new tank

[shell]

I have been wanting to set up salt water tank for years. I am so excited to get started. I am converting 55 fresh water setup to salt and moving my fresh water fish to a 29g. How does this sound?

2 filters, 1 power pump, large air stone, heater and for now 36w T5.

I have am about to order 40lbs of "dead coral" to build up the tank and provide hiding places and 20lbs of live rock. I plan on getting a skimmer in a few weeks. Not sure about the lighting yet because I don't know what type of corals I will add. In the meantime am I ok with the 36w until I start to add the invertebrates and corals? I don't think that I will add any of these for at least another 4 months for the inverts and 8 months or so for the coral.

Am I going in the right direction? thanks for any comments.

shell

 

[ricky1414]

I wouldn't use an airstone; watch out for the filters, as they can trap detrius and cause high nitrates. get a skimmer, and let your LR and sand act as your filter. You should aim for a 10x turnover rate for waterflow, wht kinda powerhead do you have you will definately need to increase lighting if adding any inverts or corals, 36w for a 55 is about 1/2 w per gallon. i'd shoot for approx 4 watts per gal.
you are on the right track imo.

 

[shell]

Thanks so much for the reply. Ok, so no air stone, I have cancelled the order for the "reef bones" and will change it to all live rock for better filtration. I only have one small power head, not sure of the brand, something I bought a long time ago for my freshwater tanks. I will get more and better ones. Do you mean that the power head(s) should be able to move 550g of water per hour?

Lighting: will the live rock be ok with the 36w for now? I figure that it will be many months until I can add the inverts or coral, just trying to spread some of the cost over over time. But, if it needs it I will get it.

Also, I live on an island. We have beautiful sand on our beaches, can I use that for live sand? If so, do i need to do anything other than clean it before using?

thanks again

 

[Anonymous]

Beach sand (even cleaned) usually isn't the best because it still has a lot of contaminants. If you can collect deeper water stuff that would work better. Don't know if you'd run into DNR troubles with that or not, though.