New to the hobby - Advice on setup

You could start small and run it without a sump and just the HOB filter. Best to get rock and start cycling now so you can get ahead start and figure out livestock later. What you mentioned wouldn’t be an issue in a 30 but I wouldn’t go much beyond that without a skimmer.

Do you have an RO/DI unit for your water?

 

Depends on how bad the source water is but one DI is good enough for decent water.

A brute trash can be used to cycle if needed then used for mixing salt in after you get the tank setup. Nothing fancy is needed for cycle. Just saltwater, a simple power head or pump for water flow and a heater.

If you wait it’s NBD. Hope finishing your basement goes well.

 

Agreed. I had my rocks cycling in plastic totes for a few months before I got my tank up and running.

 

I had an RO/DI with (1) sediment, (2) carbon, and (1) mixed bed DI stage. Seems like I always had problems with bacteria and algae, and one component in the mixed bed changed color really fast, like <50 gal through the system, even starting with city water. I recently bought the upgrade for (1) cation and (1) anion stages with TDS meter, which also came with another mixed bed stage. Current setup is sediment, carbon, carbon, RO, cation, anion, mixed bed, mixed bed; media seems to be lasting MUCH longer, and TDS has been 0 for probably over 150-200 gal at this point. I plan to just move things downstream when TDS stops reading 0 or the color change indicates exhausted media.

 

If you have RO/DI that's a good start. From there everything is a matter of preference. There are lots of ways to put together a great tank. You mentioned fish if that is you goal the hobby will be way more forgiving. I suggest you tell us what you want to do and then listen with the realization that what you are going to get back will opinion. Look at other peoples tanks that are successful and see what they are doing. Like I said lots of ways to make it work. The problem is there are even more ways to fail.