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Salt water reef tanks.

KrustyKruser said:
What is everyone using to filter their tank? specifically I am trying to lower my nitrates. I am constantly testing at about 20PPM and they will not go down regardless of how much I change. I am changing about 35-40 gallons of saltwater a week. I have a protein skimmer but think I may need another or something else to supplement.
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Build a refugium. I have a 90 gallon reef that I can maintain at unreadable nitrates for months without water changes by using a deep sand refugium that has chaetomorpha growing in it. Plus, it helps feed the tank.
 
I built an algae turf scrubber. It's kicking but and was super cheap to build. I think the total investment was $50.
 
I've always liked growing mangroves, cheato and various other algaes into refugiums over the years with great success.. Man I took all my tanks down a couple of years ago and I'm getting the bug again.. Wish I hadn't sold my 210
 
I've got a tank, 55 gallon I think, that my dad is no longer using.

If I wanted to get a salt tank going, what's it going to cost me to get started? I have lights , pump, bubbler thing already. If those were previously used in a fresh tank, are they still fine to use for salt?
 
You don't want a bubbler and are you planning on keeping corals? If so I can pretty much guarantee the lights you have won't work.. I am not an advocate of any kind of mechanical filtration it doesn't work on sw for the most part you'll need to decide if you going to go with sand if so get lives and or dead sand and seed it with live sand from someone's else's tank you want liverock for your filtration and aqua scampi g buy it used otherwise you pay $5-10/lb at and fish store and good power heads for water movement.. Check out www.reefcentral.com hands down the best SW forum around.. 55s aren't a very good size for a lot of reasons but I also wouldn't want to go with anything smaller especially for a first tank-- more water volume=more stability .. I've been doing salt on and off for close to 20yrs now I've had 50gallons tanks with 2-3k invested in them my last tank was a 210 and I had close to $5k in it with equipment and livestock.. Good water movement and a good protein skimmer are key.. Currently I don't have a tank setup I do have a 10,000 gallon koi pond though-)
 
A sump is my biggest suggestion closely followed by a GOOD protein skimmer. Do tons of research and be patient.
 
And do not overstock.. Don't use cheap pumps. And remember with a sump you need to make sure it's big enough that if you lose power or your return pump goes out you have enough room in the sump for all the water that will flow into until you break suction... And have as big a refugium in your sump as possible with lots of diverse kinds of algae always growing..
 
I am upgrading / combining my tanks. It's already torn down and ready to go.

Oceanic 29 gal biocube
Stand
20 gal acrylic sump
bubble magus nac 3 skimmer
Mag 7 return pump
Koralia nano pump
Plumbing
Reef radiance 132e full spectrum led light (excellent light!)
2 power strips.
Used sand

No rock or heater.


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$300 with light
$200 without
 
I haven't been in the reef game in a while but I set up a sweet planted tank.
 

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I did a 20g reef tank for my office. It has a 5g refugium with a deep sand bed, live rock and chaeto. Let it go for a month and recently added some mushrooms, candy cane, brain coral and xenia. Also added a cleaner crew of snails and emerald crabs. Corals are booming. All parameters are fine but I had 3 chromis die? I don't know if I'm missing something in the water or they just refused to eat dry food. Going to do a water change and try again next week. Fortunately I've got a bad ass reef store in town and the owners give cash deals.
 
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