New to 3reef have a few questions

For a reef tank, your flow is going to want to be somewhere in the neightborhood of 40x your galllonage. We're talking about 5000GPH in your tank. What kind of powerheads do you have and what kind of return do you run?

 

Some pics of the tank and wet/dry

 

The 4 power heads are Aqua Clear 30 that are 175 gph
the return is Magnetic drive Model 9.5 thats is 950gph

 

Also, how many pounds of LR do you have? In a FOWLR, 1lb/gallon is the rule of thumb. In a reef tank, 1.5 to 2lbs/gal is preferred. And yeah.......your lighting has to go. With a tank that shallow, T5s would do nicely. They do well upto 21 inches down.

 

Sorry I'm semi new to this and don't know what this means at all, could you explain in great detail please Thanks

 

Yes just need to get a canopy custom built to finish it off

 

OK, your Mag9.5 is a good return. At about four feet, it is giving you about 600GPH i'll guess. So you need about 4400GPH. Your AC30s are not powerful enough for a tank that size. The only reason I would use them is if you had a siphon assist overflow. Otherwise I would ditch them and get two Koralia 3s and two Koralia-4s. Each K-3 gives you 850GPH and each K-4 gives you 1200GPH. It is a nice, wide stream of flow. By far the best I have seen. Look on eBay for them. You will be hard pressed to find a better deal. Do not buy these from the LFS unless you want to be overcharged.

So your return plus the four new PHs will give you about what you need. It may seem like a lot, but some run even higher.....even 50 to 60x. Personally, I have a 90g standard and run 2K-3s, two small PHs for my siphon assist and about 1000GPH on my return (when I finish it this weekend). My total is about 3100GPH or 34x and I want to add more.

 

LR stands for live rock. You have two large rocks in there now. The larger the rocks the smaller the relative surface area compared to the weight. For example, if I had as much weight in rock, but smaller, more porous pieces, I would have more surface area for the beneficial bacterial to live. Bacteria is what drives the nitrification process. It is going to be your main filtration system. It will put your wet-dry to shame.

Now, LR comes in many shapes and sizes. The most popular is Fiji rock. There is Tonga rock, which has more of a branch shape and a few other types I have but cannot remember the names of. I have mostly Fiji and Tonga.

When you get your LR, I would get it dead. This is called Base Rock. It has had all bacteria and hitchhikers killed off. You just need to clean it up a little and throw it in your tank. The bacteria that is already there will then seed the rock and get it going. It is by far the safest and most economical way to go.

To give you an idea of cost.......my LFS sells BR for about $4/lb.