New marine reef aquarium
Discussion
I'm after some advice from anyone with experiance on keeping a marine reef tank.
I’ve just picked up a new tank and having kept freshwater tropical successfully in the past I’d really like to take the step up to marine this time. The tank I’ve got is a 155ltr/40Gal cube Aquarium in oak Cabinet and hood. Tank size: 50cm x 55cm x 60cm deep. http://fishkeeper.co.uk/product/aqua...abinet-vxa043-
I’d like to set it up as a reef aquarium and I’ve been trying to read up online but it’s almost becoming information overload. I’m not rushing into this and I want to do things properly. I’d rather buy once and get the set-up I need from the offset rather than have to worry about rethinks and upgrades at a later date etc.
I know I need lighting, filtration and ideally a protein skimmer. Many marine set-ups have sump based filtration but I not sure if my cabinet will lend itself to that given the size. Will a decent canister filter do the job? What lighting can I use and still retain the existing hood and give me good tank results. Do I need to consider any specifics regarding the skimmer?
Any links to good threads or sites/books with a beginners guide would be great.
I’ve just picked up a new tank and having kept freshwater tropical successfully in the past I’d really like to take the step up to marine this time. The tank I’ve got is a 155ltr/40Gal cube Aquarium in oak Cabinet and hood. Tank size: 50cm x 55cm x 60cm deep. http://fishkeeper.co.uk/product/aqua...abinet-vxa043-
I’d like to set it up as a reef aquarium and I’ve been trying to read up online but it’s almost becoming information overload. I’m not rushing into this and I want to do things properly. I’d rather buy once and get the set-up I need from the offset rather than have to worry about rethinks and upgrades at a later date etc.
I know I need lighting, filtration and ideally a protein skimmer. Many marine set-ups have sump based filtration but I not sure if my cabinet will lend itself to that given the size. Will a decent canister filter do the job? What lighting can I use and still retain the existing hood and give me good tank results. Do I need to consider any specifics regarding the skimmer?
Any links to good threads or sites/books with a beginners guide would be great.
I'm no expert,but that sounds a little small for a marine tank.
Smaller bodies of water are more susceptible to big swings of water parameter,and that's the last thing you need ,particularly for marines.
Also,sticking density is very small and I'm guessing maybe one fish and inverts is nearly the limit for that size.
Smaller bodies of water are more susceptible to big swings of water parameter,and that's the last thing you need ,particularly for marines.
Also,sticking density is very small and I'm guessing maybe one fish and inverts is nearly the limit for that size.
That is quite a small tank to run as a first go.
What you are looking to achieve is stability, and the smaller the body of water the larger changes which can take place on a daily basis. Which then affects the stock.
Basically, you go as large as you can afford to run.
What livestock do you intend to keep? What is the one animal (fish or coral) that you want?
What you are looking to achieve is stability, and the smaller the body of water the larger changes which can take place on a daily basis. Which then affects the stock.
Basically, you go as large as you can afford to run.
What livestock do you intend to keep? What is the one animal (fish or coral) that you want?
The tank does sound a little small, but nothing is impossible it just gets harder, I started by converting my typical freshwater setup (100L IIRC). Likewise i started with canister filtration and then added an external protein skimmer standing next to the tank, all under florescent. But end of the day it was all high maintenance and looked like a dogs dinner as it was just bits and bobs bolted on as and when in a rolling evolution.
You would be far better off deciding now how you want to filter the tank long term and a canister whilst it would work is not really the best method for a marine system as it does nothing to effectively handle nitrates, although there is probably some magic media out there that claims to.
I run my tank on the berlin method with a load of live rock, protein skimmer and various pumps to get things moving.
The live rock serves as the primary filter media, providing surface area for the bacteria to break down both ammonia and nitrite, but its also porous which provides an environment for bacteria to break down the nitrates.
The protein skimmer works to skim out the poop before it gets to become nitrites etc. Good ones are expensive, they all claim to be the best with various gimmick, read the forums and try an pick one most people like, i have a deltec ap600 and when its pump broke/wore out, i replaced the pump because it had been working well and I both couldn't afford a new skimmer or decide which was the best of the new breed, mind many were still advocating what i had was one of the better ones! But in the past i have had TMC, berlin and a 'beast' with a weird triangle collection overflow! only the berlin and the deltec i would rate as good.
The benefits of a sump can not be under estimated, for a start protein skimmers are ugly dirty looking things, so putting them in the cupboard underneath is ideal, to do that they need to be sump fed/return. The sump can also house the heater out of sight and away from sensitive inverts. You will probably eventually want to do something to keep your calcium up, so things like a dosing pump or Ca reactor can go in the cupboard and sump.
