Hello again...with setup pics this time(pre water)

Pheeshes

Reefing newb
Hello again everyone. now that christmas is over and the crazyness has died down i took some pics of the tank and stand. we also went out and bought all the stuff we had been sitting around talking about needing for the last month.
here are some pics of it
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75 Gallon all glass aquarium, we got 80 lbs of sand, salt water mix, (2) koralia 3 power heads, a refractometer, an eheim 2217 canister, a bak pack protein skimmer

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We'll be ording an RO/DI unit from the filter guys probably tomorrow and then i'll be picking up a set of nova extreme pros from DRfostersmith (great sale on them now for their 25th anniversary)
How does this look to everyone? i'm going to try to get a sump/fuge for under the stand, but i'll probably have to keep the skimmer on the tank...or maybe have it behind the cabinet and hang into the fuge. either way any tips or critiques are more than welcome. thanks for looking.
 
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there we go, i fixed it now.

if you notice in the 3rd picture our cat snuck into the stand and i didn't even notice her because she's black. i just saw her red collar as i was uploading the pics to living reef
 
Everything looks good, but the canister filter is not needed. Some people use them and alot don't. Also if it's not too late you might want to rethink the skimmer. I had a bacpak and it wasn't that good of a skimmer. There are some better options for around the same price. Not trying to offend you on your choice, just trying to save you time and money since chances are you'll get a different one down the road.
 
IO is a good salt but it leaves calcium low and PH so you will need to dose for that and keep an eye on it. I still like it though and use it.
 
Congrats on the tank and stand.Beautiful stand btw.
I'm not sure whats the canister is for since your going with a sump/refugium though.You could always use the canister on a part time basis to polish and to run carbon.
 
well, i don't know how long it'll be before i get the sump running, so i wanted to get the canister in case it took longer than i thought it would to get it built and set up.
 
Yum, virgin glass. No bulkhead overflows or circulation loop bulkheads. Where are my diamond hole saws. Just kinda kidding. Great stand! Are those function-able drawers? All you really need to move through a sump is the skimmer capacity (if you provide the rest of your 10-20 X water circulation with in tank circulation pumps), plus some raw water unskimmed to the refugium is always good. If you can afford good propeller type circulation pumps like Koralia's or Vortex's they are better than laminar flow power heads, for coral anyway. For coral you want turbulent flow so with typical cheap power heads you have to point them at each other, bounce their flow off of tank walls, use timer/controllers, sweeps or whatever to prevent straight on stream type flows. I would also not choose a canister type filter but would instead spend the money on live rock or good live sand for a deep bed sand filter.
 
we are going to use live rock for the main filter. the only reason we got the canister also is so we can run live rock in it until we get a sump set up or incase we can't get one set up.

I've got the 2 koralia 3s so i'm set there.

yes the drawers are functional. there is a great aquarium store in columbus which is only 30 minutes from us. aquarium advernture. they have a website if you're in the central ohio area i highly recommend them.
 
Congratulations.Now your almost ready to start the addiction.
I would swap that IO salt for another brand.Kent,Oceanic,Anything other than IO.

The only thing I would use the canister for,is maybe to polish the water up AFTER the cycle is complete.
Good luck,go slow,and post pics.
 
IO is not bad it is a good salt, but you need to dose for the things I mentioned and alot of people don't want to dose. IO will be fine for now and you can try another later of go ahead and trade now. A really good mixture is half IO and half oceanic. So if you want to keep the IO you can also buy oceanic and mix, then everything should come out good. The main thing I would really consider trading in is the skimmer.
 
when you say dose them how often do you mean, just everytime you mix more water or a couple times a week or...?

OK, so about the skimmer, i'm having second thoughts. the manager at the LFS told us that it would be plenty for our 75 gallon and that he had good experiance with it. he talked us out of a berlin hang on. i'm thinking about taking it back and either getting another one there(they have the coralife super skimmers and the berlins or i've found a new in the box, but one year old turboflotor 1000 multi for a good deal. which skimmer would you guys recommend either out of the ones i've named or another one?

we are going to start as a FOWLER and once we feel comfortable in our skill level and monetarily we'll probably up grade to a reef so keep that in mind too?
 
I'd go with the coralife super skimmer.I'm running the CSS 65 on my 75 and love it.But I will be switching over to a CSS 125 next week.

As for dosing the IO salt,You'll have to dose it pretty heavy a couple of times a week to keep your PH,calcium,and alkalinity up.But like Bobby stated,if you can get some Oceanic and mix the 2,you should be good to go.
 
The coralife supre skimmers are good, and I have heard the turboflotors are good as well. I don't have any experience with the turboflotor though. A LFS will tell you all kinds of things to sell you stuff, so watch em.
 
well, that was the really funny part, the skimmer he talked us out of was more expensive...maybe he knew we'd need another one soon if we got the bak pak
 
yes I agree with the above for the most part,

I use IO salt rarirly my calcium dips, PH is always spot on .

The skimmer i would try to swap it out for a Super skimmer,
I would honestly run a SS 65 on a Mildly stocked 90 Gallon tank ,
Tricky on the set-up, but once they are right they pull the poop.

That is a Very nice tank and Stand
I am looking forward to your tank build thread
 
You'll have better luck ordering equipment online rather than buying it from your LFS. LFS mark the price of dry goods up so high, you can find the same product online for a fraction of the price. Same goes for salt. If your LFS only sells IO, then order salt from Pet Supplies, Dog Supplies, Cat Supplies, Pet Meds & Pet Products: Drs. Foster & Smith Pet Supplies instead. They don't charge extra for shipping heavy items, so you can order a hundred pounds of salt and still pay the flat shipping rate. And a high quality salt plus shipping will probably end up costing less than what your LFS is charging for IO anyways.

Same goes for the skimmer. Don't constrain yourself to the skimmers that your LFS carries. There are so many better skimmers out there, and if you get them online, they don't have to be pricey.
 
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