My Very First And Probably Last Marine Tank

[cassie750]

I am in the process of setting up my first marine tank and due to the costs involved, it will probably be my last so I am trying to make it a good one.

5x2x2 tank drilled with a weir in a maple cabinet which is 3ft high and a 48x18x18 sump.

The sump with have mechanical filtration, a 28x18x18 refugium to grow algae with a deep sand bed and a section for heaters and return pumps. Auto top up will be the tunze osmolator.

Skimmer is Deltec AP850, two fluidised reactors for carbon and rowaphos and the return pump is an eheim 1262. I also have separate maxijet pumps for the skimmer and reactors.

Lighting is an arcadia 110cm twin 250W halide with built in actinics in silver. Water movement is by two or three (haven't decided yet) tunze 6100 on a multicontroller.

The display tank will have between 60-90kg of live rock depending on how the aquascaping goes with a very thin layer of sand.

Obviously I will be starting with a few soft corals then as I gain more experience I will get some hard corals. Mainly due to budget, I will be buying one or two corals or fish a month so the stocking will be very very slow.

Planned livestock:
lots of hermits
lots of turbos and nitrous snails
maybe a small clam?
cleaner shrimps

bicolour angel
a pair of percula clowns
a pair or one mandarin (in about a year or more)
purple tang
maybe a cleaner wrasse

Some fish I would also like but haven't yet decided whether or not they are suitable:
regal tang (still undecided if the tank is big enough)
a shoal of anthias (heavy bioload with number of fish and lots of feeding, possibly cause the tank to be overstocked)
maybe royal gramma
maybe strawberry fish
maybe velvet wrasse

I am so excited, can't wait till I set it up, even though it won't have any stock in it, the rock still looks nice :) I have everything now except pipework and tunze stuff (just have to wait my turn on the waiting list ;) )

What do you guys think about the planned stock list?
What are recommended stocking levels in a reef tank?

Thanks for looking

[nickd]

A very nice equipment list with some serious gear included such as the skimmer :thumbsup:

People stock their tanks according to the systems ability to cope with the waste. Some will have small numbers of fish where as others will have quite high stocking numbers. Your choice of skimmer is one people choose for larger systems or heavy stocking.

Regal tangs do require a large area to swim in, so a different tang may be advisable, however you can always get a smaller Regal and see how it goes.

HTH

Nick

[TheThingIs]

Wow your system mirrors the one I'm putting together now! You've got a good plan going (and by that also mean that I hope my plan is good too) heh. I've got most of the equipment now and ordered the tank a few days ago, so about 3 weeks from now will be the kickstart of putting it all together. Water and rock in about 6 weeks I reckon and fish about 6 weeks after that as I'm getting uncured rock.

Well done! :thumbsup:

[cassie750]

Thanks for all the replies everyone, it's nice to know that at least my plans are good :)

The tank arrived this morning :dance: and wow the cabinet is big! I am very pleased with the job they did and the sump is very nice as well.

Still need to get a few bits and pieces but I should be able to begin filling it soon :D

[cassie750]

Here is the sump, excuse the last photo, the file was too big so I had to crop the sides of the photo in 'paint' and I don't have a very steady hand :blush:

[instantsquid]

Hey, looking good so far :)

What is going in each sump compartment?

As for stocking - everything looks okay, although I wouldn't rush into getting a clam straight away. They need the best water conditions and it might take a little while before you get to grips with keeping all your parameters stable.

Most of your fish list looks fine, as long as you add them slooooowly! I have a Regal Tang in a medium-sized tank and it's fine at the moment (it's around 4" long) but I'm soon to upgrade to a much bigger setup which will hopefully give it the room it needs. If this is the only tank you're going to ever have, I'd say maybe not to the Regal Tang - opinion will be divided on this one I'm sure! ;)

Keep the pics coming - looks like you've done your research well, and this is going to be a fabulous looking tank.

Ian. :thumbsup:

[cassie750]

1st compartment will be filter floss for mechanical filtration, next compartment will hold a couple maxijet pumps feeding my reactors, next bigger compartment is for an algae refugium and a dsb and the last compartment is for the return pump. Not sure if the skimmer will fit inside the cupboard next to the sump or if it will have to go in the refugium section yet, will have to wait till it arrives :)

I think I am swaying away from the regal idea and will probably stick with the stocking list I had at the start. It does seem that opinions are divided with equal numbers of people saying yes and no but I am giving priority to my first choices of fish.

Thanks again