Decision of what to return???

[jgaepi]

Hello,

I am new to this, I had freshwater fish for a long time, but new to saltwater and a mini-reef setup. I have a 45 gallon hexagon and went in search of equipment. I was given tons of advice. I settled for reasonably affordable and bought a Filstar XP1 canister filter, SeaClone 100 protein skimmer, a Turbo Twist U/V sterilizer and 2 Maxi-jet powerheads.
I went to pick up my live rock yesterday and got practically beaten up by the fish guy. He seemed extremely knowledgeable and pulled out fish books and started reading to me. The final decision was return the filter and protein skimmer and invest in just one Bak-Pac protein skimmer, which actually is rated the highest.
Does this sound normal? Also what to do with the U/V sterilizer, return it, or keep it, but how to run it would be the major question?
Do I really want 4 powerheads? 2 for the wavemaker, 1 for the protein skimmer, and 1 for the U/V sterilizer?
Then comes the question if I still would have to add something for filtration when I take away the canister filter and just suplant a better protein skimmer.
Help is greatly appreciated.

 

[OrionGirl]

Live rock will be the filtration--the bacteria colonize the rock surface, so supplemental filtration isn't needed. Congrats on finding an LFS that doesn't tell you it's required!

I would not use the UV. These things kill everything that is free-floating in the water column, and that includes beneficial organisms and their larvae. In a reef, this means you're killing off coral spawn (if it happens), snails eggs, and lots of micro-crustaceans. Not good--those things are free food! IMO, having a UV to run on a quarantine tank may be beneficial, but not required. I'd return it.

For powerheads--I like lots of motion. 2 in the tank would be the bare minimum for me, especially if that's the only source of water movement.

 

[jgaepi]

Thanks for the good info, but one more question.

Great. I was able to return the canister filter for a full refund, good stuff. I am also shipping the SeaClone and U/V sterilizer back to the online company. I have my bak-pac on order, they are going to do some alterations for me, which is supposed to beef it up. But the final question is, aren't I supposed to hang some form of carbon in the tank?
Also, another local pet store, not too impressive, had a tank of tongan live rock covered with a white coating, they said it was because the caretaker forget about the tank. What do you do if your live rock turns all white?

 

[OrionGirl]

Nope, carbon is not a requirement. I run it only occassionally, to deal with coral toxins, or medications. A cheap power filter that you can throw on as needed works just as well for this.

Well, the bacteria would still be okay, just the coralline algae died off. It can usually come back if put under appropriate conditions. Seeding it will some rock that does have the purple coralline would help, and eventually the rock would go back to being purple. However, I'd be more concerned that something else happened to the rock to kill the coralline--it's usually pretty hardy, unless put in the dark for a long time.