Hi everyone,
I'm still in the planning stages of my tank and could really do with some help and advice.
The tank is a 900mm x 450mm x 450mm rimless tank with 10mm starfire glass. Sooo pretty, I just could not think of a freshwater planted scape that would do this tank justice, hence my decision to go marine.
I'll start with the easiest to care for soft corals (mushrooms, leathers and zoanthids) and a pair of ocellaris clowns to get my feet wet. If all goes well, we'll take it from there.
Other livestock I'd like to get would include the blue legged hermit crab and a skunk cleaner shrimp of course.
Lighting at the moment is 2x 39w oddysea dual units (4x 39w t5 bulbs in total) with a mixture of 10000k and actinic bulbs. (Should I decide to go for more demanding corals I'll add some LEDs to the mix)
Filtration will be a BH1000 hob protein skimmer and live rock for bio. I'm going to start sumpless for now. If I fail and I turn away, I can turn the tank into FW, but if I succeed and I persue this part of the hobby further, I will get the tank drilled and prepped for a sump (will then look further at the different overflow options). I'll use a boyu ef45 canister filter for chemical and uv filtration, and stay on top of cleaning it to ensure no unecessary build up of nitrates.
Flow is where I'm having the most issues. I'm not sure what flow I'll need since I've read conflicting info online. For softies it appears 15x flow would be sufficient. Now if my tank is 180l that would be a total flow of 2700lph, however I've been told I'll need a lot more than that, at least 3800lph. I currently have 1x 1000lph power head (or flow pump) so if I only need 2700lph I can just buy another 2 of these... but if I need more, then perhaps 2x 2000lph pumps would be a better option?
I can obtain RO water from numerous shops in the area so will opt for this and check the costs of it in the long run before I decide to invest in an RO unit.
Most of the equipment I'm buying second hand (thanks guys, you know who you are) so will save a ton of money there which I can use later for live rock and live stock.
How much live rock will I need? Some say 15 - 20kgs while other say 20 - 40% of the tanks total volume, 20% being about 36kgs.
For the substrate, since I live in Cape Town and have access to the beach, would it be ok to get sand from the beach rather? (below the water line of course
)
Sadly I'll only start this tank in December since I have FW fry in there at the moment which needs to grow out (unless I'm able to make another plan and get started sooner.)
I hope to get the skimmer and refractometer by this weekend, so all that would be left for me to get in terms of hardware and consumables are the flow pumps, containers for holding water and mixing water and the test kits.
To start with, would I need the Calcium and Magnesium test kits?
Have I forgotten/missed anything?
Super excited and cannot wait to get started
I'm still in the planning stages of my tank and could really do with some help and advice.
The tank is a 900mm x 450mm x 450mm rimless tank with 10mm starfire glass. Sooo pretty, I just could not think of a freshwater planted scape that would do this tank justice, hence my decision to go marine.

I'll start with the easiest to care for soft corals (mushrooms, leathers and zoanthids) and a pair of ocellaris clowns to get my feet wet. If all goes well, we'll take it from there.
Other livestock I'd like to get would include the blue legged hermit crab and a skunk cleaner shrimp of course.
Lighting at the moment is 2x 39w oddysea dual units (4x 39w t5 bulbs in total) with a mixture of 10000k and actinic bulbs. (Should I decide to go for more demanding corals I'll add some LEDs to the mix)
Filtration will be a BH1000 hob protein skimmer and live rock for bio. I'm going to start sumpless for now. If I fail and I turn away, I can turn the tank into FW, but if I succeed and I persue this part of the hobby further, I will get the tank drilled and prepped for a sump (will then look further at the different overflow options). I'll use a boyu ef45 canister filter for chemical and uv filtration, and stay on top of cleaning it to ensure no unecessary build up of nitrates.
Flow is where I'm having the most issues. I'm not sure what flow I'll need since I've read conflicting info online. For softies it appears 15x flow would be sufficient. Now if my tank is 180l that would be a total flow of 2700lph, however I've been told I'll need a lot more than that, at least 3800lph. I currently have 1x 1000lph power head (or flow pump) so if I only need 2700lph I can just buy another 2 of these... but if I need more, then perhaps 2x 2000lph pumps would be a better option?
I can obtain RO water from numerous shops in the area so will opt for this and check the costs of it in the long run before I decide to invest in an RO unit.
Most of the equipment I'm buying second hand (thanks guys, you know who you are) so will save a ton of money there which I can use later for live rock and live stock.

How much live rock will I need? Some say 15 - 20kgs while other say 20 - 40% of the tanks total volume, 20% being about 36kgs.
For the substrate, since I live in Cape Town and have access to the beach, would it be ok to get sand from the beach rather? (below the water line of course

Sadly I'll only start this tank in December since I have FW fry in there at the moment which needs to grow out (unless I'm able to make another plan and get started sooner.)
I hope to get the skimmer and refractometer by this weekend, so all that would be left for me to get in terms of hardware and consumables are the flow pumps, containers for holding water and mixing water and the test kits.
To start with, would I need the Calcium and Magnesium test kits?
Have I forgotten/missed anything?
Super excited and cannot wait to get started
