Planning for 65 gallon...

[mrcrazypants05]

So yea I'm in the planning stages for a 65 gallon SW aquarium. I'm kinda new to the hobby with only like 6-7 months of FW experiance. So far I've got the 65 gallon aquarium and stand. I bought a 2x96w Corallife PC Strip Light. I figure it's good enough for now until I wanna go reef. Right now I just want FOWLR. Heres what I'm going to be getting over the next few months and preparing to start the fishless cycle. Btw... any difference in SW cycles than FW cycles? Time difference? Heres the equipment list...

I'M OPEN TO ALL SUGGESTIONS!!!!

Sand
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2x 30lbs Aragamax Sand

Heater
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2x Hydor ETH 200watt

Filtration
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2x Rena Filstar XP3
2x Maxi-Jet Powerhead/Pump Model 1200 (295 gph)
65-70lbs LR ??

Salt Mix
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Aquarium Systems Synthetic Sea Salts Instant Ocean 160 gallon mix

Other
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portable refractometer
food (New life spectrum - unless theres better suggestions)
thermometer


Also I will need to start looking around for a good deal on an RO/DI filter. I don't wanna lug around 5 gallon buckets of SW from aquarium stores. lol

Any suggestions on a stocking list? I would definetly want like a pair of Clownfish. Probably percula. Maybe a dwarf angel of some kind. My girlfriend thought Yellow Tangs looked nice, but I'm not sure what size tank they need. My 65 gallon is 36"x18" LxW Anyway... Please help me out here. I need links and such for research and any opinions you all have! Thank you very much! lol

 

[Feron]

I have a friend working on his FW tank, while I work on my SW tank... our cycles seem to have run about the same duration.. altho I've read of people having cycles barely a few days and some 8weeks or more.. Mine was about 3-4 weeks.

I remember someone round here saying that sand was ok..altho I don't think you'll have much sand bed with that much (of course, I guess that's a personal pref?)

Most round here would probably advise more LR... If the LR is to be a primary component of your filtration, I'd go for more. I have a pretty decent filtration setup, so I cut myself off at 1lb per g for aesthetic reasons (I want a long stretch of swimming area for my schoolers).

Lots recommend the maxi 1200's for powerheads.. I went with a Seio due to the 160degree arc it has... nice n quiet and even the smallest puts out some good flow.. pricey tho :/

People seem to like Instant Ocean (I use a mix of it and red sea cause I bought em both before reading about salt..)

Definatly a refractometer instead of a hydrometer...hydros are garbage imho.. liveaquaria.com has a refract pretty cheap..well..relatively..

Food.. I'd offer em a variety... I keep some zooplankton in the fridge, use pellets and have made a blender mush food (search the forums for mush).

Filtersdirect on ebay has great deals on RO/DI filters that attach in line to a sink.. 100gpd 6 stage seems the most recommended (and a good size bin to keep it in as you draw it out by the gallon...I'm sure you could come up with a DIY autoshutoff-autointoabin setup fairly easily..)

I'm pretty sure all tangs need a nice size tank (100+) as they get big...
I'm not even a novice at the livestock yet tho, so wait for other oppinions lol

Just my 2cents... gl with the setup!!!

 

[mrcrazypants05]

Well thank you for the great reply. I probably won't get the tang, but the yellow tangs get smaller than tangs such as the Hippo or Blue regal tang... or whatever. Just wondering! lol More smaller fish would probably look better for what I'm going for anyway. What type of filtration would you recommend? For the price of 2 xp3's I could get a sump setup probably.

 

[Feron]

From what I've read around here, a sump is a far more popular choice then a HOB type filter, if you have the extra money to invest.
You can hide all your gizmos and use additional live rock in place of commercial media for added filtration.

My setup is a 90g 'reef ready' (holes drilled for going to the wet/dry 'sump').
The wet dry has bio-ball media (think something akin to wiffle golf balls), the heater for the tank sits below the bio-balls, water goes through a spongey type filter pad (to remove bubbles) into the open end.
In the open end sits my skimmer (removes disolved wastes) and two pumps - a tiny one the feeds through my UV sanitizer (kills parasitic things in the water) and then the return pump which feeds back into the tank.
I lined the bottom of the sump with foam weather stripping stuff... bout all I hear out of my tank is the water trickling through the bio-balls (once I change em out with live rock I imagine it'll be just the hum of the pumps/skimmer).

That all said, I'm no authority on filtration.. just read these forums a good bit and been carefully stepping through the whole process. I have a friend with a canister setup that he likes very much. But, he has all sorts of tubes everywhere....big turn off to me.. I wanna see life, not heaters/thermostats (I have a controller, which has a temperature and pH probe hidden in my overflow)/tubes etc.
Took me a while to actually put in a powerhead, because I was so against seeing mechanical crap in the tank..

 

[mrcrazypants05]

Anyone else? Also... Stock list, or should I start a seperate thread?

 

[brett7768]

i just started my 65gal. i went with a fluval 404 from petsolutions.com (90$), stupidly i got a seaclone skimmer which everyone hates on but i havent had any trouble with yet. the lfs guy told me deff. go with the maxijet 1200's. he also talked me into this 250w black stealth heater which is supposed to be unbreakable.
right now im running 4 39w T5's (2 10k, 2 actinic), which ill prob use just for actinic when i get some metal halides. i just got back from the lfs and put 60# arag alive sand in the tank. its not as much as i thought it was gonna be so ill prob get another 20-40#. i also put in 95# of lr which looks like it will fill the tank nicely.
hope this helps.