My 470 gallon reef

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
marine_hawaii;3185343; said:
How about adding a kitchen sink to your tank room? Seriously thou, seems like a bit of overkill on the filtration side.

I'd definitely nix the sand filter and UV canisters. Not sure what you have for mechanical and chemical, but probably not necessary either.

The setup I would recommend is the one used by the Waikiki Aquarium. Basically, a protein skimmer (small is fine, I prefer ETS, they use Tunze & custom), a kalkwasser freshwater topoff (using Reverse Osmosis water), good live rock and strong lighting.

That's the most basic setup. I'd add to that a refugia with a Deep sand filter, and a surge device.

So pricing it out for a 200 gal tank:

protein skimmer $200
Reverse Osmosis $200
Kalkwasser mixer $50 (using a plastic tub, timer, solonoid and a power head)
live rock $$$ (depends on a lot of things)
lighting $$$ (also varies too much to put a price on).

Refugia - $30 for plastic tub and 2" PVC fittings. The price of sand is too variable to put in here.
Surge device - $50 (plastic tub, pvc and a powerhead)(timer optional).
Deep-sand bed $50 (a refugia is a good place to put that)

There will be a couple hundred bucks in various things that you don't think of like PVC fittings and additional hardware.

I've omitted the cost of the tank, stand, etc as that's the same whether it's salt or fresh.

My point is that there is no reason to go overboard with equipment for a reef tank. You can get a beautiful tank without putting money into a lot of extra equipment.

I would say it's comparable to a freshwater planted aquarium. The cool think is that if you build the tank and lot of the equipment yourself, and then put the $$$ into lighting and liverock.

...

When planning a reef tank, the most important aspect is that you keep it well balanced. You can't have a heavy fish load and expect the fish or inverts to do well. You can have a large number of corals if you have good lighting and good water quality (and only a few fish).

Tangs/surgeon fish are best as they can support themselves by eating algae. I try to keep feedings down to once a week, so fish that can't find their own food in the tank wouldn't do very well.

Three of the below pics are from a 200 gal reef tank at Waikiki Aquarium. Sorry the pics are so bad, all are from a movie I shot of that tank.

The first pic is of the "kalkwasser" mixer/adder. Second one is the Tunze protein skimmer. The last is a nice soft coral. Sorry all this pics are screen shots taken from a movie I took of the tank.

The 3 larger photos are just some corals from their other tanks.


LOL..there is a sink, just not in the picture. I've found that the equipment in this setup works well for my needs. I am sure I could have cut some corners, but did that with my first tank and was not happy with the results.
 
Goodwin9;3185501; said:
LOL..there is a sink, just not in the picture. I've found that the equipment in this setup works well for my needs. I am sure I could have cut some corners, but did that with my first tank and was not happy with the results.

You might want to do some research on the "berlin method" or "Jaubert method" and strip down one of your smaller tanks to test out how it works for you.

As a note to anyone else looking to set up a reef tank, I suggest you do some reading/research on those two methods. Your main expense will be the lighting and liverock. A lot of the equipment for either method you can build yourself. So price wise, it does not need to get ridiculous (well no more so than a comparably-sized fresh water tank).

I'll post some photos of the results of these methods.

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Goodwin9;3215662; said:
Got a new acquisition for the tank, a new Mustard tang currently in QT.

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sharp contrast.. i like it.. more so than the browner specimens
 
Mustard tang look's magnificent and I am so happy you take the time to Quarantine you should get an award for good judgement and proper aquarium techniques.

mr.reef24
 
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