Looking for advice for a75gal

[Fiddler]

Well it's been 10 months since i have begun my first saltwater tank, due to money i started with a 30 gal. It's been hard keeping it looking good ( with no sump/fuge or rodi water )

I've had four fish, three of them are still alive, and the one that died accidently got sucked into a pump. ( even though there was a gaurd on it, still not too sure how it pulled him in ) And i have a few corals that were already on the liverock that have been doing quite well.

Now i would really love to upgrade to a bigger tank, i have been looking at 75's that are already drilled ( good? bad? )

i don't have much to spend so for the protein skimmer i was looking at the coralife for up to 225 gal or Octopus VENTU-100 Shredder or Octopus NW-200 Needle-Wheel ( anybody have any experience with these )

i have two light fixtures ( pc ) that both pump out 192 watts 10,000 daylight, i believe and dual actinic, not sure about those ( so a total of 384, thats a little more than 5 watts per gallon would that been enough for most LPS, clams, softies? )

i'm going to turn my 30 gal into a sump/fuge ( keep most the equipment in there, cheato, live sand )

Also, i've thought a lot about a closed loop system, to be honest i don't really know the in's and out's but i get the general idea, i just don't want to try and mess it up

any advice would be great, i'm really looking forward to seeing how my three chromis like the new place
:rollface:

[popimp06]

i had a 125 for my first with a 125 wet dry sump built in skimmer and it worked perfect. also had some live rock to though. and to eliminate alot of problems i did use ro water i bought in 5 gallon jugs from my culligan man. that keeps the water stable for me

[mg426]

Get the RO NW over the coralife !!!!

[Fiddler]

yeah i was also going to have live rock in the sump, i've got about 50 pounds in my thirty right now, i'll get more eventually but i'm more concerned with the plumbing and equipment at this moment



i have a coralife ss 65 thats been fine so far, but i heard that they are rated for more gallons than they can handle

[akrimmel]

go with the css 125 as they both use the same pump only difference is the collection cup size and the 225 is more round throught the housing. closed loop can be a night mare as the plumbins if you dont know hiw to do it properly. and as well you want a reef ready RR tank over a reg tank.

[Fiddler]

this may be really stupid but what is the difference between a RR tank and a regular

[akrimmel]

RR-DRILLED 2 HOLES FOR RETURN AND INTAKE INTO THE SUMP.

ALL ELSE YOU NEED TO USE A OVERFLOW AND RETURN THAT ARE HANKGING ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE TANK WHERE THE RR ALL READY INSIDE THE TANK.

DOES THJIS HELP OR EVEN MAKE SENSE.

[Fiddler]

yeah, i just thought there would be more to it other than that it's pre-drilled, thanks.

are you by any chance using sugar grain sized sand? or something bigger?

the sand i use now is pretty coarse, i think i would like something more fine, but i havn't really found anything good or bad about it

[akrimmel]

put the fine in as the final layer dont worry about what is underneath.