This regards SW tanks.
I have never had a salt water tank, but I am thinking of getting a Reef saltwater tank instead of my 240g planted discus tank. Mainly because the discus tank is abit more than I care to scape carefully, and discus just kinda lost their appeal to me (If anyone is interested I have 2 HUGE 8.5+ inch snakeskins - show quality, that I am willing to sell). Saltwater seems abit more interesting to me, mainly because of a better/more interesting selection of animals.

I know in general what is needed for a saltwater tank, but i literally have 0 experience.
So, for those of you that know SW well, two questions -

1) do you think that a 300g tank with a large sump would be too much to take on as a first saltwater tank? I'm fairly decent as far as plumbing goes, and I think that technically it wouldnt be a problem for me to set up various auto dosers, top offs, ect.

2)that being said, I have never had a SW tank, let alone a Reef tank, so I would rather ask help from people on some of the forums, as far as what would be the best setup for such a tank, what equipment to get, ect.(going to be a setup where the tank is in the living room, rest of the stuff is in the basement, should be easy enough.
So what would be the Reef forum you would recommend I go to?

Thanks alot!

P.S. Also, if any of you have advice of their own, feel free to comment! As far as I understand, the most important things are quality live rock, a good skimmer and alot of flow.
Also, what is the recommended water change amount and schedule in a large reef system? is it 10% a week or 10% a month?

I don't have much experience with sw (just starting up my first tank now) but from my research I think the first thing to realize is that you'll need to put up a lot of money for a system that size, for lighting (if you're doing corals) and a huge skimmer. Plus obviously the stock and live rock, live rock alone could be well over $1,000 depending on where you live and what kind of deal you can get in bulk. The cheapest I could find it was $8/lb for uncured, so at that rate you're looking at $2,400 in rock alone (1 lb/gallon). You're probably looking at maybe $500 - $1000 for a skimmer and then at least $500 in lighting upgrades or probably a lot more, I haven't looked into lighting systems for a tank of that size and I don't know what you have, but you can easily spend $500-$1000 just on lighting for a 50g tank. SW is not cheap. Assuming you already have the tank and heaters and such, you can easily look at $4-5,000 before you're done stocking it. I just set up a 30g/20g sump and even though I made my own lighting, hoods, and I'm not having corals (so no special lighting), and I got a cheap skimmer, and built my own sump, it's cost me close to $800 thus far and I haven't even stocked it yet. There's not really any way to do a reef tank cheaply like you can FW because you need live rock and stock and lots of circulation no matter what else you do, and that all involves big money.

Assuming you have unlimited funds... I think most people do 10% water changes every second week or so. It obviously depends on your stocking level, skimming capacity, and if you are keeping any sensitive stock/corals.

Thus far I'm fascinated by the possibilities for SW stocking - the stock is a lot more interesting than most FW options. I never realized how diverse ocean life really is until I started researching possibilities for stocking my tank.

Question 1

Answer:

Purchase the biggest aquarium that you can live with in the room you plan on installing it in. There is nothing worse than spending 10k on a nice reef tank and wanting to go bigger but then you find out that it will not go into any other room. Also if you try to sell you can only get for 20-60% of the price you paid originally. So I say once again, if you like big tanks and your room can fit up to an 8'x2x3' then get it... if it can fit bigger and still be a functional room to your liking then get bigger!

Question 2

Answer:

Reef Central Online Community

P.S.

Get the best lighting setup you can!

Here is a good one for 6' tank
Current USA 72 inch Outer Orbit 3x250w 10K HQI-MH w/ 8x39W T5 HO & 24 Lunar Lights, 72in > 72in

If you get a wider tank then 6' then you will want to look into multiple matching lights. It is important to make sure you have even light dispersion from one side of the tank to the other. It is not alway how many wpg you have but quality and coverage.

Talking Reef has been very helpful and friendly. It's been a while since they've done a podcast, but they have a ton of old ones in iTunes that I definitely recommend to anyone interested in saltwater!

Talkingreef

To Carissa-
Well, I know it will be alot of money. I dont need to stock the tank at once, I will be focusing on corals and inverts. not too many fish at all.
I can get fiji premium live rock at about 4/pound.
From what I understand, just because its a bigger tank doesnt mean that I need to get 1 pound of rock per gallon, also, different kind of rock has different density, better rock usually is less dense, so you actually get more rock per pound.
tank dimensions would probably be 72x32x30.
To pockets -
I currently have two 72" t5 fixtures. 6x80w, so around 960w total. I dont know if thats enough for 30" depth though - might need to add MH. Most places say MH has more penetration, but i have seem some tests that say otherwise. What do you think?
I understand the basic concepts of what makes a good tank fairly well - alot of light, as much flow as you can, and the biggest skimmer you can buy. More water is good, even if the actual reef is smaller/less animals, so I preffer to stock lightly.
The biggest tank I can get in my house will have a 72x32 footprint. I dont think going higher than 30" is a good idea.
I would want to make sure I get all the plumbing and flow correctly from the get go....

My understanding is that less dense rock should be about 1 lb/gallon, and denser rock would be 1.5 - 2 lb/gallon. However that's just what I've read and not due to any experience. You can also buy dead base rock much cheaper and let it populate itself with the bacteria over time, if you're not going to rush stocking.

If you're drilling bulkheads, make sure you do the research on how wide the diameter will need to be and how deep under the water line to get the flow rate you want (taking into account that the tank will never be completely full). I tried drilling and broke my tank.... still don't know what happened. It was only a 30g tank so possibly the glass was just a bit too thin to handle any stress.

I would purchase the Current USA light that I posted a link to above----Then I would set aside one the the 6x80watt T5 fixtures as a spare and use the Current USA with one of your T5-6x80watt fixtures since you will have a 32" deep tank this will be good coverage from front-back & left-right. The Current USA fixture is 15" deep x 72" wide hence you will want the other 6x80watt fixture to fill in the other 17" of depth on your tank.

That would not be a very even spread of light in the tank.

I could just get a couple of pendants and hang those in between the lights I have right now, wouldnt that be better?

I'd go a batch of HQI 250W's(4-6 or so), some T5 sets, say 8x 54 total.
This assumes a 8x2x2 ft dimension

As far as filtration etc, live rock inside and you might take a good look at Santa Monica's algae scrubber designs here. I think over all, you can make something that will export the PO4/NO3 and reduce water changes better than skimmer tweaking.........less noise, more green thumb etc.
Bag filters for mech filtration.
Test kits, KH and Ca++, Mg++ might not be bad either, then NO3/PO4, eg Lamotte or a high grade method/test.


Both take some focus, much like plants, but I think most come out on top with the algae and plant theme (Skim vs Plant filtering).

As far as learning, the species and their needs is where I'd spend more time and the practical care.

Good choice but let me tell you this: Reefs are huge money pits.

Regards,
Tom Barr