attempting a new setup. sugg. on equipment?

[mbromel]

im thinking about starting a new reef tank, probably populated with soft corals and a few small fish. all i have right now is an empty 29g aquarium.
what are peoples thoughts on appropriate lighting, powerheads, and filtration? (if needed?) my lfs mentioned it may not be necessary to even need filtration...
thanks for the imput!
madison

 

[Krish]

Welcome to RF!!

As for filtration, biologically, your liverock and sand (if you use any) will provide you with everything that you need. The bacteria that will grow in and on the rock will do all of the work. To aid things, I'd suggest a protein skimmer. A tank that size will do just fine with a mice hang on skimmer if you don't want to go through the hassle of adding in a sump. Flow wise, I'd shoot for about 40x turnover rate or there abouts. Everyone has different thoughts on flow and how much you need bit IMO it's a good ballpark figure to work with. Lastly on the lighting, it will all depend on what you want to spend. Some people say softy's now and a few months later they want sps corals so they have to change their lighting to compliment them. T-5's however may be the way to go for softy's.

Just a few thoughts for starters.


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[mbromel]

awesome, thanks. do you suggest t5's or t5ho's? so far it seems that getting the good lights and the appropriate amount of live rock (the lfs suggests 30#) are going to run me about $200 each. are there other places to buy live rock? is $7/# an average price, or is that the high/low end?

 

[jrgilles]

Check the classifieds here (most people are local to seattle) and craigslist. Should be able to find a lot of live rock. You may also consider doing something like 80% dead rock (dried out live rock) and 20% live or some combination. Can save you a lot of money.

There are always people taking down tanks that you can find on either place above, and that is where you can get some good prices on the rock

 

[DolphinLVR]

Check the classifieds here (most people are local to seattle) and craigslist. Should be able to find a lot of live rock. You may also consider doing something like 80% dead rock (dried out live rock) and 20% live or some combination. Can save you a lot of money.

There are always people taking down tanks that you can find on either place above, and that is where you can get some good prices on the rock

+1

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