new tank setup

I am attempting to set up my 2nd salt water aquarium, the 1st one was in college and I was broke so things did not pan out so well. I have been reading so many posts I am going blind but I want to make sure I try and start things off right. So far this is what I have:

55 gallon tank
A fluval 404 canister filter
A sea life systems aqua pro 65 we dry filter
A super skimmer protein skimmer to go in the wet / dry filter

I am going to run all filters on the aquarium and plan on fowlr.

Do I need to buy arag alive live sand or just use aragonite and put in some cured live rock from the lfs?


My lfs charges between 5 and 15 dollars per pound for cured live rock so I cannot start off with 50 to 75lbs due to costs so I was going to buy a mixture of their lr, some 5 dollar stuff and some $15 / lb stuff with lots of organisms growing on it...

any thoughts on whether I should buy the live sand or is it a waste of money...?

Also for lighting is the marine land led system with the "moon lights" a good choice?

I also plan on buying a koralia 2 water mover in addition to the return pump...

Any suggestions will be much appreciated!

 

Forget the live rock and live sand, go here and get both. It will take a few weeks longer to cycle but it will save lots of cash and avoid a lot of new tank mistakes.

 

Live sand is a waste of money IMO. Go with almost all base rock, then add some live to seed it. Not sure which light fixture your talking about, but unless its one of the $2000 led lights, its probably not going to be enough for corals. I see you want a fish only which it should be fine for but for a little more you can get t5's, then if your ever want to go reef you'll be ready.

 

I am a few weeks ahead of you on the learning curve. You have definitely found the right web site for help. The forums here have been invaluable to me.

Here is my build thread, if it is of interest to you. I am going for a reef tank, so some things may not apply. Also... I am a newie as well.... listen to my advice with a large grain of sea salt.

http://www.3reef.com/forums/show-off-your-fish-tanks/mmcdonald-55-gal-build-78383.html

If I were starting over with what I have learned now, I would be asking lots of different questions and done things very differently than I did.

So here are some thoughts for you to consider.

1) What do you plan to keep in the tank? What is compatible in a 55 gal? Many things that I thought I wanted were poor choices for a 55 gal since they would eventually grow too big or were incompatible with other things that I wanted. I would seriously research your planned stocking list. Feed needs, water qualitiy needs, etc.

2) Lighting. For fish only, I would think lighting isn't as critical as with corals but I will leave that to more experienced folks.

3) Deep Sand Bed or Not.... I originally set things up with 1-2 inches of sand and LR... only to discover later that I REALLY needed a DSB. Thus, I had to start over... remove all the LR, add more sand and re-do the LR. Not horrible, but it would have been nice to do it once.

4) Live Rock and Aquascaping. Take a look at the 75 Pounds Key Largo Rock, <br>160 Pounds Bahamas Aragonite Sand<BR>pay $35 shipping only - KL75-160 website listed above. They have some good ideas about how to do your aquascaping. Then you discover that you'll wish you planned out your LR before putting your sand in! With that is how much LR?? I have read 1 to 1.5 lbs per gallon of water. The prices you are quoting sound very high.

5) Flow... Planning the flow... how big a return pump... is one Koralia 2 enough... etc. The key things that I've learned are "no dead spots" and "enough flow to try to keep deteris from settling on the sand". I don't know what the turn over rates recommendations are for FOWLR... I am at 40x for my reef tank. A 1000 GPH return and 4 Koralia 1's on a Waver maker. Plan the flow out early so that you set up your LR consistent with your flow plan. Make sure your overflow is sized appropriately for your return pump. A small pump on a large syphon is at risk of getting air bubbles in it and breaking syphon and then you overflow.

6) Sounds like you have a filter plan, but a few other things I learned. Live Rock rubble in your wet/dry versus bioballs or some other media? Do you want to consider a refugium?? I ended up choosing to do one. Have you read about Algae Scrubbers?? I'd look into all of this and make sure you've got an integrated game plan.

You may already know all this and have thought through it all. I just thought I WAS doing a good job researching things until I learned that I hadn't researched enough. I thought I had a good plan until I found everything that I hadn't considered. Now, I wish I had researched everything even more before I started. Luckily, I wasted more time than money, but still I wish I had a clearer understanding when I started.

I would recommend planning it all out fairly thoroughly before proceeding. You'll go faster and save money in the end by going slower. In addition, there are lots of tips, references, etc. available through the knowledge base here to save you lots of time and money.

So... just some thoughts from another newbie for you to consider.

Hope that helped.

Mark

 

Thanks for all the advice so far guys. I definitely want to plan this out and do it right. What is a refugium and is it better than my wet dry with bio balls?

The key largo rocks from above, is it live rock that is dried or what? Will it become live once I add some live rock to it? It looks great and the prices are awesome....

 

a refugium is a very good way of reducing algea growth lowering nitrates and phosphates from what ive read unless you really stay on top of cleaning bio balls the can cause a nitrate problem

 

+1 on bioballs being an eventual problem unless you clean them. Hence my comment on LR instead of bioballs. I have some bioballs in a splash box in my system right now, but only as a temporary measure until my LR rubble arrives.

Second, yes, dry LR will become live after it is in your tank for a while. Hence, buy dry... much cheaper... and spend some time not money.

It is all about water chemistry and nutrient supply and export. Keeping your water chemistry good. Supplying the necessary nutrients and getting rid of others. Mechanical, chemical and biological filters all are nutrient export mechanisms. Feeding, additives and dosing are nutrient supply. Water changes are actually both... taking out water exports, new water suppies. Problem is that all the systems inter-relate and have pro's and con's. You will get unified opinions very rarely on what is right or wrong or best.... Most sites that I have read are heavily biased towards biological filters... DSB, LR, Refugiums, Algae Scrubbers. A very high percentage favor skimmers, but not all. Some Algae Scrubber lines favor not using a skimmer since it removes food as well as other things. Most sites sparingly recommend mechanical filters... Only a few foam filter pads or filter socks are mentions. Most sites have some components of chemical filtration... GAC/GFO reactors.

All of these filtering methods have pro's and con's and proponents and detractors. Some folks say DSB can cause problems by releasing toxic ammonium into your tank. Others say that have a good crew of sand sifter snails makes that not an issue. Every seems to like LR and RO/DI water. Other than that, there isn't much concensus.

I ended up choosing a refugium, DSB, LR, a skimmer, and a GAC/GFO reactor. Very little mechanical filtration at my overflow and overflow inlet. Some folks run cannisters. I have one in the garage. Just not sure how it would fit in or if it should.

Like I said... I am very much a rookie. Just giving you a heads up that there are LOTS of alternatives and opinions out there. READ, read, read and form your own opinion before charging forward. Look in the forums here under filters and such. You'll find lot of interesting threads.

Again, hope that helps.

Mark

 

with the dry rock does anyone think one is better than the other? Key largo vs. fiji??

 

I have not seen the Fiji but the key largo rock looks great in my tank