1st saltwater tank.

[rokosd]

Deffinately do your research. Every tank is different and will act differently under different strains. When I first setup my 65Gal tank, one piece of liverock came with a fish. VERY SURPRISED TO SEE him when the sand finally settled enough to see him. I paniced and did as much reading as I could to help him stay alive through the cycle. Granted I stayed with most others in this hobby and purchased 50lbs of live rock and 20lbs of base rock(to help with costs). It was a lawnmower blenny that came into the tank as soon as it was setup. I can almost guarantee that reefwars is right. Without algae the lawnmower blenny will perish. Live rock deffinately helped him. I had to special feed him till the live rock started to produce the much NEEDED algae. I also used and stand by this now, a chemical called Stability which I think helped a great deal, but no way to prove this. Stability is introducing the biological filter that reefwars is talking about. I tested everyday, sometimes twice a day and never had an ammonia spike. But once again you need the EXTRAS from live rock to help your tank. I, of all people deffinately love to try new things in this hobby so let me know which way you go and how it turned out. And deffinately do NOT put glass on the top of the tank. I did with mine and I also have a skimmer. I almost lost all of my fish due to this and would recommend against it no matter what the case. It was due to the lack of Oxygen exchange at the surface of the water due to no air can get through glass. And as for plumbing, can't help you there as I do not have a sump on either of my tanks. Good luck.

[searay]

Thanks again for all the advice.I'm learning alot.
I Understand the live rock cycle.I was planning to add some live rock.I could always buy more live then first planned and not use all of the eco rock.
Gonna go open top for sure.Will add a screen top if I decide to have a fish that is a jumper.
Got time do do more research on the fish list.
If I do decide to get the blenny how long should the tank be established (a year)?
Think the blue throat trigger is going to be a 50/50 out there.
I will hit you guys with another (researched) fish list later.
Gotta get the tank up and cycled first.
The skimmer ect should be here end of the week.
Just gotta figure out the right return pump.
How do you do the quiet stand pipe (return)?
Whats a herbie.Anyone know a good link for diy
I know slow is the key
I will post some pics when I start getting it going.Week and a bit I hope.
Thanks
Rob

[ponokareefer]

Since you're doing only fish, dwarf angelfish are very colorfull and would work great. They aren't jumpers, and for the most part, aren't aggressive to other fish.
Smaller tangs would also be a very good choice for you. There are some from the Zebramosa family(not the sailfin tang), the Ctenochaetus family or the Acanthurus family.
Blue Throat triggerfish get a maximum of 9 inches in the wild. In your size of tank, they would be fine as they wouldn't likely reach that size. I would start with a smaller one as others have suggested. I did a lot of research before I added mine to an almost identical tank size and he has been very happy.
As for a lawnmower blenny, a year would probably be a sufficient amount of time for the system to develop to handle that fishes needs.

For your rock, the more live rock you add now, the quicker your system will be ready to handle the bioload. If you only add a little live rock, you're just going to have to be more patient and wait longer for your tank to develop.

[MitchM]

Originally Posted by searay

...
How do you do the quiet stand pipe (return)?
Whats a herbie.Anyone know a good link for diy
...

Your pipe sizing sounds fine.
Here's a link to a herbie set-up:

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...ghlight=herbie

You will be able to find pretty much whatever you are looking for by using the search function in the upper hand corner.

Mitch

[searay]

A dwarf angelfish would be cool.
Got my skimmer in the mail today.
Gonna work on the sump this weekend and buy a eheim 1262 return pump (I think).
Should I add a powerhead also.
If so what size and make should I get?
It's a slow go fo sho

[ponokareefer]

You should add powerheads, but you won't need a lot of flow as it is fish only. Vortech and Tunze are considered top of the line, but for what you are doing, Koralia's would work just fine and be considerably cheaper. 2 Koralia 1400's should be good for your set up. I used to run 2 Koralia 3's, but have had to add more powerheads to my system. There are a lot of different options out there to consider. The magnet's for Tunze, Vortech and Koralia are all nice though for positioning your powerheads.

[searay]

Yah I figured I might need a couple powerheads.
I really like your fish list
How big is your bluechin
Does goby pair +1 mean shrimp
Thanks for the advice
Rob

[ponokareefer]

My bluechin is probably 3 inches now. He is boss of the tank, even though the yellow tang is much bigger. He doesn't fight anyone, but come feeding time, none of the other fish get in his way.

The engineer goby pair +1 means that I have a pair of engineer goby's and then there is just an extra in the tank. I originally had 4, but one dissappeared. I added 4 in hopes of getting a pair, which I now have, but I haven't seen them spawn. Engineer goby's don't match up with shrimp.

Thanks for the complements on the fish list! There will be additions in the future, but I have to wait for them to grow out first.

[paddyob]

Originally Posted by rokosd

\ When I first setup my 65Gal tank, one piece of liverock came with a fish.

When I worked at AI a few years ago we had a purple fire fish go out with a piece of live rock. It some how got into the old rock tank and when someone got home they had him. Was pretty funny. We let them keep it.