Starting equipment checklist/suggestions

[99light]

Hello all,

New to site and saltwater, but not to fish keeping. My company recently moved into a new building and wanted a fish tank for the reception area. They had seen pictures of my 150g at home so i brought it in. The boss loved it so much they wrote me a check for it. After a few weeks of nothing at home i have decided to finally make the plunge into saltwater.

On local craigslist, i have found a person selling off their SW system. It includes the tank/stand/sump/return pump/T5 lights and a bed of crushed coral. I have placed an order with Bulk Reef Supply for 50 lbs of Pukani base rock and 10 lbs of rubble. I have a 300w heater coming from Amazon. I will be buying salt water from a local store until i get a RO/DI system for my house. I have well water that is notoriously hard.

My question for remaining equipment is water movement. I have read i need to make sure the rock has plenty of flow. on a 65 g tank, roughtly 3'x2'x2' would 2 450 gph circulation pumps suffice? one at each end of the tank blowing water into the rock? or go with a single 750 gph? at a top corner of the tank blowing down and across the base rock?

I will run a skimmer eventually, but i don't believe i need one to begin cycling the tank correct? Right now my goal is to make sure i have everything on order so that i can assemble the aquarium and begin aquascaping next weekend so that i can fill it and begin the cycle process.

Thanks, for any tips

 

[fort384]

2 power heads would be better in my opinion. It will give you more options and more ability to eliminate dead spots.

Are you planning on keeping this FOWLR or going Reef? If you plan to go reef, I would get your skimmer sooner rather than later so that you can properly break it in before you need to start pulling skimmate from the water. It takes 3-4 weeks for a skimmer to really start working after you put it on your tank.

Are you planning on a sump?

 

[99light]

The system has a sump already, 9.5 mag drive. It will be a FOWLR tank. my plan is to get it up and running, cycled and give it a couple months for the base rock to seed. Get some fish into it and see how things go from there. I can get a skimmer on order if it needs one during the cycle phase

 

[RickkyBobby]

Ok, so the general rule of thumb on flow is about a 30-40x turnover rate for a reef tank... (65x30=1950 GPH ish...) Now you can add/remove flow from this, but it is a good start...

fowlr tank maybe 15-20x turnover rate

so, i just bought 2 koralia hydor evolution 1050's for my 65 gallon tank.. ill be around 2100 or so..

its nice to have 2 so you can avoid any dead spots in the tank where dead food/waste can accumulate

 

[obscurereef]

Good choice on the pukani. I have some and love it...got rubble with it so you didn't really need to buy it separately, but that's alright. I'd say the 2 are better also. Would love to see pics when throughout the process of setting it up!

 

[reef lover]

Dont forget a chiller also might be help to the tank if esp you plan to have a reef tank .

 

[obscurereef]

Wouldn't say you need one if temp. doesn't fluctuate too much. My 70 reef got up to 84 once when it was really hot, but that rarely happens. If it gets too high, RO/DI ice cubs always work!

 

[reef lover]

Yea its true tgat would help but certain coral if suddenly have that sudden change in temp and too high might mess them up. Better be safe right?

 

[obscurereef]

A $300-$600 chiller for a 60 gallon reef tank isn't worth it for such a small adjustment of temp IMO. Corals need stability, but a few degrees higher isn't going to usually kill most. I'd say 90 and higher would be better candidates for chiller.

 

[99light]

I am not going with a reef set up, at least not in the immediate future.

Yesterday was a long day, i drove a touch over 2 hours south to go pick up that tank system and am i glad i did. I got down there and the guy still had the tank up and running. Which solved my worry about some of the parts not working.

In the tank he had 2 clowns, a tang, 3 smaller blue fish i cant identify, a star fish and a bunch of little crab like things i cant identify. He had some type of coral leather finger lookin green thing and several other smaller ones. Since the tank was still running i asked what he was going to do with the water and the fish and plant(?) life, his plan was to dump the water and return the marine life to the pet store.... Well that wasnt a very good plan, so i got directions to the nearest hardware store, bought a bunch of 5g buckets and lids

Needless to say i bought his entire set up after some negotiating, with the exception of his live rock, that he would not part with. I had a friend go with me who has his own salt water tank, i brought him to help inspect the equipment, He is housing the tang, starfish and clowns and whatever the coral things were in his tank.

I drained most of the water into the buckets, left a couple inches in the bottom of the tank and hoped all the crabs and snails would survive the drive back.

Took me a couple hours to set things up in my house, put all the water back in, Had to run to Petco and buy 1 5g bucket of ocean water, to top off the tank and sump to prime the return pump. I don't think the tank is even going to turn over. It was about 2 hours before the tank completely cleared up after the dust from the crushed coral bed settled from filling it up.

We put the 3 small blue fish and star fish into my tank and looking at them this morning they look happy as can be, I can see about a dozen what i am assuming are lil crabs movin around the bottm of the tank. My salinity is right at .024

I was able to talk him into letting me have 2 small pieces of his purple covered live rock so as soon as my BRS Pukani rock arrives this week i will add my base rock in and hope his live rock seeds it.

Needless to say i am extremely thrilled. I was expecting just a empty tank/stand/and sump tank. I ended up with a complete working SW system for about 1/3 of the cost i was planning on!

 

[obscurereef]

So cool! BTW, don't know if you know this, but when topping off evaporated water, you'll want to add fresh water, no salt mixed in, b/c when the water evaporates the salt is left behind. Def. want to see some pics!

 

[99light]

It looks pretty plain and empty right now with no rock in it. Soon as the base rock gets here and i get it aquascaped i will snap pictures so i can document the tank and rock growth.

Thanks for the tip about evap, that i did not know, i stopped by a lfs yesterday and got 10 gallons of salt water so that i had some on hand until i get a RO/DI unit for the house. i will swing by this week and get a bucket of rodi water to keep on hand for top offs.

I need to start looking into a light timer system. Unfortunately between work and school i am out of the house about 16 hours a day. I need to read up on length of time for blue/white and led lights. I was not planning on having a running tank this fast lol.