Hi everyone, recently I decided to make the move from freshwater to saltwater after around 10 years of keeping fish
I was keeping & breeding various different fish (discus, synodontis lucipininnis, African cichlids & pufferfish etc) but I felt like I needed a bigger challenge so I sold up and bought an ea reef pro 900s from my LFS. I thought now that I’ve started buying equipment for the tank I would set up a build thread. I was originally eyeing up the ea reef 900s but when I went back to the shop I ended up buying the ea reef pro 900s (the pro comes with a weir, hard piping & is taller). While both are beautiful tanks the pro just seemed a better put together tank where as the standard model seemed more of a budget tank in comparison, though the pro did come at a higher price (around £200 more!
) but I was glad I spent the extra money! Next I purchased x2 ai prime hd led lights, what lights to buy was a hard decision for me because there’s so many on the market and everyone recommends something different!
also coming from basic freshwater led lighting that has an on/off switch the lighting for marine tanks seemed very daunting with everything being individually adjustable. I went for the ai’s For a couple of reasons: looks, my tanks are my pride and joy and being the centrepiece of my living room it has to look good! There’s nothing worse than a nice tank surrounded in ugly equipment! Also the price, I set my self a budget of £500 for lighting and the ai’s fitted the price range but still seem very good quality. Another reason for buying the ai primes was ease of use, the downloadable file settings make life so much easier especially for a beginner like myself. Next I chose my rock for the tank, I went with the Carib sea life rock. I used a mixture of regular and “shapes” for my aquascape held together with aqua stick epoxy. I chose the Carib sea life rock because it comes in a nice colour and being dry it gave me a chance to work on my aquascape over a few days outside the tank which made life much easier, it also comes with the added bonus of being friendly on the environment
. I then bought a TMC reef pump 6000 and a TMC reef tide compact, both come with controllers for adjustable flow etc. My only worry is the circulation pump looks a little small when I see it sitting in my tank...but who knows maybe it will pack a punch! Il have to wait until my tank is filled to get a better idea
. Anyway this is as far as I’ve gotten, il hopefully be visiting the LFS for some more equipment over the next few weeks then I can start the cycling process! I oringinally planned to stick with soft corals but now I really want some lps (hammers, torch & frogspawn are my absolute favourite corals) any help or advice would be greatly appreciated as I’m new to all of this! Il hoepefully be back with more updates very soon
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