First time salt water tank any advice!!!!

[joshpwolf]

I’m looking into starting my first saltwater tank. I’m planning on just having live rock and fish at first. The tank I have is a 75 gal with out any sump plumbing attached. I plane on using a 20 gal long for a sump tank. The question I have to all is regarding the size of equipment I will need to get my tank up and running. I have done some research and here is what I believe I will need. Please add any other equipment that you may think I will need. Also what brands I should be looking at.

What size equipment should I be looking in to?

Protein skimmer
Overflow
Heater
Power heads
Sump pump

 

[Jeffrock]

i am new to this as well, and i am going to be setting up a 125 sw tank next week. i believe that the equipment that you will need will want to be a minimum of 10% of your tank size. i have decided on mine that i am giong to do 15% on mine. so for instance, your sump should be able to hold and flow a minimunm of roughly 7.5 or say 10 gallons of water. Like i said, i am new as well, and maybe someone else can collaberate on this as well. I do believe that bigger is better in this case ! then you need to figure out your overflow and return sizes as well. The powerheads on the other hand have a kind of guide to go by for the gph for the tank size.

 

[Jeffrock]

are you buying a sump or DIY ?

 

[mr_X]

Josh, How much did you want to spend?
A 20 long is 12" wide, correct? You are going to need a skimmer with a small footprint. You also want to choose a skimmer rated for 1.5-2 x your total system volume.
Something like this would be what I would choose-
Bubble Magus BM-NAC6 100-160 Gallons

I would drill the tank and use one of these-
700 gph Overflow complete kit - Glass-Holes.com dope aquarium stuff

I would use 2 heaters. Redundancy is good with heaters. The theory is, if one fails, your tank won't die before you figure it out.
They are thermostatically controlled so they shouldn't constantly run and use a lot of electric.

Power heads- Decent power heads but not too expensive are Hydor koralias, Seio prop pumps, Aqueon.
Very expensive are vortec.
I would get two 1400gph power heads, give or take.

If you decide to drill the tank and use that overflow I linked, you'll want a "quiet one 3000" or a "Danner mag drive 7" for a return pump.
I wouldn't go much larger than that with a sump that size.

 

[joshpwolf]

are you buying a sump or DIY ?

I planed on trying to make my own sump using a 20 gal long or a 30 gallon. I have been doing some research on it and I feel I'm able to make it.