How I setup reef tanks

Starting a reef tank can be quite the job in itself.
What do you want in your tank? What kind of equipment do you need? What kind of fish do you want? What kind of fish can you have? The planning can take years to make the perfect tank.

When I set up tanks for people I don't have years to plan nor the luxury of hanging out long enough to say Hey lemme move that here. Most of my jobs are hours away.

So the first thing I so is get a general Idea of the tanks plans.

The shape of the rock is the most important part o the tank as it is the foundation for the rest of the reef.

I always start with dry rock as I cannot stand getting phone calls about aptasia.

Once I have a great looking scape I add the sand and the water.

I will stick in my magnum 350 canister and let that clean the cloudiness and go to lunch.

When in full of subway the tanks usually clear up nicely. At this point I grab a few nice mature handfuls of rubble and dump it amongs the rock work.

Now you have a sand bend, white rock and purple rubble. Time to hook up the sump. Attach it after the water clears and it won't get dusty.

This part is important to the people I set up. Generally when you get new toys you like them for about a week or 2. During the first 2 weeks of a reef there is nothing to look at.

This is when I leave the blue lights only on for 2 weeks with no darkness. This will encourage the coralline algae to go nuts and spread onto the rear of the rock. After 2 weeks they will be bored of not having anything to look at. This is when you put the lighting on a regular schedule with the whites now.

This should be about when the diatoms and other algaes want to start. Let things get ugly. Real ugly. Even toss in a raw shrimp and watch it slowly dissolve. One the shrimp is all the way gone the next step is letting the algaes and cyano slowly vanish.

I like to add the cleanup crew after the peaks of the blooms and before its completely done with the blooms. Too early and it extends the bloom to late and the clean up crew will starve.

When the tank looks clean and algae free you should add your pods to the tank. Let them go crazy. Feed them plankton if you want them to breed faster.

When you can see pods every time you look in the tank you are ready do add a critter.

The rest is all up to your hearts desires.

 

fish- ones that get along, top, middle, and bottom dwellers.
equipment- as little as possible, but the best in each of their classes.
coral- mixed, mainly LPS tho.

 

Lol. Sorry tapatalk likes to mess me up