Other advantages are, even with cover glass you will get evaporation, without a sump that will change the display tank level, this will mess up your hang on protein skimmer and just look naff if the water line is visible. With a sump the display tank water level will be more or less constant and evaporation will show up in the sump, where you can top up with fresh water that has a chance to mix before hitting the livestock in the display.
Other equipment you will likely need are a heater, but if its anything like my tank and i suspect a lot of marine tanks your chiller will do more work keeping them cool (yes they are tropical)
As for lighting, do you want inverts? if you don't then fluorescent will do, its only there so you can see the fish. for inverts you may be able to get away with high output florescent, Metal halide is popular, but they use electricity like a football stadium and chuck out tonnes of heat, they will also set you back £100 quid every 6 months on bulbs, I binned mine a few years ago and went with a vertex Illumina LED system.
It still used a decent amount of power but not nearly as much as halides, they still run warm, but not even close to halides and they don't radiate heat into the tank like halide, we had to turn the lounge radiators up when i went from halide to LED as most of the lounge heating came from the lights! Put your hand under a halide bulb and it feels like your getting sunburn! Best bit though is no bulb changes, and they are computer controlled and variable output, so sunrise/set is a gradual affair, you can even start it at one end of the tank and "walk" the light across. They have a built in weather program that randomly dims them to simulate clouds, and occasionally throws in a lightning storm. They are plenty powerful and i actually had to dial them back a bit as when i set them to 85% some of my inverts didn't seem happy until i took them back to 65%.
Other things you will want are sump return pumps and tank circulation pumps, the latter because you want flow and movement in the tank, but you want a broad flow rather than narrow jet, or you could do a wave maker!
your also going to want to obtain some decent clean water for top up and changes, either buy RO water from your local shop or get yourself a RO system, Tap water de-chlorinated or not doesn't cut it with marines, if you have inverts you need to aim for 0ppm nitrates 5ppm max and you wont get that if your water change is 20ppm.
Last but not least salt, a hydrometer, a second control hydrometer (the floating arm ones deteriorate gradually so keep an eye on it) and probably lots of other stuff i have forgotten.
Bottom line think big and for the end game from the beginning or be prepared for a long expensive evolution of your equipment. Nobody said it would be cheap either way!
You would be far better off deciding now how you want to filter the tank long term and a canister whilst it would work is not really the best method for a marine system as it does nothing to effectively handle nitrates, although there is probably some magic media out there that claims to.
I run my tank on the berlin method with a load of live rock, protein skimmer and various pumps to get things moving.
The live rock serves as the primary filter media, providing surface area for the bacteria to break down both ammonia and nitrite, but its also porous which provides an environment for bacteria to break down the nitrates.
The protein skimmer works to skim out the poop before it gets to become nitrites etc. Good ones are expensive, they all claim to be the best with various gimmick, read the forums and try an pick one most people like, i have a deltec ap600 and when its pump broke/wore out, i replaced the pump because it had been working well and I both couldn't afford a new skimmer or decide which was the best of the new breed, mind many were still advocating what i had was one of the better ones! But in the past i have had TMC, berlin and a 'beast' with a weird triangle collection overflow! only the berlin and the deltec i would rate as good.
The benefits of a sump can not be under estimated, for a start protein skimmers are ugly dirty looking things, so putting them in the cupboard underneath is ideal, to do that they need to be sump fed/return. The sump can also house the heater out of sight and away from sensitive inverts. You will probably eventually want to do something to keep your calcium up, so things like a dosing pump or Ca reactor can go in the cupboard and sump.
Other advantages are, even with cover glass you will get evaporation, without a sump that will change the display tank level, this will mess up your hang on protein skimmer and just look naff if the water line is visible. With a sump the display tank water level will be more or less constant and evaporation will show up in the sump, where you can top up with fresh water that has a chance to mix before hitting the livestock in the display.
Other equipment you will likely need are a heater, but if its anything like my tank and i suspect a lot of marine tanks your chiller will do more work keeping them cool (yes they are tropical)
As for lighting, do you want inverts? if you don't then fluorescent will do, its only there so you can see the fish. for inverts you may be able to get away with high output florescent, Metal halide is popular, but they use electricity like a football stadium and chuck out tonnes of heat, they will also set you back £100 quid every 6 months on bulbs, I binned mine a few years ago and went with a vertex Illumina LED system.
It still used a decent amount of power but not nearly as much as halides, they still run warm, but not even close to halides and they don't radiate heat into the tank like halide, we had to turn the lounge radiators up when i went from halide to LED as most of the lounge heating came from the lights! Put your hand under a halide bulb and it feels like your getting sunburn! Best bit though is no bulb changes, and they are computer controlled and variable output, so sunrise/set is a gradual affair, you can even start it at one end of the tank and "walk" the light across. They have a built in weather program that randomly dims them to simulate clouds, and occasionally throws in a lightning storm. They are plenty powerful and i actually had to dial them back a bit as when i set them to 85% some of my inverts didn't seem happy until i took them back to 65%.
