New to Reefing! Help on what equipment to get first!
Hello everyone. New to the forums here. Plan on starting up a salt water aquarium soon but don't have the money to get everything at once so I was going to piece it together buying everything I can as soon as I can. I plan on getting a drilled through tank and I plan on having live rock and reefs in my tank. I plan on getting a 90 gallon tank to start off. Please give me a list of all the equipment I need to get to get my tank started and then list maybe the order of importance and price (even though everything will be important and needed to get at one point or another). Just looking to figure out what I'll need first and get use to learning the good brands vs. the avoided brands. Still trying to learn a ton as well bc I know this isn't anything easy if I want a nice looking tank. Thanks!
Thats a long list of requests! Do some searches on this site and others, you will (and need to) learn much. I caution that many will say you need far more than even they themselves have invested in. You will need to filter what is truly essential from what is ideal. Take it slow. Be flexible in what you buy. And read, read, read. This forum is rife with good advice - when you are ready to ask good (specific) questions! Good luck, and welcome to our madness!
Fish add more to a tanks bio-load. The more fish you keep the greater the need for ammonia removal. What filtration option would do this most efficiently? There are several ways to achieve this.
Fish don't require the intense lighting that some corals do. What corals interest you?
Otherwise consider all that you wish to keep and build your tank around them
One thing I can definitely say is have lots of patience, patience, patience. It's very tempting to just go to the LFS and buy one of everything and throw it in the tank, but that does not usually end well for your tank or your wallet. Do your research, and take your time with the setup :]
Lighting - lots of people (including myself) use the "Chinese lights". I don't know why everyone turns up their noses at them; with the huge number of people using them (because they are cheaper), I don't think the few horror stories about bad lights is really an issue. Get what you can afford and don't listen to all the hype.
Also with lighting - the cheapest ones (if you decide to go with LEDs) are the "manually dimmable" ones. Manually dimmable is pointless. Are you going to stand at your tank all day and dial up and down the intensity? No. So ultimately those lights become straight on/off lights per whatever timers you put them on. I'd recommend, if going with LEDs, to get a PROGRAMMABLE fixture, not a "dimmable" one. I also strongly recommend getting a fixture with at least a 1.5 to 1 ratio of blue lights to white lights. The whites will drown out the blues if they are 1:1.
I like a skimmer and in a 90 gallon I'd strongly recommend it. Many in-sump skimmers will work just fine; you don't need the most expensive thing on the market.
You DON'T need a reactor. They are nice, and I have one (I have two actually but I only have a nano running at the moment), but "needed"? no. That's an item I'd wait to find used once you have your tank set up and if you find a good deal then go for it, or you may decide you don't want one at all and that's fine too.
For your rock - keep in mind when buying your rock that eventually things will be growing on it. Your tank doesn't need to be stuffed full with rock or else it'll look cluttered once your corals start growing and just look a mess. Less is more. I probably only have 15 pounds of rock in my 29 biocube, if that. My filtration comes from, well, my filters. lol Rock is expensive so that's another thing you don't want to go overboard on (like the reactor) when you are just starting out and buying everything. It'll be a waste of money to get too much in the long run because you will be pulling it out to make room later on.
- the return pump is a big deal. Don't skimp on buying a good one of those. Where you can 'save' with the rock and not buying extra equipment, here is where you will 'spend'. That pump is responsible for really making your whole system flow. It has to pump upward several feet from your sump to your display tank AND have enough power left to spit out the returning water at a decent flow rate, so I'd take a 'go big or go home' approach to return pumps.
Deep or shallow sand beds or even bare bottom is personal preference, but for me, I think the idea of deep sand beds has run it's course and people are finally seeing them for the nitrate factories that they are. Again, others really like them though. It's something you'll have to research; I personally prefer a dusting or shallow bed strictly for aesthetics, but not because I think the sand gives any real benefit to the tank (in my mind, even though I have a shallow sand bed, the only "beneficial" sand bed is a non-existent one lol). Sand isn't too expensive either way.
And last, I'll just say don't buy livestock that you really have no interest in keeping, when you're first starting out. A lot of new-to-the-hobby folks just want to get something in their tank right away so they'll add some of the mushrooms that are really lacking in color, or star polyps (which do have color), or some xenia. While those are certainly "beginner" corals, they are also ugly and in most cases very invasive in your tank. Wait it out. Let your tank get settled and cycled and go for things that will still be easier but not that you are going to be scraping off your rocks later trying to get out of your tank because you just don't want them anymore. It's a waste of your money, and it's a pain to get those things completely eradicated from your tank later on. That also holds true of fish. If you want a school of damsels in your tank then go for it, but don't buy damsels just because you want a fish in your tank right away and otherwise really aren't going to want that fish down the line. Again, it's just ultimately money you could have waited and spent on something you actually want.
New to Reefing! Help on what equipment to get first!
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Originally Posted by jimsflies
There's nothing like being a Reefer!
