Hey guys so I've been in the hobby for almost a year and my SO and I have a 30 reef tank and for my birthday I was given a 30 gal !!!!! But I want to start from scratch I have live rock , salt, water, filter, heater chems but no lights yet that's not in this months budget. Advice, tips, ideas, and anything else please.
First set up 30 gal
- Thread starter waterfae
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As with any hobby, patience is always needed. I'm going to base off of just the tank itself, I know you have some of it already but this is what I recommend.
If your on a budget, start with salts like Instant Ocean or Reef Crystals. People talk down on it but it doesn't mean it's garbage.
Filtration will be your rocks and sand. Start with new sand, dry or "live" it will all eventually be seeded from another local or LFS tank. Get base rock like macro rocks or BRS, they are usually porous and light weight.
Lights I would save up, this is one thing you don't want to limit yourself on. Typical price for a decent light fixture is around $250. I would recommend the RapidLED Onxy light fixture. Get the bare wire and 3 channel dimmer, it's over that range but very reasonable when it comes to lighting. It's led and has a good coverage for your 30g.
Chemicals you won't need at all. Not yet anyways considering it's a new tank. A cycle needs to happen and people usually use shrimp to complete the cycle.
Skimmer, get the Tunze 9002 with the Intank cup or go with an Algae Scrubber. Not sure if your planning to run a sump or not, assuming not.
If your on a budget, start with salts like Instant Ocean or Reef Crystals. People talk down on it but it doesn't mean it's garbage.
Filtration will be your rocks and sand. Start with new sand, dry or "live" it will all eventually be seeded from another local or LFS tank. Get base rock like macro rocks or BRS, they are usually porous and light weight.
Lights I would save up, this is one thing you don't want to limit yourself on. Typical price for a decent light fixture is around $250. I would recommend the RapidLED Onxy light fixture. Get the bare wire and 3 channel dimmer, it's over that range but very reasonable when it comes to lighting. It's led and has a good coverage for your 30g.
Chemicals you won't need at all. Not yet anyways considering it's a new tank. A cycle needs to happen and people usually use shrimp to complete the cycle.
Skimmer, get the Tunze 9002 with the Intank cup or go with an Algae Scrubber. Not sure if your planning to run a sump or not, assuming not.
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danOkablamo
New Member
While your waiting for funds to purchase a decent light, you can definately start cycling the tank. Cycling a tank with little to no light will discourage nuisance algae growth. How I cycled my tank was with light ghost feedings every other day and no lights until the diatom stage, once diatoms were prevalent I added a clean up crew and waited until green algae and coraline started appearing and all chemical levels were stable. Once nitrate had been controlled I added my first fish, all in all taking about a month in a half. I used BRS Reefsaver Rock and seeded the coraline with turbo snail shells that were covered in coraline which I got for free from my LFS with a purchase.
danOkablamo
New Member
Is the sand and rock completely dried out? and the water won't be coming from another tank right?
danOkablamo
New Member
If your going to have a sand bed, your going to need more than 15 lbs for a 30 gallon, I used about 25-30lbs for a 2 inch sand bottom for snails on my 30 gal. when you put sand in the tank, your going to want to put it all in a once, adding sand little bit by little bit only disrupts the buildup of naturally occuring de-nitrifying bacteria and will make your tank take alot longer to stabilize. My suggestion is get all the sand together and rinse it completely with freshwater (soak the old sand overnight in freshwater) before putting it in your tank. How long has the sand and rock from the tank been dried? When was the tank last used for fish? How many pounds of rock?
I'm dividing the tank in half with a divider and only having a sand bed on half, the resoning being I am also building a coral shelf set up in the other half so the corals can have the nutrients with out any hitch-hikers to interfere.
Angel730
Community Member
I know this hobby is very pricy and time consuming when one is trying to mimic the condition of ocean for our marine fish and corals. For lights I would look into AquaTrades, they sell very decent lighting system for reasonable price. I purchase lighting system for my 125 gallon. But I would consider to change the light bulbs that comes with it. Some of their fixtures comes with build in-timer as well. Here the link: Aquarium Lighting - Guaranteed Best Prices Online!
