Lesson learned?

[niloc16]

What lesson have you learned or piece of advice would you give to someone else to improve their tank?

[Beverly]

Learn about water chemistry. Test for alkalinity, pH, calcium, magnesium on a regular basis. Keep records of your test results and who much of what additive you use to correct chemistry imbalances. Also, drip kalk into your systems nightly.

Two great places to read up on reef chemistry....

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=19425

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=41

[untamed]

Get the largest skimmer that you can afford. I went through 6 months and lost a lot of sensitive tank life as I fought with cyano...only to finally upgrade my skimmer. Should have done that right at the beginning.

BTW...the skimmer I upgraded from was a Prism Pro. I thought it was handling my 30 gallons - It wasn't.

[Ruth]

Listen when people with more experience tell me something and do it right the first time. Go as big as you can afford on tank, skimmer, flow and lights. And never ever again try to use canister filters for anything except to run carbon. Eliminate all sponges that you are not prepared to rinse out every other day..........oh I could go on and on and on. It is so much cheaper to do it right the first time than to be constantly upgrading.

[marie]

Bad things happen overnight, good things take months

[mark]

To actually talk to other reef keepers and see their tanks first hand.

[EmilyB]

In addition to all the others, check flow first when you see a problem. MANY times I've just had a powerhead quit.

[Invigor]

make sure none of your pieces of equiptment leaks electricity. and always use fresh carbon

[niloc16]

good advice. speeking of kalk, i dont add any calcium aside from whats in the salt from weekly water changes. my calcium never drops below 400 and averages around 425, is it still necessary to supplement calcium if my level is staying up? another question i keep forgetting to ask you guys is flow. in my 55 i'm turning it over about 15 times an hour, sufficient? i get very little if any detritus collecting on the sand and when it does it seems to be in an area that i can access easily. for flow i use 1 maxijet 1200 and 2 maxijet 600 and the penguin 330 provides surface flow

[Richer]

Organize, plan and keep things as simple as possible... electrical components (ie. power bars) on floor + saltwater spillage = zap! GFCI outlet = your friend.

Flow wise... I ran bare bottom tanks... my last tank (30 gallons 24"x24"x12") had one seio 640, one seio 820 and a mag 9.5 return from sump... before I shut it down, I actually considered upgrading my return pump and upgrading the seio 640 to a 820. My return outlets were directed downward to blow detritus out from underneath the rocks and into the water column. The seio pumps were positioned to provide plenty of indirect flow for the tank. I found that I had to acclimate new fish in my fuge before putting them into the display tank... as the flow would actually push stressed out fish into my overflow and down the drain... which was unfortunately (for the fish) connected directly to a high powered skimmer. I had about a 70x turnover rate in my tank.

-Rich

[niloc16]

wow, now that is some flow. so in other words 15X is inadequate.

[vanreefer]

wow, now that is some flow. so in other words 15X is inadequate.

Based on your signature.... for the contents of your tank 15X is fine if you are not noticing any crap collecting... try to remember to clean your rockwork every once-and-a-while with a turkey baster and you'll be fine.

If you are looking for more nutrient poor systems then it is beneficial to have lots of flow... I plan at least 50X turnover for my BB 120

[niloc16]

thanks for the input vanreefer. i've been debating to upgrade the 600's to 1200's but i dont know if it is reall worth while

[Pan]

Sometimes fish just die

[Beverly]

good advice. speeking of kalk, i dont add any calcium aside from whats in the salt from weekly water changes. my calcium never drops below 400 and averages around 425, is it still necessary to supplement calcium if my level is staying up?

Your calcium levels are good. No need to supplement Caunless it goes below 380 ppm.

[Coldwater]

If you go with a sump put the plumbing together with the right kind of glue!

Matt

[BMW Rider]

When you notice a small problem, fix it, deal with it, get rid of it, etc. If you ignore it and hope it will go away, it will but only because it will now be a big problem instead of a small one.

Don't take shortcuts in the beginning, you'll end up spending more to do it right later anyway.