Ogre's 44g Build

Well there might be SOME salt creep if the outlet of the filter was high enough above the water to create a pretty significant splash
Where are you getting your information from?

I am getting it from cleaning salt creep off peoples tanks for the past 20 years who use HO filtration. All I know is this it is a problem and leads to unstable water conditions which leads to other problems with the tank inhabitants.
 
Nice build ogre.

Here are a few pics of my 44 gal that i am building this 3 days after i transferred my 10 gallon's articles over.

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The lighting is Current Nova T5's. Anyone know how far the the light goes down for them its a 2 bulbs 48.

I cant wait to see some more pics of yours it looks so clean with the rocks being setup that way.
 
thereef, thanks for the advice. I checked my tank and did notice a little salt build up on the edges of the filter.

I'm wondering what the rate of evaporation is compared to the rate of salt creep? If it's fairly consistent then replacing the evaporated water with salt water would be about right. If, not then I need an in-tank hydrometer to keep it stable.
 
In tank is not necessary - the evaporation rate will be greater than the creep rate. You should be loosing 1 to 2 gallons a day to evaportation. So spend a little $ and buy a refractometer and check it weekly and add salt when needed. Also what level are you keeping your salt at.
 
It appears that you're off to a good start! I'm not sure I would have added your first coral yet, but if your water parameters had been good and stable for several days prior to adding it, it certainly wasn't the worst thing you could have done. Mushrooms will do just fine with practical reef lighting (as in T5 HO or MH are not required) and low to moderate flow. If you have 2 x 96w PC lighting, it would probably do just fine somewhere in the mid-section of the tank, and possibly be ok near the bottom (not sure on the height of your tank). It may eat small mysis shrimp or a tiny bit of Cyclop-eeze, if you want to try and target feed it. I've seen some mushrooms accept such foods, while others weren't the least bit interested. FWIW, I don't target feed any of our mushrooms, and rarely target feed our other corals. I pretty much operate under the premise that fish poo makes excellent coral food.

It can be surprising how much salt spray / salt creep can form on an aquarium lid, aquarium trim, the protective lense on a light fixture, etc. just from a slight rippling of the water's surface, let alone any splashing. Definitely keep an eye on it, as any that builds up on any surface between your lighting and the water will greatly reduce the amount of light making it to the water's surface.

Perhaps it's just become my preference, but I think you'll want to add more flow to the tank. When I first started, I thought "enough" flow was actually enough, but over time I've grown to prefer having much more than what many would call "enough." Rest assured, you certainly don't want to be blowing your mushrooms and zoas off the rocks, but detritus is very good at finding places to settle and build up if there's not enough flow to keep it suspended for whatever form of mechanical filtration there is to remove it from the water.
 
The shroom came in as a hitchhiker on a piece of liverock that I bought.

Ah, ok. Don't worry, I wasn't criticizing you for adding it. I've added cheap coral frags at various early stages of tank development to see how soon the tank was ready for such corals. Xenia can go in pretty early on from my random trials, and has done quite well for me.

Nonetheless, many mushrooms are tough... I moved a full tank set-up a few months ago in which the bulk of the live rock never made it out of a 30g trash can until 36 hours after being removed from the tank. There was barely any water in the trash can (90% of the rock was not in any water), but it was "sealed" with a garbage bag and some duct tape. Despite not being under water, I have mushrooms, zoas and palys that all survived the ordeal and came back strong in the live rock vat, which had zero live corals in it prior to adding those rocks. Even now, the vat is not directly lit at all -- those corals are all surviving and even spreading with incidental light coming from the main tank's 250w MHs, which are a few feet from the vat.
 
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