Other things you will want are sump return pumps and tank circulation pumps, the latter because you want flow and movement in the tank, but you want a broad flow rather than narrow jet, or you could do a wave maker!
your also going to want to obtain some decent clean water for top up and changes, either buy RO water from your local shop or get yourself a RO system, Tap water de-chlorinated or not doesn't cut it with marines, if you have inverts you need to aim for 0ppm nitrates 5ppm max and you wont get that if your water change is 20ppm.
Last but not least salt, a hydrometer, a second control hydrometer (the floating arm ones deteriorate gradually so keep an eye on it) and probably lots of other stuff i have forgotten.
Bottom line think big and for the end game from the beginning or be prepared for a long expensive evolution of your equipment. Nobody said it would be cheap either way!
Edited by ViperDave on Thursday 18th September 21:30
Thanks for the feedback and advice especially ViperDave for the detailed reply, it's given lots of food for thought.
I do accept the tank is probably smaller than ideal for marine and I would have got a 4ft+ tank had space permitted but i'm limited on a tank that fits an alcove in our front room. The theory is that given this is to be a totally a new set-up if I am to go marine with it then this is the time to do it, as deciding to change in a year or two from fresh to salt water will be more hassle and mean I've wasted money on kit which wont be fit for purpose. If it's impractical then that's fine but I didn't want to rule it out without looking into it first.
Given the size of the tank a sump would be a major plus, especially if I can co-locate the skimmer and heater. I pick the tank up on Saturday so i'll be able to confirm the internal dimensions of the cabinet and see if a sump is feasible. Can sumps be bought as a (small) unit or will I need to custom build one? I've heard that for a sump i'll need to get my tank drilled, questions I have are 1. Is there a standard sump designs/format to follow (i'm a novice here!) and if I need my tank drilled how would I go about this?
Cheers
I do accept the tank is probably smaller than ideal for marine and I would have got a 4ft+ tank had space permitted but i'm limited on a tank that fits an alcove in our front room. The theory is that given this is to be a totally a new set-up if I am to go marine with it then this is the time to do it, as deciding to change in a year or two from fresh to salt water will be more hassle and mean I've wasted money on kit which wont be fit for purpose. If it's impractical then that's fine but I didn't want to rule it out without looking into it first.
Given the size of the tank a sump would be a major plus, especially if I can co-locate the skimmer and heater. I pick the tank up on Saturday so i'll be able to confirm the internal dimensions of the cabinet and see if a sump is feasible. Can sumps be bought as a (small) unit or will I need to custom build one? I've heard that for a sump i'll need to get my tank drilled, questions I have are 1. Is there a standard sump designs/format to follow (i'm a novice here!) and if I need my tank drilled how would I go about this?
Cheers
Your welcome, I'm sure there are 101 other ways to do it and 202 opinions on each of them!
My sump is just a small 18" (iirc) fish tank, all i have in it is the skimmer, skimmer feed pump, heater and return pump. A feed is taken from the skimmer feed pump to the ca reactor that sits alongside the sump and drips back into the sump via a container of CA reactor media to stabilize the water PH, the tank return is fed via my chiller which sits behind one of the lounge chairs along with the Ca reactors industrial size CO2 bottle.
The sump tank doesn't have to be huge, just big enough to fit the equipment in, but the taller the better providing you can get stuff in and out of it, obviously the bigger it is the more volume it adds to the tank and bigger buffer for evaporation losses. or you could go fancy with multi section, flow managed filter media, reverse lighting algae scrubbers, mangroves and mud filters etc
For a sump you will need an overflow from the main tank, this usually means drilling the bottom and building an overflow box in the corner, I'd have though a glass shop could probably drill it for you, or if buying the tank from a shop they can probably organize it, you'll want at least a 1" pipe fitting though to get the throughput under gravity feed, shouldn't be a problem if its new glass, but old glass can be fragile apparently. If your building an overflow box yourself, make sure your confident on your gluing ability and curing time, as if it fails you will have a hole in your bucket and a wet floor... With the overflow, make sure its high enough so the water line is hidden behind the tank top finishing strip, and try and design/get something that can cope with algae build up and that is fish overflow safe, ie a deep narrow v shape slots and also has something to cover the top to keep the noise in. Mine is just a flat top box which has a habit of building up a layer of crud raising the water level, its also open top by design so quite noisy and imho at risk of becoming a water slide for my fish. Hence its bodged with part of a CD case to cover it to provide a smaller gap and keep the noise in.
With the return pipe, make sure you have a siphon break high enough that your sump can accommodate the back wash should the pump stop (power cut) otherwise you will end up with an empty tank and wet carpet. A small hole in the pipe at the water line should be enough, or you can get a fancy fitting, either way be sure to test it and keep it clean before the power goes out.
