What’s your opinion of my overall setup? Suggestions? Advice?

Hey Dave,

Welcome to the wonderful world of reef keeping!

Sounds like you are on your way, I have a few small suggestions.

Bio balls are usually a bad idea as they can be a nitrate factory. Same with crushed coral. I would replace it with aragonite sand.

I wouldnt add any fake coral, however alot of people add dead skeletons to their fuge. It will act as a buffer for your PH & calcium & give pods & such a place to hide & breed.

Bristle worms are good 95% of the time, dont touch them though or you will learn a painfull lesson.
What do you want your tank to be like. If you want stuff like Green Star polyps, shrroms, kenya trees, zenia, and zoas your lights will be fine. It wont be able to sustain SPS.

Keep an eye on the forums, you can usually find LR for $1-$2 a pound.

The Fall Fest usually is full of good deals, post in the forum if you are looking for some specific items. I filled my first 125 up from a swap with the softies mentioned above for under $100.

There is alot of advice out there with alot of different methods that work

 

All great advice from Xroads and I agree with everything he said. Most reefers "cringe" when they hear crushed coral because it holds onto detritus and causes problems down the road.

Yes, you will find great corals of all kinds at the Fall Fest. Not only will be be able to buy corals, you will get a free demonstration on coral fragging or propagation and invaluable information from the various speakers. I have several of Anthony Calfo's books and I can't tell you how excited I am to be getting the opportunity to hear him speak!

 

just curious is sg suppose to be salinity? if so you might consider raiseing that slowly to around 1.024-26. Crushed coral can be a pain if you let it, most of the tanks i've seen with it looked good but the owns had to vac it once a month or so to keep things clean, this could also be why you have trace nitrates. As for the fall fest....if you cant find a deal there you are doing something wrong.

 

I agree with xroads........ decide what type of tank you want and go from there. If you want SPS or LPS you will need better lighting, metal halides. If you plan on softies, your current system will do. I'm concerned that you don't have a skimmer or am I missing something? If you don't have one, spend some money and get one asap, it is a necessity. Also, there's no mention of water flow..... do you have any power heads to move your water around? That can help to keep detritus (gunk) from settling onto your substrate and rock.

 

Crushed coral is not "evil" it is fine and is a great pod factory if it is maintained. Sand that is not maintained can be more trouble in my opinion and is too fine to be a breeding substrate for anything besides bacteria and burrowing worms.

Your nitrates are possibly due to Bioball useage and your "miracle" mud if it is not healthy. With saltwater tanks nitrates are the water parameter we fear the most. They can be hard to control if they get away from you. Nitrates are also caused by low flow tanks allowing junk to settle in the live rock, dirty filter pads, or any other collection of decaying material.

Keyhole angels can be coral nippers so watch him.

As for equipment I would suggest a Quarantine/Hospital tank be your first purchase. No animals should be added to your tank until it has been QT'd for at least 4-6 weeks. That ensures the new critter is healthy and hopefully bug free. This keeps you from infecting your display tank and possibly killing all of your current fish or corals.