Northern Newbie Small Reeftank build

Hello everyone from the great white north, Hamilton, ON Canada. As the title says I'm very new to saltwater. I have kept 30g and 65g freshies very successfully over the years but got away from it. Recently got the itch again but wanted something more colourful. I have been lucky and found two tanks a 45g for DT and a 20g long for sump/ref (free). I picked up a good deal on lighting a 150w MH with 4x39w 10k HO T5's with 4 LED moonlights ($200) hope this will be enough for reefing. Also got a good deal on two Koralia PH a K4 and K2 (both for $35). This weekend I'm thinking of buying a Coralife 65 Skimmer and a Rio 1400 for return. I'm a good carpenter so I'm going to build a great showcase once I have all the parts. A few Questions and some input please.

1. Do you folks think there will be enough flow and lighting?
2. Live sand or Liverock or both?
3. What else am I missing?

Thanks JP

 

Welcome to 3 reef JP

I moved your thread from the reef aquarium articles and how to section
to the new to the hobby section for you

what are the display tank dimensions? becuase typically a MH lamp has a spread of about 2ft so if you had a 4ft tank for example, you would want a couple of them

but if you had a single MH over the middle of the tank ( provided your tank does not have that plastic frame or bracing as these can buckle under the heat of a MH located directly above them) and had T5 lighting on either side

you could then keep the really light demanding corals like SPS centrally and other less light demaning species in the wings (left and right of centre)

flow , a K4 and a K2 might not be enough, depending on tanks actual lenght and what species you want to keep

for soft corals you want between 20 - 30 X tank volume in turnover per hour
and for SPS hard corals over 50 x tank volume per hour is probably the mimimum IME

live rock - if you cure it, keep it in the dark for about 12 weeks so that none of the life forms (algaes) you dont want, have a chance to prosper
a better option is to go with mostly dry or base rock and have a few selected peices of live rock to help seed the base rock, in a few months it will look just as natural as the live rock

Live sand , again, you could use live sand it is not associated with as many unwanted hitchhikers and pests that Live rock is
but again to save cost, you could do mostly dry sand and use a little bit of live sand to help seed that

Steve

 

I agree with Steve. Not sure on the flow. Need the tank dimensions to be sure if that would be good flow. Will this be softies, LPS or SPS, or a mixed reef?

Should be plenty of light. How deep is the tank?

I would go with maybe a few lbs of LR & get mostly dry, aka, base rock. This will be much cheaper & you won't have as bad of a cycle. You can use a raw shrimp to get the cycle going. Rather than live sand. Get dry aragonite...less expensive & does just as good a job. LS is a waste of money.

You will need test kits. Nitrate, Nitrite, Ammonia, Phosphate, Magnesium, Alkalinity, Calcium, pH.

 

I'm going to get the reef master kit for testing we only have a Big Als up here so I am alittle limited. The DT dimensions are 36L x 12w x 24H, I know its narrow and the lights give off a lot of heat but I intend to have a 14" canopy cover to suspend my lights from with a fan for cooling. The K4 rates at 1200gph and the K2 600gph also my return pump will be adding about another 400+ across the top. I figure with only 36L and 12W this should be ok do u think. I'm going to do a thin wall with hopefully several shelves at various depths for the different corals. I'm hoping for mixed but I've seen some spectacular specialized tanks on here. I have been coming to this sight everyday for about 2 hours just reading and researching. You guys are really informative and helpful. By Monday I'll have everything I need to start the cabinet/canopy I'll start putting up pics as I go. Thanks guys.