newbie

[keith]

I have just set up my first saltwater aquarium a 100gal tank converted from fresh water. I have 65 lbs of live rock 2 aqua clear 500 powerfilters with carbon, 2 aquaclear 802 powerheads and a airstone . I will be installing a Remora Pro skimmer and a Seio 1500 powerhead this week. I will not be using a sump or tricklefilter and was wondering if my filtration and flow rate would be enough . ANY info or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
SG -1.024, nh3-.05, no2-.2 ph 8.1, 78.5f

[Beverly]

Welcome!

I have a few questions:

- what kind of fish are you going to put in your 100g?
- are you going to use foams in your AC 500s?
- are you going to have a sandbed or will your tank be "bare bottom"?
- will there be any corals in this tank?

One thing I will say right now is that with two AC 500s and two 802s, you have more than enough water movement in the tank already, especially that you've also got a skimmer.

[keith]

hI beverly. I will be putting in 30lbs of aragonite sand. I had planned on 2 clowns, 2 flame cardinals ,1 dwarf angel, 1 wrasse,1gobie, 1 royal gramma,1 yellow tang,1 brown powder tang a serpant starfish, cleaner shrimp, hermit crabs and some snails. I AM NOT SURE YET ABOUT CORALS. I do have a 3 stage coralife canopy.
Keith.

[Sushiman]

Welcome to the board & the obsession!
my 2 cents: Invest in a better skimmer, if HOB is the way you want to go that's fine, but take my word for it spend the $$$ on a good skimmer. Consider the Deltec H.O.T. Here's where having a sump becomes nice as it opens up a world of equipment possibilities.
FOWLR is an excellent way to enter this hobby, your flow should be good to start, the trick is what you do with it. Chaotic turbulence, or surge it with a wavemaker, just mix it up, even in a FO set up.
Buy a good variety of LR. It's okay to get a lower quality rock & the get a few "cherry" top -end peices as this will seed the tank nicely.
I would triple (at least) the ammount of sandbed myself, but I'm partial to deep sandbeds as part of my filtration approach. There are many ways of setting up an aquarium. Stick with easy math: "X" ammount of critters in my aquarium are producing "X" ammount of waste. What do I have in place to deal with it? i.e.: Skimmers, H2O changes, carbon & resins, UV, LR + LS, refugiums....blah, blah, blah.
Lastly use the best water you can find/steal/make, you will save yourself alot of grief.
Good luck. Rant over :)

[Beverly]

Hi Keith,

You didn't mention if you were going to have foams in your AC 500s. If you do, you MUST clean the living heck out of them weekly. Even if you are just using carbon in the AC 500s, a lot of detritus will collect on the bags, and they will also definitely have to be cleaned weekly.

Actaully, weekly maintence in any tank should be a must, IMO. That will include a water change, filter cleaning, and testing and adjusting alk, Ca and Mg. Here is a page on Reef Chemistry (http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=21968), which is a very important aspect of reefkeeping whenever corals are added to a tank. Read and reread the information, like I have to do, in order to understand the complexities of the chemistry in a reef.

HTH :)

[keith]

no foam blocks, and thanks for the link.
keith