New 72 gallon bowfront,FOWLR.

[davocean]

I agree, coralife has a terrible rep.
reefgeek.com is another great source, though I do love MD as well.
CL and foster smith are great too.
T5's would be my choice.
Sometimes reefgeek has Tek's on sale, great light.

 

[davexstumpe]

Alright an update.

Tank's been up and running almost 2 weeks.

Right now params are:

72 Gallon Bowfront
pH- 8.2
Ammo/Nitrite/Nitrate- 0
About 25 lbs of Fiji live rock bought out of an established tank.
temp - 76 F
Salinity- 1.023

Have a penguin 200 and penguin 350 running on it right now.
Originally set it up with those filters as well as a wet/dry filter but tood down the wet dry after i tried everything to quiet it down only to have minimal success. I live in a studio apartment so the tank was too close to my bed and was too noisy for me. Plus i've heard how thye can turn into nitrate factories. So i figured i'll sell the wet/dry and use the $ for some more live rock.
are the penguin filters decent filtration for the tank or should i just go with an aquaclear like a lot of you guys suggest?

After doing some research on lighting i ended up going with the PCs and got the Coralife Double Strip 4/65 Watt Deluxe Lunar light with the 4 LED Moon lights. I know you guys seemed against it but i couldn't resist. Got it for $150 new, and it normally retails on all the discount websites for $330+up. The guy that sold it to me actually had one hooked up as well as some T5s and MHs. The MHs were too pricey for me right now, and i liked the lighting this unit gave out, and the LED Blue moon lights were a nice feature.

So for the lighting i have 2 65 watt Actinic bulbs, 1 6700k and 1 10,000k bulbs, as well as the LEDs.

Also have a used power head that came with the tank hooked up right now that i HATE, but i am waiting for the Koralia 3 Powerhead that i ordered.

For substrate, i have about an inch of sand.


Still struggling with the cloudiness issues because i didn't wash the sand out well enough, but i'm sure it'll just take time, and me cleaning off the filter pads once a day for now.

Being that i got the live rock out of an established tank and didn't get any readings of ammonia/nitrite/nitrate i added a royal dottyback as well as a False Percula Clownfish and am hoping to avoid the cycle. the fish have been doing great.

here's some pictures of the tank a few days ago taken from my blackberry, the digital camera will come out soon.

let meknow what i'm missing/need to fix/or any comments. Nothing to great here. Also have the UV sterilizer, is it even worth using?

i have changed around the liverock but here's how i had it when i just threw it on in in the beginning.

 

[Fishfriend1]

great start, i dought you will skip the cycle. How much live rock is going into the tank?

 

[greech]

Good start and sharp looking bowfront. Couple of ideas. You mentioned the aquaclears in lieu of the penguins. I would recommend using the ACs is you are looking to go with a HOB filter. I would go with an AC 110 and run filter floss and Chemipure Elite. Very durable and quiet HOB filter. You also mentioned your tank still being cloudy. I suspect you have some surface scum build up? This scum is likely the cause of your continued cloudiness. There is a handy little surface skimmer attachment that you can get to go with the AC HOBs that works fantastic! Best $15 I spent on my tank. I don't believe there is such an attachment for the penguins.

However, for that size tank I would save money and go with a HOB skimmer. Deltec and Reef Octopus are probably some of the best out there as far as HOBs go but the AquaC Remora is a cheaper but very popular HOB skimmer (not sure if they are rated for a tank your size though). These skimmers usually come with a surface skimmer box as well so your surface scum will be resolved. Whatever you do stay on your water changes and keep your water moving. I would continue to run that PH when you get the K3

Not sure how much rock that is but you're going to need some more. There is probably enough surface area there to cover the fish you have but I would not add any more fish until you get a little more rock and your tank settles in a bit more. YOu don't have to cram your tank full of rock but you will need more. Don't forget to test your water often or have it tested.

Do you have a cleanup crew? If not you might want to add some astrea, nassarius and cerith snails. Hermits too if you like them. A couple of fighting conchs would do well in there too but I would wait a little while on those.

 

[davexstumpe]

Thanks for the quick responses guys.

The tanks has only 25 lbs right now. I plan on having about 100 lbs in the end but i am waiting on another good deal. Got this at $3/lb but it's all he had left aside from some small pieces. Live rock around my area gos for about $9.99/lb on average.

