A 50g Hagan Long

[8965]

I am looking to start a sw aquarium and have been offered a Hagan 50g long for an amazing price. It is 4' long and 12" wide. Do any red flags come up with these dimensions? I would like to run a sump under the tank.

I would like to have a fish tank with a few inverts, LR, and some LS. Here are a few questions I have.

1. What size of sump tank do I need?
2. What would be a good amount of lighting I would need?
3. Do I put some inverts in first, or a few fish?
4. How many power heads would I need?

Your help is much appreciated.

 

[darb2]

1. The sump should be at least 20 % of the tank size. look in the articles section under sumps explained
2. A fish only only requires minimal lighting. If you want to keep low light inverts, then I would look at 4 65 watt pc. 3 10,000 k and an actinic
3. What worked for me was to cycle the tank using a shrimp and some lr. After the cycle was done I added a cleamup crew of some snails,a few hermits and 2 peppermint shrimp. Then I slowly added some fish, shrooms and some polyps
4. it is reccomended to do 10x tank size for flow

 

[8965]

what would be considered the minimum lighting needed to have low light inverts and corals? For me right now cost is an issue as I'm putting my money towards more live rock and a good filtration system.

 

[steve-s]

Since you don't have any corals at the moment (?), I'd hold off on lighting until your LR additions and such are done with. Save for a set of lights that will benefit the eventual goal of the tank and not the immediate need. If you can find a really cheap NO strip light, I'd go for that in the mean time.

Once you have the cash saved up, you can purchase something that will do what you need. FWIW, the 4x65w mentioned above will support much more than simple low light corals depending on tank depth. PC lights are very under rated by hobbiest and will support a wide variety of coral life.

Cheers
Steve