Edmonton Freshie walking the plank, Any advice to ease the wallet/headaches :)

[ponokareefer]

-I'd buy dry rock instead of live rock. You can get a couple of pieces of live rock from people who are selling it on canreef to "seed" the dry rock. There are a couple of reasons for this. I wish this is the way I had gone and is definitely the way I would go now for the following reasons:
1. It is way cheaper than buying liverock from a store. 300 pounds is going to cost a lot from a store. If you do find a lot cheap from another reefer, #2 is the reason I would still go with mainly dry rock.
2. You avoid bringing in things you don't want into your system. These things could include: killer crabs, killer mantis shrimp, aiptasia, majano anemones, red bugs, bad algaes. When buying the live rock from fellow reefers, you are going to want smaller pieces that you can fully inspect to ensure they don't have these on them.
Dry rock will make your cycle time longer, but it is definitely worth it.

-Sand is a personal thing. There have been a lot of reefers that go completely without sand and have awesome systems. Sand is needed for some things to live though, so you need to decide what will work best for you. You can just ask for a small cupfull of live sand to "seed" dead sand rather than going with all live.

- You could get away with less than 300 pounds in your main system. Sand will help, but the main issue will be how many fish and creatures you have in there. The more fish and creatures, the more rock you should use.

-I would use RO water for water changes and top ups. You introduce crap into your system otherwise. For the initial startup, I just used tap water and cheap salt though.

-U/V and CO2 are not necessary. A chiller is only necessary if you go with high powered metal halide lights or if your house runs quite hot. I would take a look at the new LED lights out there. They are more money, but you are saving on your electric bill, and the cost of replacing bulbs every year. They will pay for themselves in a few years. Also, LED run the coolest of all bulbs, so a chiller wouldn't be necessary unless your house is hot. I already have a light fixture otherwise I would be buying one of the new fixtures. They each have their own benefits.

-Do not use bioballs in a reef tank. Bioballs turn into a nitrate factory and your system will suffer a lot. You can use live rock in the sump though.

You are going to have a lot of information thrown your way, so I will leave just one more tip for now. Get a lot of flow from powerheads in your system. Koralia's are decent and cheap and create a lot of flow, Tunze's and Vortech's are the best, but you are paying a lot of money.

[Hustler]

Awesome info guys thanks a bunch
Ive watched every LAreef guy video on youtube twice and still im more confused than ever.
for the lights i was thinking a tube that is fan cooled with 2 or 3 400w metal halides? and a few HO flourecents to balance the spectrum., and with no heaters the tank runs at 76f with the big drive pump im using. I dont know exactly what temp im supposed to be locked in at but I hope that will be fine?
Ive been digging around for live rock from local tanks already but i cant find any branch type pieces so i may have to order them.... ive got 30 inches of height to deal with so bigger chunks will help. Ive shipped plenty of fish from van or ontario but this is all new to me with salt

[Myka]

There is no need for halides unless you're going with high light corals. T5s will be just fine for fish and some basic corals. In fact there are people using T5s on high light coral tanks. Using halides on your tank will be a huge waste of electricity imo, as well as increased top up, and increased humidity in your house. For saltwater 78 degrees is a good number to aim for.

[Aquattro]

Personally, 300 pounds of rock is way too much. I use 1/2 pound per gallon, I'm pretty successful with it. Lots of room for fish to swim, lots of space to mount corals, and I have no measurable NO3. I'm also not a fan of dry rock, but it is cheaper, so think about mixing it up. I'm never really sure what pests people are concerned with, I've used 500 pounds of real rock over my time in the hobby and once got a worm I didn't like, I just removed that rock. Any crab that comes with it is still in my tank. The loss of all the good stuff isn't worth worrying about the bad stuff (that you could never ever get).

[BlueWorldAquatic]

Welcome to CanReef.

All great advise

The most important thing though, "Take it nice and slow", patience is a virtue. Will save you a h*ll of a lot of money too.

I converted my first tank from Fresh to Salt a few years back, and never looked back. I just added salt to my current water and ran it for a month. Didn't take too much scrubbing, as most of the algae died off anyhow.

Drop by anytime to the store, and we'd be happy to answer any questions you may have too.

Ken - BWA

[ALang]

Welcome to canreef!
Looks like you have tons of great advise to digest already, so no need for me to add any. There are already a couple of "newbies" just starting up, so read their posts as well.

300 gal plus sump, wow, you're off to a great start already. We only wish our tanks were that large. I can just imagine what I can do with 300gal, and HOW MUCH I can personally blow on my credit cards

Good luck.
Lenny.

[mike31154]

Ha, with a 300 gal to start with, the world is your oyster, pun intended. I went straight into a marine set up, no fresh water experience, but a few friends/relatives have FW tanks so I know a little about that scenario. IMO the things that are quite a bit different between FW & SW are lighting, flow & water quality in no particular order.

Probably the first thing on the agenda would be water quality, best to get a RODI system & use pure water to mix up your soup with from the outset. No unkowns getting into your system that way.

Next, I'd say flow. Even during the cycle you'll want good water movement, so look into getting some propeller pumps since they are better at moving water in all the nooks & crannies than the laminar flow from conventional powerheads or pumps.

Lighting.... at the start you won't need to worry too much about it. It's going to take some time to cycle that bad boy, so whatever you have now for FW will probably be ok. Then, once you start adding livestock, you can put together a lighting plan. Chances are you're going to add a fish or two first, so again, lighting does not need to be ultra bright for them. As far as coral, good idea to start with some easier softies & LPS, so now you can look at bumping up the light intensity a little. It will probably be a few months before you're to that point, so you'll have plenty of time for additional research. This will be one of the larger expenses for a tank your size, so choose well depending on what your ultimate goal is. LED is definitely poised to edge out the current MH/T5HO technology, but still quite costly. Either way, lights are going to be $$$$$ if you're thinking full reef with an abundance of SPS coral. With 300 gals you can cram a few critters in there. Best of luck.