tank style

[silent1]

my family has deecided to build there own marine tank and my dad is fond of the monacco set up a sort of shoot off the berlin set up. whatever it is its in that tullok book. im wondering is this a good style if not can u tell me of any better. the monacco set up is plenuma deep sandbed with live sand and lots of live rock. skimmer is optional. by the way this is for a reef tank.
is monacco a good set up or is there any better.

 

[ChrisRD]

IMO/IME a setup with plenty of quality live rock, good circulation and a good skimmer is the simplest, most forgiving configuration for a reef. Combined that with adequate lighting, a pure source water (ie. RO, RO/DI, etc.), good husbandry practices (ie. regular water changes, not over feeding, etc.) and patience, and you'll find it's not very difficult to have a successful reef tank.

IMO plenums, DSBs, algae filters, etc. while useful when correctly applied, are optional and I personally have not found them to be necessary in maintaining good water parameters (although I have experimented with a few of those methods to make sure I wasn't missing out on something good ). JMO/JME of course...

HTH

 

[SnowManSnow]

From what I read and from my limited experiance I agree wiht Chris. Good live rock (LR) and a good skimmer (I'm fond of AquaC skimmers), and good maintenance. Good luck along the way! Let's see some pics when things get goin!

 

[silent1]

cheers 4 the info.
by the way the family is arguing on what area the reef comes from. pacific, med, caribbean, red sea etc. what area would u recommed. apparently it must have a nemo and dory. damn family loves finding nemo a bit too much.
we are also confused bout different area like lagoon, fore reef, shelf reef. all have different life on them apparantly i always thought a reef is a reef. again what do u recommend on this area

 

[ChrisRD]

General questions are tough to answer well in this format IMO, but here's a few of my thoughts...

Recreating a certain biotope is cool idea - certainly worth considering. Many people just tend to put things together that are generally compatible, regardless of origin and that's fine too. I'd recommend checking out local reef stores, books, doing searches online, etc. to get an idea of what you'd like to keep first. Once you have an idea of where your interests lie you can setup the system to best suit the needs of the animals you plan to have.

For example, if you're interested in having a Hippo Tang ("Dory") some research will reveal that they grow fairly large and require a large aquarium for long-term success (say 100 U.S. gallons or more). Oscellaris or Percula clownfish, on-the-other-hand, are generally fine in smaller aquariums and if you get a pair of juveniles you'll likely end-up with a breeding pair eventually.

As for corals, for a first reef tank, most start with soft corals because they tend to be hardy, undemanding and tolerant of mishaps with water quality. For example, there are many colorful variations of zoanthids, mushrooms, star polyps, etc and all tend to be pretty easy to keep successfully. They're generally easy/cheap to come-by as well. People tend to graduate to the more demanding stuff in time.

HTH