4 replies to this topic

[Yggdrasil]

Got about 25 FW tanks on the go in the fish shed/room thought I might give marine ago as a display tank in the house but making my own topic on is so I get it mostly right the first time.

I have been reading pretty much everything I can find regarding setting up a marine aquarium with a few things that are obvious I need and a few others I am seeking advice on. Money is an issue, well I’m not setting it up cheap but want to keep ongoing costs down. Power and water changes mainly as salt and kilowatts aren’t to cheap lately.

I am looking at a 6x2x2.5 or a 6x2x2 new, figure its not to big and not to small, building my own stand so I can achieve the look I really want it will probably be built overly strong for the aquarium more than any thing but once set it wont be moving so not fussed.
I live in a small town near Bunbury so I’ll be mixing my own salt in a sealed IBC.
I will run LED Lights with a hood on top installing a fan or 2 in the hood just to make sure it won’t get to hot.
I want to look at a coral based tank as well they are just so nice to look at =]
Fish will be chosen based on the coral I have but I will look at different stock a bit later as I got a lot more to do yet besides a lot of live rock and live sand.
I am not sure what sand to get but I do know I will go with sand.

Now comes what I have questions on, the sump.
The more I read the more lost I get but basically in my head I am going to use a 4x1.5x1.5 aquarium I have for the sump and I will glue some dividers in it, it will need to house return pump, a protein skimmer and heater.
These seem the basics but what else will I need in the sump?
Will 2 or 3 smaller pumps be better than one big one with multi outlets protecting me if a pump dies?
Power outages? Is it worth investing in a UPS or should I buy a gen set? My town is known for power outages lasting up to 3 or 4 hours probably 8 a year but not all that long tho and with the recent storms and no power for 3 days it is a big fear, I ran my filters of a 1000w car inverter to cycle my FW tanks during it tho.
Should I have live rock in the sump?
Can I get away with getting only 50% live rock and 50% normal rock to save a little money?
Once set up how much water will I need to change and how often? I would like to get the aquarium to need the least amount possible but at the same time not risking it by pushing it to the limits.
Drilling the aquarium drain to the sump, Where would be best? I like the idea of having the box in the middle of the aquarium so I can place rock and corals around it hiding it but this may not be the best option for filtration.

What is the best bang for buck/quiet equipment (return pumps, heaters, LED lights, skimmer and wave maker) I should get?
I use a lot of Aqua one product’s for my FW and most of it works fine besides their air pumps being a bit loud.

Thanks in advanced for the help

[Neakit]

Ok good start, firstly if your concerned about cost dont go bigger you may want to think about a 4ft aquarium instead cause running costs of a 6ft wont be cheap. Next the higher your tank is (height of water column) the more expensive it will be to light. As for the equipment stay away from aqua one marine equipment none of it is of any quality, look into tunze and vortec for water movement.

Now for your drain look here http://www.beananimal.com/home.aspx
there is a great read about silent drains.

Now for lighting go onto the masa website there are countless reviews of led lighting and many other lighting.

For ideas of sumps look here http://www.melevsreef.com/index.html
there is quite a few ideas for you to think over.

With your power issues unless the tank is heavily stocked with fish 3-4 hours with out power wont have many adverse effects, but for your own piece of mind a pure sign wave ups will help, and for the longer ones a generator on standby wont hurt.

[K.v]

Tunze and Vortech are pricey mate. you pay alot for name sadly, Sicce is worth a look there is quite a few blokes using them now. as for lighting theres alot to choose from you still cant beat Metal Halide for growth rates. spend your money on a good skimmer straight off the more you can spend the better it will be, do your reaserch but. get a good batch of test kits. take your time get hold of Sean from Blue Sanctury, he has some mint live rock some of the best i have ever seen. look at dosing pumps as well.

[Neakit]

you do get what you pay for, tunze and vortec are the only 2 brands that make controllable(electronicly) power heads, If your going to lash out on a 6x2x2 im sure you can afford to buy decent gear. Also with that sizeable commitment you dont want to buy things more than once

[Vebas]

It depends on what you are after:

Variable flow, low visual space impact = Vortech
Variable flow, low noise = Tunze
Reliability, power, value for money = Sicce

If you are talking bang for buck nothing comes close to Sicce, and with the Wave Surfer you can run a few pumps switching back and forth to create some randomising of flow. 3 years warranty compared to 1 year for Vortech and 2 years for Tunze, and I would rate them as more reliable than both other brands of stream pumps - I personally have run one out of water for 16 hours and although the impeller literally melted the pump still works fine. Sicce actually even make some of Tunzes non stream pumps for them.

Cheers
Pacco