I bought all my supplies! What do u think?

[143gadgets]

I finally bought everything I needed and was wondering what u guys thought about it.

1. 40gal Breeder AGA
2. Coralife 50/50 Bulb 36"
3. Rena Cal Top Light Excel 200w Heater
4. Emperor 400 Filter
5. Sea Clone 100 Protein Skimmer
6. Hydrometer
7. Aqua Clear 50 (402) Powerhead
8. Marine Test Kit

I plan to put some live rock in this tank and about 5 fish. I also plan to put in some inverts.

 

[grimlock3000]

You likely do not need the Emporer 400. All if will do in the tank is help push water around and give you a spot to stick carbon. Using filter pads and Bio Wheels in a marine tank is usually a bad thing.

A lot of people would say the Seaclones are hard to use as well. Just be prepared to experiment with it a lot and you should be good.

 

[143gadgets]

You likely do not need the Emporer 400. All if will do in the tank is help push water around and give you a spot to stick carbon. Using filter pads and Bio Wheels in a marine tank is usually a bad thing.

A lot of people would say the Seaclones are hard to use as well. Just be prepared to experiment with it a lot and you should be good.

So what kind of filtration do most people use? i won'r have enough LR to filter the entire tank.

 

[grimlock3000]

The protein skimmer pulls the waste out of the water and keep it out of the water which is the best way to filter something. Filter sponges trap waste and can cause high nitrates. Once you start getting into LR and inverts, the standard filters really lose their effectiveness compared to skimming and more LR. This is because the waste gets quickly converted to nitrates in the power filter (invert are senstitive to nitrates) instead of getting broken down to harmless nitrogen gas (this happens slowly in LR). How much LR are you planning to have in the tank?

If you keep an eye on nitrate levels and do water changes, you might not have to worry about this anyway...

 

[143gadgets]

I planned to have a sand bed about 1" thick because i was told that anything higher than this would be bad. Is this true? I plan on having about 40lbs of base rock and 20 lbs of LR.

 

[grimlock3000]

The base rock with gradually become LR. With 60 pounds of LR, you would not need to worry about needing a filter besides the LR and the skimmer. A skimmer and a bunch of LR is the Berlin method of tank filtration, it is fairly bulletprood.

Going over 1 inch is not necessarily bad. A lot of time what you see if people smacking down DSB style substrate which is basically 4 to 6 inches of substrate. With that much substrate, it can "crash" and cause issue with the tank. Search for "DSB AND crash" on this forum for more info on the argument. I have a sand bad that is about 1.5 to 2 inches deep. This works out well enough for me. I had it at about an inch thick to start, however I did not think it looked good.

 

[malkore]

I agree, a 2" sand bed is going to work better, and look better. as grimlock said, a true DSB is 4-6 inches. 2" will give your sifting inverts just enough to play in, plus a little extra.

 

[lando]

Everything sounds okay. Do not worry about the Emperor 400. It will work fine. as grimlock said, it is a good place to add GAC and provide water movement. I used one in my first reef tank and it worked fine. If you use the filter floss be sure to change it often so you d not get an increase in nitrates. I had over 2lbs/gal of LR so I left the biowheels on and had no problems with nitrates. Without proper biological filtration they can cause nitrates to rise. Go with at least 2-3 inches of sand.

 

[first-timer89]

A good tip for using the seaclone is to put a small air filter on the air tube and put on the valve. I did on mine while messing around with it and it made it eayser to ajust. (less sensitave)

 

[143gadgets]

Thanks guys for all ur help. I really appreciate it.