New 40 gallon breeder reef tank

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Earlgrey23

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Feb 18, 2012
Messages
92
Location
philadelphia
Well I have made the jump. After lots of fun and success with freshwater I am finally trying a saltwater tank.

I looked and looked and my imaginary tank kept getting bigger and bigger and more expensive. Luckily if I have learned anything from freshwater tanks is start slow, start medium (because really who wants a small tank ;) ) and give yourself room to grow.

So after flirting with the 72 gallon bowfront and several thousands of dollars of equipment my local petco had a 1 dollar per gallon sale and I bought a 40. This way I can learn and not murder to many fish and not have to skimp on feeding my real human children.....

My plan is to have 5-6 small fish:
2 clowns (i love the black ones)
1 Firefish
1 chromi ( probably the orchid )
now I would like the spotted cardinalfishbut they need a small school (unless others have different experience) and I don't think I could fit 3-4 in with corals and inverts. So I am open to suggestions.

with the inverts I don't have any particular wants at the moment, I am sure that will change. But I will focus on ones that will not harm corals.

I have seen all the wonderful sump and refugium filtration but I am going to give a basic fluval canister filter a go. I got the 70 gallon version so that should be more then enough for my 40 gallon tank.

Lighting.... I am in love with the Coralife Quad and it will be the single most expensive addition to the tank. But everyone says that if you want the marine life to thrive don't skimp on the lighting.

Before this drones on to much here is a pic of the tank on it's custom stand. I reclaimed an old office desk and had bracing and shelves added. It needs one more piece at the bottom where the filtration will sit, but otherwise it is done.

Thanks for reading my rambling account.

Cheers
 

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New parts

My Fluval finally arrived and I just got it installed. Super easy to do. Hopefully when it is time it will start up just as easy. I have to figure out if I will go with the current media configuration which is Level1 on charcoal, level 2 ceramic bio balls, level three mechanical filter in addition to the sponges already there. Was thinking maybe an extra bio level....

The lights are due in the next couple days and then it's a break to save up for the protein skimmer and start collecting some odds and ends like the hydrometer and the chemicals/testing kits.

I think I am going to do an 80/20 split on live sand and live rock. Meaning 80 percent base and 20 percent live. I am in no rush to introduce the corals and the fish so I have time to let the critters get the tank cycled and living.

how has anyones success with seeding base rock and sand with live gone? Would I be better off saving up for a tank full of live sand and rock to start?

Cheers.
 

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Lights!

Just got my lighting system. Everything seems to work the reflector on one of the 10ks is dented just a bit, which may account for the 40 percent discount, but it's not very big and I don't think it should be a problem.

It is the Coralife quad T5 with lunar LEDs. Turned everything on and it seemed to work great and the legs were super easy to install and seem pretty sturdy.

Next to arrive is my heater and the test kits.

Still looking for a skimmer and trying to figure out where to get my base and live rock and sand. Anyone have favorites?

Cheers!
 

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