starting soft tank Ideas??

[Ricky92]

alright pros as you may know im knew here and after careful consideration im thinking about starting an all soft coral tank heres the situation so far:

55 gal tank 4 ft long by 1 ft wide by 2ft high

24 in light 50 50 bulbs flouresent and blue

marineland biowheel filter and a eheim canister filter and a koralia powerhead

fish
1 true percula
2 yellow belly damsels
2 three stripe damsels (hambugs)
2 unknown damsels (i caught em sorry no camera no pic)
1 yellow tail damsel

and live rock not enough because i wanted the tank to cycle then get fish and get more rocks
i plan on getting 1 more perc and thats it for fish at this moment
so i think i need a skimmer a heater and better lighting

will this do
visi jet cd- 511883 protein skimmer
still need to find a reasonably priced heater and
im making the lights myself with help

[jfalcaro79]

You can keep a lot of really beautiful corals with that light set up. Unfortunitly they are al non-photo types that are among the hardest softies to keep. You should be ok with shrooms and zooas but thats about it. That skimmer is terrible and I would strongly suggest against it. Not tring to bring you down, It's just that a skimmer is one of the most important things for a successful system and seeing future reefers crash and burn sucks for the hooby. Lighting should be no less than 3 to 3.5 watts per gallon, and don't use 50/50's. I would wait on the heater and focus on powerheads for water movment ( at least 25x volume per hour ) hope this was helpful....Good luck and don't give up!

[Mariner]

jfalcaro is right. Neither the skimmer nor the lights will do.
If you don't have a sump (I'm assuming you don't), get a good HOB skimmer. For a tank that size, the cheapest you can go is probably something like a Coral Life Super Skimmer, Aqua C Remora, or Octopus.
You can DIY adequate and cheap lighting that will work for softies, but you might be better off investing in a T-5 flourescent fixture. If you need to go cheap though, you can use a couple of 48" shoplight fixtures from Walmart or Lowe's. That'll give you 4 40 watt bulbs. Make two of them "daylight" bulbs (5000 to 6500 kelvin) and two of the them actinic bulbs. The daylight bulbs you can get at Lowe's, but you'll have to go to an LFS for the actinic. You'll be able to keep most softies with this, but that's about it.
HTH,
Mariner

[Ricky92]

yeah thanks jfalcaro79 & Mariner any info is useful but are you (jfacaro79) saying i dont need a heater or just not yet. im thinking about buying one more koralia powerhead those are awesome and i think ill follow mariners advice on the lighting bu thnx

if i had more money i would get the latest and greatest stuff but im not rich (yet) ill wait till the tank is completely reef ready to even consider what coral i want

[Mariner]

Ricky,
I know what you mean about not being rich. I went with a lot of DIY and ghetto stuff, especially at first. You can make it work, but you need to do your homework. A couple of places you really can't skimp are the skimmer and the live rock.
Another Korallia is a good idea.
And BTW, you don't need the biowheel on the marineland filter. In fact, you don't want it for a reef aquarium. The live rock will do all the biological filtration, and the biowheel kind of intereferes with that. You can still use the filter for circulation and to run carbon (if you keep the carbon changed), but don't use the wheel.
HTH,
Mariner

[jfalcaro79]

Ricky,
Only you can know if you will need a heater or not. Depending on the climate where you live and what equipment you have. I would get all your stuff set up and then see what the Temp is with your lights and powerheads running. A good temp to shoot for is a 75 - 77 degree swing. I'm lucky enough to have a ton of equipment including 2x250 MH and 4 65w Actinic PC ( a little over 10w per Gal. ) so i don't need a heater. I also turn my tank 45 times an hour!( 2x Koralia#2 & 2x Koralia#3 with a Mag 950 return ) I run a reverse day/night photo period on my refugium which helps keep the temp steady in the evening when the display lights are off. And Mariner gave some great options for DIY aswell as skimmers. I personal use the Octopus DNW-200 Needlewheel Recirculating Skimmer. But i think the DNW-110 would be great for you set up. And for only $180. here's a link http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=Octopus . Again good luck.

[Ricky92]

skimmer looks good and i do need a heater because even though im in south florida we keep indoors cold way to low my tanks running at 65 degrees now i keep the biowheel on because i like overkill better than not enough right plus it agitates the surface. so i guess ill be saving up for:
koralia 1
skimmer heater and lights

20 bucks per lawn isnt going to cut it ill think of something

[jfalcaro79]

Ricky,
I have a 200w heater that you can have. PM me your address and I will send it to you. Also check Ebay for the powerheads, There as cheap as you can get em on there. As far as the Biowheel I would remove it and fill the area with reef rubble. It will act as a make-shift refugium. I would do the same with the canister filter, with maybe 1 chamber for Carbon. Biowheels and canister media have been known to house a lot of detritis and the rubble will give you the oppertunity to grow more pods. Keep us posted and maybe a few pics.

[KarlBob]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14317550#post14317550 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Ricky92
so i guess ill be saving up for:
koralia 1
I'm not sure whether you meant "one Koralia powerhead" or "a Koralia #1 powerhead". In a 55 gallon tank, adding a Koralia #1 won't do very much for you. They just aren't very powerful, compared to the higher numbered powerheads. I had two Koralia #1s in a 20 gallon tank, and I recently replaced one with a Koralia #2. The flow increase was more than you might expect, and the price difference was less than $10.

One of the things that you'll see frequently here is advice along these lines: Spend what you can afford and buy quality equipment, or you'll spend more than you can afford replacing cheap equipment. The most expensive stuff is not necessarily the best, but some shortcuts really do end up costing you more in the long run.

Good luck with your tank.

[Ricky92]

i ment koralia #1, the guy at my lfs said that would be enough for the whole tank, im learning to take their advice with a grain of salt

[Ricky92]

jfalcaro79 thanks but i dont want to go threw all the trouble plus they seem affordable.

[hambandit]

the guy at your lfs is wrong imho. id put at least 2 #2's in there, pref #3's.

karlbob is exactly right. if you buy cheap crap you get cheap crap. if you buy quality stuff used its still quality and a lot less expensive. my gf will tell you im as big of a cheapass as anyone but ive learned the hard way that it doesnt pay to skimp on some things.

take the biowheel off.

put as much rock in that thing as you can afford.

[KarlBob]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14344711#post14344711 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hambandit
put as much rock in that thing as you can afford.
I agree. If you can't afford 1.5 to 2 pounds per gallon of live rock right away, get as much as you can afford now and add more as funds become available. Just keep in mind that you won't be able to stock the tank as heavily with .75 to 1 lb/gallon of live rock as someone with 1.5 to 2lbs/gallon could.

[Ricky92]

alright thnx so if i took the filtration out and the bio wheel and filled the bucket for the filter with substrate it will work as a refugium

[possys]

bio wheel? with LR and LS and that's not need for that.