my first salt water tank

[mytank90]

after reading threw alot of post on this site and others my wife when out and bough me a 90 gallon tank for fathers day .she and my daughter surprised me today when i was told to go pick it up /hehe .i was going to go get it drilled but found out its tempered glass and the lfs will not let her return it .after doing some more reading i saw overflows for sale .do these work ?i was looking at a eshoppe type one and a cpr one .like the cpr one .my tank will be live rock and the wife like corrals so want try easy ones at first .will i need a overflow with sump or can i just go liverock/protin skimmer and powerhead .thanks

[hillegom]

A sump is better. But you have a lot more plumbing. On the plus side, more water, the skimmer can go into the sump, so a cleaner looking display. Part of the sump could be a refugium, where macro algae can grow, so that takes out nutrients
Well worth it in my opinion.
If money is tight, you could put the sump in afterwards.

[whatcaneyedo]

Is every piece of glass that your tank is made of tempered or just the bottom? Usually its just the bottoms and if thats the case you could still get a hole drilled for an overflow through the back or maybe one of the sides...

My number one recommendation to anyone setting up a reef tank is get your tank drilled for a sump. Hang on overflows are a bit of a pain to run and definitely cost more than drilling. Recommendation number two is buy a good book.

[mytank90]

after finaly finding red coral today and talking to them decided ill not use a rear overflow .going go with sand and live rock only .so today i put in some black sand and about 70 lbs of live rock i had cureing .still thinking ill try some easy corals like mushrooms .am useing a duel t5 light for now .anyone know a good book to read about corals and now to keep them?or a good web site for a total beginner at corals.thanks

[whatcaneyedo]

Various book recommendations: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-01/tips/index.php

Aquarium Corals by Borneman

There are many articles on that site about everything reef related. Here is their index for all of their 'coral' articles. http://reefkeeping.com/issues/subject/corals.php