Found someone selling a Prizm HOB Skimmer for $50. Any recommendations on this?
Also, this tank is near my bed and am looking for something not as loud? is there a quieter skimmer or are they all pretty much the same?

greech:
Yes, im going to pick up a aquaclear 110 used for $20. Would jsut 1 filter be okay? or should i leave one of the penguins on there as well. only reason I had the penguins on there were becasue they were leftover from a bunch of FW setups i had.
And for the cloudyness, it's more the whole tank, as i can't see through to the other side when i look longways. and whenever i move the sand it clouds up again. I will look into that surface skimmer though.

I didn't add a cleanup crew yet as i was afraid it was too early and there wasn't enough algae/food for them. Is this true or should i get a few hermits and snails?
I do know i would liek to get some simple corals in a few months once my tank is settled, so are there any cleanup crew i should stay away from?

I LOVED the halloween hermit crabs when i saw them. I've heard mixed reactions to them with corals. What are everyones thoughts on keeping them together?

 

[greech]

I think you can just do the one AC for now especially since you are looking into a skimmer. In the end that would be a good combo. Sounds like you need more flow to kick what is stuck in the sand bed up into the water column where it can be filtered out. The K3 should help with that. I would definitely look into the surface skimmer attachment for the AC though. You can use powerheads pointed at the surface to break up the scum but it basically just mixes the scum back into your water column making you tank look a little dusty.

If you have added fish you probably want a few snails at least and maybe a couple of hermits. These guys don't add too much to your bioload but don't buy too many to start with. No experience with the halloween hermits but I agree they look cool. My blue legs have been nothing but model citizens. I would not be surprised if you at least get a mini-cycle despite how well cured you rock is. The fish you have are hardy and will likely be fine. Just keep an eye on the water quaility (test often) and no more fish for a while. It isn't just that you can lose fish and waste money but you need to give your tank a good start or else you could be looking at long term issues down the road.

Can't speak personally about the Prizm skimmer but I have seen a number of people say they are #%&@! If you're going to get a skimmer get a good one. Otherwise you are wasting you money.

 

[Fishfriend1]

ok definitely add a cleanup crew, they will eat any extra food or other "things" that are dead and within reach of them. The hermits are a good addition, and i put them in my with the first fish, best idea i ever had. In my area live rock costs $5/lb. cheapest. In my opinion more filters cant hurt, unless u dont have enough plugs. The best snails and hermits are turbo snails (2-3),cerith snails(3-6), Astaea snails(1-2), and drawf blue leg hermits (4-6). Stagger the introductions.

 

[Ace25]

Do you have a cleanup crew? If not you might want to add some astrea, nassarius and cerith snails. Hermits too if you like them.

So let me understand this, your advocating someone put in a CUC before their tank is even cycled and doesn't even have all the rock in the tank yet? Every piece of rock added will do something negative to the water for some period of time, how bad and for how long depends on how cured the rock is, but inverts are the most sensitive to things like ammonia. Just trying to understand why you would recommend putting in inverts in that tank? Seems like a waste of $ to me because 99% of every invert added will end up dead quickly IMO.

 

[greech]

So let me understand this, your advocating someone put in a CUC before their tank is even cycled and doesn't even have all the rock in the tank yet? Every piece of rock added will do something negative to the water for some period of time, how bad and for how long depends on how cured the rock is, but inverts are the most sensitive to things like ammonia. Just trying to understand why you would recommend putting in inverts in that tank? Seems like a waste of $ to me because 99% of every invert added will end up dead quickly IMO.

Ace - First, there is no need to be ugly. Second, I suppose better advise would have been to tell the OP to take the fish back until he new for sure that his tank was cycled and that if more rock was being added that it should be cycled prior to going into the tank or at the very least added slowly. Of course another option would be to add clean dry rock.

That said the OP already has fish in his tank that will need to be fed and that are going to produce waste. In addition, it is my understanding that the 25 lbs of rock in the tank was fully cured and came from an established tank. All that said, I do believe that it would be best to add some snails and hermits to deal with the waste that will now be present in his system.

Additionally, the OP and I had converesed back and forth on a thread a while back where the OP has asked some questions about "getting started". If I am not mistaken I covered the importance of the "go slow and test often" concept.

 

[greech]

davexstumpe - Sorry to clog up your thread with the above but I hope this helps you going forward.