Starting a new tank. :-)

Question
QUESTION: Well i am new to saltwater fish and setting up a aquarium. I have been reading all over online as well reading books and asking local dealers for help and everything. So i bought a 120 gallon glass tank. That is about the max i can go with that will fit in the room. Fish that i will be adding to the tank are going to be aggressive fish such as loin fish, triggers, lawnmower blenny, purple tang, dog face, and also a white spotted ell. I know that this mainly a fish only aquarium and cant add invertebrates, but maybe someone i can?

I have many concerns when reading a book "saltwater aquariums for dummies" and then going asking a dealer. What i am confused about is really filters, lighting, amount of live sand, and live rock and corals.

Now when i bought the tank and stand it came with a plastic undergravel filter piece and a lighting set as well. I don't know how well they work. I know for sure that i will be going with a undergravel filter.

Now as far as power heads, can you recommend any? Also in the book it states certain size of live sand to use, since i am using the undergravel filter i don't want it to put much stress on the filter, any recommendations as well for that? I was also told by a local dealer to add about 3 to 4 inches of live sand to the tank, were in the book it recommended to use only 1 to 2 inches.

Also my lighting structure. I want to get a natural look out of my tank. I really love the blue look and clear look. Iv read many things about light change colors and timers and certain things like 50/50 but cant seem to get all that. What would be a good setup?

Now is it possible to put coral with all those fish in the tank? The dealer where i went to had a beautiful setup. Iv ask him a lot of questions and he have about 3 fish with live rock and couple corals also in the tank. He said that it will be fine. Couple other things that he also stated where 20% water changes every week or 2 weeks, which i already know. I don't need a protein skimmer (since i will be taking care of the tank every week with water changes that should natural take it all out), and to clean the live sand out. He said that scooping it out of the tank and just rinsing it out very well will be fine (not all at once, just small portions at a time will be fine).

Also what would be a good heater for a 120 gallon tank?

Thats all i can really think of right now. I am sure i will have more questions on coral, live rock, and live sand to come just because its all confusing to me right now.



ANSWER: my first recomendation will be to ditch the under gravel filter, they are a real pain in the ass when it comes to clean them. the fish you have chosen to keep are messy buggers and will need a good (perhaps 2) external canister filters, even better get your tank drilled and have a sump installed. the reason i say ditch the undergravel and go for externals it that the waste your fish produce will be sucked under the sand bed and will sit there, this will lech nitrates nitrites and ammonia into your system. it also oxygenates your sand bed which prohibits the anerobic bacteria from propogating in the sand bed. these bacteria need very low oxygen levels to survive, hence the need for a deep sand bed, the O2 levels at the bottom of the sand bed are ideal for them to break down ammonia and nitrite and turn them into less harmfull nitrates which you will remove with water changes.

i would also recomend you get a good skimmer, with the ammount and type of fish you wan't and the ammount of food you will be feeding them there will be significant ammounts of protein in the water. these proteins will not be removed with water changes alone.

as far as lights go, as you really can't have corals with these fish, you can have any type of lighting you want. its only the inverts that dictate the Kelvin rating and intensity of lighting, with a fish only its up to you. if you like the shimmer and the blue colouring i would recomend 14,000K hallides or go for marine white and actinic T5 tubes.

with regards to heating i would go for 2 300W heaters, set the temp on 1 slightly below the other as a fail safe incase 1 breaks.

i really can't stress enough how bad an idea an undergravel filter would be with your setup, although its very cheap to run it will cause probs in the long run. with the canister filter just buy some activated carbon, phosphate remover and some grunge to fill the media baskets in the filter. with the second canister use this for mechanical filtration, have it running some filter floss and sponge to get the heavy crap out. this will save you having to remove your precious live sand (needs to stay live rinsing will kill the bacteria) save time with maintenance (canisters are easy to remove and maintain) and it will be much healthyer for your fish and means you can have the best substrate with regards to harbouring bacteria.

live rock and powerheads, i would say your looking at about 50Kg of live rock. with the powerheads make sure you get the ones designed for flow like the tunze streams and koralias, have a good flow through and around the live rock as this will take the nutriants to the bacteria in the rock.

hope this helps, any more questions just give me a shout.
paul

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Wow, i don't even know where to begin now simply because your answers were completely different from a local dealers tanks set up haha. Well i will just lay it all out and try to make as much since from it as possible for you and see if you can understand it, but one question is what is a sump?

Ok, so a visit at a local dealer here (that many people have recommended him because he knows a lot). I made a visit and chat with him. I told him all the fish that i wanted. Pretty much he told me undergravel filter would be the best route, with no protein skimmer. I ask him why and simple he stated that i don't need that elaborate setup. He had a 150 gallon tank with 4 inch of live sand, undergravel filter and no skimmer as well and stated to me that 20% water changes and making sure that i scoop out the live sand and rinse it very well will be fine. I know that doing that will remove bacteria and other stuff that is housed in there some good and some bad as well. Thats proboly why he said to clean the sand because it will collect all the nitrates and everything?

Also 2 heaters is what i was guessing for a tank my size. So thanks for confirming that.

Also he never really talk about lighting, but i understand yours a little bit, but in his tank, and also states by himself, he said that i was able to have life coral. Only reason i asked him was because he had coral in his tanks with some semi aggressive fish. The lighting he had for that tank was bright blue. So if i get 14k halides so i need a other set on timers or anything? what would you recommend for that?

Also for live rock my plan is not to over fill the tank with much of it, i plan on keeping it very simple. but with the powerheads, i though that those were only used with undergravel filters? One side sucks water in and one side throws it back out for filtration. Why would i still need powerheads if i would be use a canister filter?

Also i been reading a lot about cycle process, would you explain a little more on how long that takes.

Sorry if these are stupid questions.
Thanks for the information. Its all just over whelming cause i want to do this right the 1st time.

Answer
well i guess everyone has their own methods, i just find leaving the sand bed well alone is the easyest route for me. its really confusing when you first start out with marines, everyone you ask has a diffrent way of doing things, they are all correct its just finding the one that suits you best. if your happy to rely on water changes and cleaning sand every 2 weeks then thats the system you should go for. it is how everyone used to maintain their tanks before new equipment was designed so you didn't have to do that.

on my tank i run no filters, i rely on the liverock to filter for me. i use 4 big powerheads to create flow in and around the liverock, this pushes water through it and helps take waste to the bacteria that process that waste, i have 1 media reactor with carbon, phosban and a sponge in it and a protein skimmer thats rated 1 and a half times bigger than my system volume. the only thing i clean is the skimmer collection cup and the media reactor, tops around 30 mins a week to maintain.

if you after that shimmer and blue colouring with the lighting 14,000K hallides will do the job, if you like it to be more intense go for 10,000K halides and run some blue actinic T5 tubes. the 10,000K hallide is much much whiter than the 14,000K.

with regards to the cycling process its a lottery really, if you get well cured liverock the cycle could be much shorter. if, like me, you get good liverock but then keep it out of water for 4 hours everything dies. it took 4 months for my liverock to cure and my first tank to cycle, i thought it would never get there!

no question is stupid, especially if it gives you the knowlege of other ways to do things, means you can make a more educated choice of how you are going to do it. there are lots of right ways to set up a good healthy marine tank, just find the one you think you can live with.