Newbie

[frankandmaura]

Hi All,
I am a total newbie at this...I will get some pics soon, but all I have is a pic of the tank before I riped it apart. Little background...I just bought a house in March. The house had this 125gal SW fish only tank built in behind the bar. It was not maintained very well over the last few months before we moved in...I am sure the people we bought from just had better things to do (new baby and they were building a house). Anyway, I am totally rebuilding this into a reef tank and I am a novice. I am learning a lot, but it is taking some time for me to get the things I need to get it going.

The stuff I currently have is:
RODI filter (100 gal a day) - fills the sump on demand with a float valve
ASM G2 protein skimmer
Hagen Fluval 400 series canister filter (came with the tank)
100 lbs of base rock
?? lbs (probably about 100 lbs) of very cool dead corals (were decoration in the fish only tank - but I think will work well as base rock too - some of it is in the pic attached)
20 lbs of live rock
2-3 inch sand bed with crushed shell below
1 AquaClear 402 powerhead (came with tank)
20 gal sump
300 w heater
Lighting is 4 X 48in VHO Icecap system (2 actinic bulbs and 2 white)

Living stuff in there right now is:
1 small yellow watchman goby
1 pink tip anemone
some mushrooms

Stuff I want to get:
1 Center Wave2K
More live rock - little at a time
not sure on fish and inverts yet

I have seeded the sand with some from a friends tank, have had it running for about 10 days now...looks very ugly (going through the cycle). Once complete I will get some better pics for you all.

[Little Luey]

Welcome to TRT!

That is a great start! do you know how long it was setup for? one thing you may want to do is to replace the sand on the bottom. Without getting too complicated I will say that overtime the sandbed needs to be replaced to eliminate phospates and crap that acumulates in it, so it is better do change it now that you are just starting.
You willalso need to add more flow once you start getting coral.

[frankandmaura]

Well...the sand is all new...I tore everything apart. There was no sand before, just crushed shells (I cleaned them and replaced them under the new sand). I think it was set up for about 5 years before I took it over. As I said though, I striped it down, totally emptied it out, washed everything and started over. It has been a learning experience. I do plan on getting more flow...down the road a bit. I want the Wave 2K, but it is not in the budget right now, maybe a few months.

Thanks for the reply...I will be looking for more info as I move on...this site looks like a great resource...