I also used to run a UV sterilizer in my return pipework, but got fed up of buying new bulbs and it getting a build up of calcium carbonate making it hard to change them, so i turned it off and disconnected it and i cant tell the difference, other than one less bit of kit to maintain.
My sump is just a small 18" (iirc) fish tank, all i have in it is the skimmer, skimmer feed pump, heater and return pump. A feed is taken from the skimmer feed pump to the ca reactor that sits alongside the sump and drips back into the sump via a container of CA reactor media to stabilize the water PH, the tank return is fed via my chiller which sits behind one of the lounge chairs along with the Ca reactors industrial size CO2 bottle.
The sump tank doesn't have to be huge, just big enough to fit the equipment in, but the taller the better providing you can get stuff in and out of it, obviously the bigger it is the more volume it adds to the tank and bigger buffer for evaporation losses. or you could go fancy with multi section, flow managed filter media, reverse lighting algae scrubbers, mangroves and mud filters etc
For a sump you will need an overflow from the main tank, this usually means drilling the bottom and building an overflow box in the corner, I'd have though a glass shop could probably drill it for you, or if buying the tank from a shop they can probably organize it, you'll want at least a 1" pipe fitting though to get the throughput under gravity feed, shouldn't be a problem if its new glass, but old glass can be fragile apparently. If your building an overflow box yourself, make sure your confident on your gluing ability and curing time, as if it fails you will have a hole in your bucket and a wet floor... With the overflow, make sure its high enough so the water line is hidden behind the tank top finishing strip, and try and design/get something that can cope with algae build up and that is fish overflow safe, ie a deep narrow v shape slots and also has something to cover the top to keep the noise in. Mine is just a flat top box which has a habit of building up a layer of crud raising the water level, its also open top by design so quite noisy and imho at risk of becoming a water slide for my fish. Hence its bodged with part of a CD case to cover it to provide a smaller gap and keep the noise in.
With the return pipe, make sure you have a siphon break high enough that your sump can accommodate the back wash should the pump stop (power cut) otherwise you will end up with an empty tank and wet carpet. A small hole in the pipe at the water line should be enough, or you can get a fancy fitting, either way be sure to test it and keep it clean before the power goes out.
I also used to run a UV sterilizer in my return pipework, but got fed up of buying new bulbs and it getting a build up of calcium carbonate making it hard to change them, so i turned it off and disconnected it and i cant tell the difference, other than one less bit of kit to maintain.
Thanks for that.
Ideally I'd like the option of keeping sps corals but I guess that main factor is what filtration I can get to work for the tank/cabinet and ultimately cost.
The amount of information and terminology to the uninitiated is quite overwhelming. I think i need to break it done into steps (which you've help greatly with), so I'll see if I can get it sumped and then start working from that point on. Off to carry on the research!
Ideally I'd like the option of keeping sps corals but I guess that main factor is what filtration I can get to work for the tank/cabinet and ultimately cost.
The amount of information and terminology to the uninitiated is quite overwhelming. I think i need to break it done into steps (which you've help greatly with), so I'll see if I can get it sumped and then start working from that point on. Off to carry on the research!
Capri86 said:
Thanks for that.
Ideally I'd like the option of keeping sps corals but I guess that main factor is what filtration I can get to work for the tank/cabinet and ultimately cost.
The amount of information and terminology to the uninitiated is quite overwhelming. I think i need to break it done into steps (which you've help greatly with), so I'll see if I can get it sumped and then start working from that point on. Off to carry on the research!
OK with SPS you will want Halides. This generates heat and thus evap. So a larger tank and an auto top-up would be required really. Ideally I'd like the option of keeping sps corals but I guess that main factor is what filtration I can get to work for the tank/cabinet and ultimately cost.
The amount of information and terminology to the uninitiated is quite overwhelming. I think i need to break it done into steps (which you've help greatly with), so I'll see if I can get it sumped and then start working from that point on. Off to carry on the research!
Filtration can be live rock, with SPS you should (IMHO) keep your fish count right down.
Yes always steps in simple terms.
A sump is good in this case to hide a skimmer and so on.
Given size I'm thinking sps may be a step too far. Might start off with fish and live rock only to break myself in gently now. That said if I can't get a sump to work with the cabinet it might have to be a nice quality tropical setup.
Time for some more reading and head scratching!
Shame I can't just persuade the other half to loose the furniture and put a 4ft with sump in. Then it's just my budget and knowledge holding me back!
Time for some more reading and head scratching!
Shame I can't just persuade the other half to loose the furniture and put a 4ft with sump in. Then it's just my budget and knowledge holding me back!
Gassing Station | All Creatures Great & Small | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff