Opinion needed...

My 100g tank is for the most part ready to be set up in my house. The only 2 things I dont have are sand and a larger light. If you could set it up as a bare bottom tank with the knowedge that you would have sand within a month and a new light set up within 3-5 months would you go ahead and set it up?
I have about 50# of sand I could use from my existing tank after a good sterilization along with my 4x54 T5 HO light.
This is how bright my tank is now



I know patience is one of the keys to success with a tank but what do you think?

 

I would make the upgrade and add dead sand later on and upgrade the lights as you need to.

 

I am just a noob but why would you want to hassle with transferring(risking) all that stuff
knowing it will be going into a less than ideal environment (lightning wise anyway) and then have to deal with a sand storm all over your coral later on?

Besides your current tank is pretty sweet as is.

 

I added all that sand in the tank after it was up and running. I changed from crushed coral to that sand without any problems. A lot of the sandstorm issues are with not rinsing the sand enough or how its put in the tank. I use a funnel with a section of clear vinyl tubing and fill the funnel with wet sand use a cup of tank water to thin the sand and it flows right down the hose and into place without and sandstorm. Its basically a beer bong(dont know if I can say that) used for reefing purposes.
Thanks for the colpliment by the way

 

Well I am glad I chimed in cuz you learned me a thing or two!!

 

I can not say why but it just sound not sound right. I would just wait for the new sand at least.

I could understand if you were going BB long term and go ahead with the transfere.

 

Well, IMO it would be a huge pain to add the sand later what with having to move all the corals around that are on the bottom already, but I don't see why you couldn't do it. I don't know if I'd want to run it for almost 6 months without the larger lights, though. We went through that kind of thing with our tank (kept switching crappy lights before we bought the right ones) and kinda suffered algae issues for it. Fortunately, we didn't really have anything in the tank when we were doing all of that though. How much longer is the 100 than the 55?

 

Its only 1' longer but its about 4" taller.

 

I'm not sure I'd do it cuz of the lights, but that's just me.

 

Been doing some research into T5 kits and I dont think I will have to wait the 5 months to get one so hoping to have lights within 2-3 months. I will probably go ahead and wait, although its going to drive me crazy. I have my spot picked out and everything.