I understood exactly what you meant. That gives me hope. I used my cabbage leathers for an example, right now I know that if I do a water change they will perk back up but I don't know what they are missing that the water change puts back in the tank. Testing will let me know what is missing.What I mean is... after a while of testing your Alk, Mg and Ca and watching your corals, you'll be able to see that when your torch coral starts looking ticked off your alk probably got out of whack. There are people on here that can give you better examples of their own tanks I'm sure.
Thanks @melypr1985. I didn't know that, I thought they were starting to die.
We were able to save 1 cleaner shrimp, our cleaner wrasse and one chromis after losing our tank not once but twice. We almost lost our sail fin tang early on but managed to save him and he is now big and fat. No regrets exchanging the 20 g for the 55 g. Mandarin is one of my dream fish. Eventually I would like to have a reef ready tank but unless I win the lottery, it will probably be a couple of years before that happens. I will also get a custom stand made to go with it. The one we have came with the tank and there is so much wasted space that I can't use for anything more than decorations (I want everything hidden except for the tank itself).
Please don't put anymore ideas in my head. I go to bed thinking about all the pretty corals and fish I would love to have in my tank. If I keep it up I'll be wanting to upgrade to a 500 gallon tank by next year. Lol
I guess lucky for my husband, our tank sits on an outside wall. Only other wall I could put it, has my kitchen on other side. Although if I do win the lottery, I could design a house to accommodate my tank.this is my little fish room behind the wall. This was taken when I was upgrading from my 75 a few months ago
I may pick your brain at a later date in regards to doing a sump with overflows. Some make it seem so easy but it's like a totally different language to me. As far as the cannisters go, they are doing a good job but are a real pain to clean or change media. The fx6 is pretty heavy to lift into the other room unless hubby is here. Would you recommend the reef octopus? It would be about $400 (Canadian). I really don't want to spend much more than that if I eventually want to go with a sump.Nice looking tank, Lori! Definitely agree looping in some alk mg ca testing for the corals and looking at protein skimmers. I've had several HoB(Hang on Back) skimmers that were great, and others not so much. If you're having success with the canister filters, I'd keep running them while researching, and posting questions about sumps. Planning out a sump (How the water flows through it, where all the equipment goes, and how everything is going to be plumbed together) is one of my favorite parts of the hobby. Refugium planning is equally awesome! Macro algae, micro fauna, and rubble - Oh my! Nerd out on it and devise your setup just the way you want it.
Noteworthy mentions if a sump interests y'all based on your original postings!
1. There are few of easy ways to keep your sump from overflowing in the event of a power outage:
-Drill a hole in the return line to cause a break in the siphon and stop the flow of water where you want
-Use a check valve
-UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply). These are batteries/surge protectors that keep your critical pumps going in a power outage.
2. If drilling a tank for a sump is intimidating don't worry about it. There are overflow boxes that do an exceptional job out there! I've been using them my whole journey through the hobby. They require a peak at least every so often to make sure they're operating at optimal capacity, but whats a quick peak when you're going to be checking out all the cool things going on in your tank anyway?
Yes thank you everyone for your help and advice. Much appreciated.
The sump has a drain, and a overflow with a stand pipe which drain out through the wall to the outside 
Hi Lori my name is Vanessa and I just wanted to stop by and say hi and let you know from experience and being new to this site that there has been members that have taken me under their wing and walk me through the steps I have spent months and months doing research on saltwater tank but in the end I still need to develop ideas off of somebody's head that had more experience than me with that said I believe you are in the best place out there these people are kind and dedicated and love to share their experiences with the salt water life. I know you will enjoy all of the people that are here and you'll be just excited when you realize that you have hundreds of friends that are here to help you and your husband and your saltwater Adventure again welcome to reef2reef and I just want you to know I have Smiles For YouWelcome Lori , I think your tank looks awesome, I really like your rockscape and the way your corals are placed look so natural. From going through your thread you have a lot of great members looking out for you. Looking forward to following along.
