New 90 Gal

Hi everyone,

This is my first salt tank, its a 90 gallong and its sumpless.

My Equipment is and will be:

1.) 90 gallon tank
2.) Two Actinic T5 bulbs in a 4 ft housing
3.) 1 x MH 250 W main light. I can use this for now and centre it, then when I accumulate more corals I could always upgrade?)
4.) 3 x 1200 GPH Hydor Koralia #4 power heads (Is this to many? should replace one of these with a smaller one?)
5.) About an inch of sand
6.) Two Heaters
7.) Right now about 80 pounds of Live Rock.
8.) Need a Protien Skimmer!

So, little background. I plan on running this tank sumpless as I mentioned and without a canister. With a decent protien skimmer and flow I should be ok as long as I keep to decent water changes and dont over stock the tank. I want coral and fish.

Now I need help picking a protien skimmer. Right now I am consider a Redsea Berlin X2 Turbo HOB, Aqua-C Remora, and a Reef Octopus HOB. I think the Aqua C and the Octopus are relativly similar in design while the Redsea Berlin X2 is a big tube type one.

Anyone have any comments that they can help me on deciding? I have been told the Aqua-C Remora is pretty good.

That RedSea berlin is awfully large and a different shape, im not sure it will fit behind the tank. I have about 5" of clearance between the tank and wall.

Comments and help on everything is appreaciated, not just the skimmer.

Thanks!

 

rayf01

sounds great to me

a 90 is ? 5ft long I think

a MH covers about 2 SQ ft - so its going to be a little dull either side - 2 x MH would be great if you could swing that ,

flow - depends what you want to keep , but generally even the low flow requiring corals can handle 40x - 50x tank volume per hour depending on how its set up (not aimed at em)

so with a 90 , 3 x Korallia 4s wont be overkill IME and if you eventually went SPS corals - you will probably need more flow in there .

rock - as your going basic Berlin system ( the rock is the biological filter) you might have enough depending on target bioload with the 80lb - but I run a similar system to you and probably have closer to 2lb per gallon ( it depends on the rock used I know)

skimmer - AquacRemora for me based on options listed , but thats just an opinion others may prefer other models

 

Thanks for the info. Yeah, I know with the MH light I will need to upgrade eventually. Its a for now option to handle me starting off. Once I have the Skimmer, a bit more live rock and some stock then i'll looking up upgrading the lighting system.

AquaCRemora I have heard the most about seems like it does a farily decent job and is a box style that sits on the back which would be nice.

What are the risks of it overflowing or something on to my floor when I am not home. Or should it just dump back in to the tank?


Also I have another issue here. I put the sand in tonight. I did a rinse job on it as best I could, but the tank is pretty cloudy. Does it take a couple days for it to settle? Right now its only RO water and sand in the tank. My LR is in another tank. So I have the heater going in the 90 and I turned off the power heads for now hoping it settles and heats the water up a bit.

Thoughts?

 

your plan sounds pretty good, but I would suggest at least a small sump that will allow a skimmer that will handle any bioload you add to the display and give you room for a small fuge to help contrl nitrates (algea control)
there have been a number of threads complaining about micro bubbles caused by hob skinners, the sump will allow you to use one of these
and any micro bubbles will be trapped in the sump instead of the display tank.

the sand will settle overnight, i would leave the powerhead on.

 

I'm not going to drill this tank out so I can use a sump. I also dont want a HOB overflow so I have to go sumpless then unfortunatley. I have still see and read about plenty of successfull sumpless tanks so I am not to concerned.

Any more comment on the type of skimmer?

Also, I left the sand to settle overnight and my tank is still quite cloudy, it doesnt look like the dust settled at all. I'll turn the power head on and see if that helps but I doubt it will.

 

you can get an overflow. I, as well as a lot of others on here use overflows to get to our sump

 

the aquac will not normally overflow. if you dont dump the collection cup the skimmate will just go back into the tank. for a 90 gallon you definitly want the aquac remora pro.

oh, and just my opinion you might want to look into setting up an overflow or something for a sump. i started off sumpless and now wish i had one. and am upgrading to a 90 next month mainly so that i can get a sump in my stand.

whatever you decide to do, best of luck

 

the only issue with HOB overflows to go to a sump are if you loose siphone on the overflow your tank is going to spill over on your floor....

 

Also, any suggestions on the murky water from the sand? All you can do is let it settle? I turned the power head back on but I can't see that helping, but I'll try.

 

it will settle rayf01

might take a day or 2 - but it will go crystal clear eventually

Steve