Getting back into reefing - suggestions for tank wanted

[johnmackay70]

Ok, I have been out of the reef hobby for many years, so a lot of my knowledge is going to be old - other than the recent reading I have been doing.

I used to take pride in running low tech tanks successfully and that is what I am planning for my first tank tack to the hobby. Setting this up as a softies tank.

I have just installed a 40 gallon breeder in my wall, made and installed a durso standpipe (and internal overflow). Afterwards, I realized this tank has a lot of fine scratches on the front, so I will have to experiment with buffing them out with cerium oxide and my angle grinder.

I will be breaking down my current 75 gallon FW plant tank and that is going to be my sump - yeah, I know most will think that is backwards, but the 75 wont work in my wall and all of the extra water will make my tank much easier to maintain.

Ligting: I have foun a friend that can get the new 105 watt SHO power compacts for well under $20 a bulb - I am tbinking about running 2 of these and 1 or 2 36" t5 actinics...

as for my sump - 3 chambers. 1st chamber empty, 2nd chamber - sand bed with sugar sized aragonite and refugium (possibly mangrove), third chamber - equipment, including mag 5 return (extra tank flow will come from a couple powerheads in the tank) and the cheapest reasonable skimmer I can find - I might possibly build one from pvc

Please let me know if you think I am way off base - especially about the lighting. I haven't really found anyone using the SHO lights yet...if you dont know, they run at 6400 K and 6300 lumens. With the actinics, I think I should be ok here

 

[rskillz]

Well, I think you should at least do T5 for lighting. From what I've seen, PC lights typically don't have the "look" or intensity to satisfy the owner or the coral for the most part. A nice mix of T5 bulbs can look quite nice.

As for the rest of it--cutting corners and doing things cheaply is a great thing, because this hobby gets extraordinarily expensive. I wouldn't, however, skimp on the skimmer. IMO, as long as you have decent lights, flow, and skimmer, you will be fine with softies. Unless you really want the mangrove/refugium, you would be better served to just get a good skimmer and let it do it's work.

Oh, and as far as the 6k bulbs, I'd stay away. That is going to be yellowish, nasty light that will not look good, even with a nice actinic supplement.

 

[johnmackay70]

Ligthing - I am definately not married to the SHO Ligthing idea as it doesnt seem to be very well "tested" - maybe I will just start with 1 and do some more t5s...still thinking about it.

As for the deep sand bed - the reason I want this, is because I had an extremely successfull 75 gal reef in the '90s with a DSB in the sump. Because of it, I did not need to dose calcium for over 3 years - just needed to add a layer of sand to the sump once every 6 to 8 months. the mangrove I can honestly live without - will probably just add a bunch of live rock there on the dsb

 

[johnmackay70]

Since I have been out of the hobby for so long, does anyone have suggestions on skimmers to research for this system?