
Or was very common in years past to start with leathers, and work your way to sps and acros, bur for some reason everyone now wants to go from a bleached out, uncycled tank, to acros, gonis and torches in the 2nd week.
IMO, Aquacultured coral is far superior. In most cases, survival rate is significantly higher, and even if it is 2x the cost of chopped up wild coral, it's a better VALUE. Cost≠value.
For that tank, if tou do drill it and use a sump and skimmer, etc, I highly recommend the Fluval SP6. Hell of a pump, and great price point. Alot of the automation and such is not needed. A heater controller, such as Inkbird is a must, even with a
whole tank controller, redundancy can't hurt (if setup right.)
This is a top down of my one tank. It gets alk tested and dosed every 3 months, and a 50% water change and sand vac 2x a year. Otherwise, just manually top off with rodi water and feed the fish, and trim the coral and sponge when needed. Not much more difficult than a FW tank. Probably easier than a planted tank, tbh.
This tank has no skimmer, refugium, or any filter media to change or clean. It's a mostly hands off balanced ecosystem.

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[Reefing102]

$10k will get you a heck of a filtration set up and may likely be an overestimate.

One thing I would budget for, if you haven’t already, is a generator. If you go full reef, even if you do soft corals over hard, you’ll likely have several thousand in coral and livestock that you’ll want to keep alive in the event of a power outage.

As for automation, with todays controllers, you can almost fully automate everything from testing to dosing to water changes. It just depends what you’re looking for.

I’m not aware of LFS in Cape Cod but perhaps check local clubs or Facebook groups for recomendations?

 

[Breadman03]

I have a 270. Water changes aren't very easy due to the layout of my house, and you sound pretty busy. In my ideal setup, I'd have a water mixing station with a large RODI water reservoir that pumps to a saltwater mixing tank that pumps to my sump, along with a way to pump my old tank water to the drain. I'm limited to about 25 gallons of reserve water at a time, though my RODI filter makes enough water that I can do about 150 gallons in a day.

For your sump, IMO, you only really need a tank of some sort, preferably with some sort of baffle to make a smaller portion where your return draws from and your ATO sensors reside. In front of that baffle, the water level will remain consistent and is a good place a skimmer, algae turf scrubber, or algae reactor for nutrient control, and enough length for your heaters to reside. Yes, heaters. I'm sure you can estimate about how many watts you'll need in total, but heaters tend to be a common failure point and having 2 or more minimizes the chance that one stuck on will overheat your tank while reducing the odds that all will fail and allow the tank to get too cool. Skimmers for that size range in price from maybe $500 to thousands, so buy as pretty as you want, but don't feel the need to blow your budget on super fancy stuff for a nifty poop bucket. Like most things, there's the cheap junk, the quality price range, and the luxury price range. I have a Bashsea sump with built in probe holders that's pretty nice looking (and in my basement with 1800's worker class stone foundation right behind it). I got a decent deal on it at Reefapalooza, but a 120 gallon inexpensive tank with some DIY baffles and a couple magnetic probe holders would be pretty amazing functionally.

I'd definitely automate your system a bit. I got into Apex when most devices were pretty dumb and Apex control was quite handy. Nowadays, most devices are pretty smart, and maybe a fully kitted out Apex isn't so important, but I'd still advocate for a way to remotely monitor your system for temp, and some sort of camera. Pick what fits your budget.

Tunze and Sicce pumps are fantastic, but certainly not the only game in town. I'm running 2x Tunze 6255's and 2x Tunze 6150's in my 270 gallon display. Doing it over, I'd have gone with 4x 6255's as the 6150's flow doesn't impress me with a central overflow that extends to the bottom of my tank. A Shadow style overflow might or might not improve their performance since they could shoot across the back more effectively. I use Sicce ADV 10.0's for my skimmer, return, and saltwater mixing drum. I wanted to cost effectively have backup pumps and by using the same pumps, I can easily move the pumps around to keep everything running while I wait for parts or a replacement if needed. AC pumps are still arguably the most reliable at the sacrifice of not being as quiet as a DC pump. The weak point of a DC pump seems to be the controller and generally not being able to overcome as much head pressure with the exception of a few spendy options, though it sounds like -your sump will be close to the top of the tank and a non-issue.

You don't have to light your whole tank. My tank isn't a great example as I spent far too long fighting hair algae, but Ca1ore has a great example of a beautiful reef where the middle of the tank is well lit while the edges are dimmer. That allows him to grow some great coral on the rockwork while reducing the need for glass scraping. Since my budget has tightened up and my halides were really running up my electric bill, particularly outside of winter when I'm using the AC, I decided to run a pair of Radions instead of 3x250 watt halides. I just turned them on after about 2 months of lights out to allow my herbivores to get ahead of the algae and hope to be one of those good example tanks in a year or so.

Coral and fish pricing is also all over the place. Saltwater nerds will geek out over the fancy stuff, but non-hobbyists have no idea how "rare" something is. Consider your budget and buy things that you like. Coral folks seem to fall mostly into two categories, those who collect frags and fuss over small details of coloration in macro shots, and those who buy things that look good as a large colony from across the room. Do what you like and don't just buy what the current fad is because it's got the buzz going on. Allow yourself to enjoy the hobby for what you want and provide the best environment for whatever you choose to do.

~The guy that regularly considers giving up a retail management career to become an electrician, plumber, or woodworker. There's just something satisfying about making something work.