New tank

[Rockadile]

A few months ago I sold all my tank stuff and I just was never happy about it or was able to shake the bug.

I am now in the process of putting together a new tank and while I am not new to this I am seeking a little advice.

The plan.

30x30x18 rimless tank.

I have always like the looks of a shallow cube and this is my chance. I plan on building a over sized stand about 42x42 to give me plenty of room below, a lessoned learned from my last tank.

Things I am up in the air about. I am deciding on a 6bulb 24 inch t5 light or Led. I had LED AI sol blues over my 90 and just never felt I got the color or growth I wanted from them, while I did enjoy the savings over MH and t5. Heat is a conceren also from the t5 in such a shallow tank.

The other thing I am up in the air about is flow. I want a clean look, meaning I want to try and avoid having cords show. I have used vortechs in the past and was happy with them and have considered using 2 mp10s on the back side of the tank. I am also considering using a couple tunzes this time or possibly a closed loop. Thoughts?

I will be doing mostly SPS with a very minimal rock scape in this tank.

Fish stock will be very simple as I would like to keep it fairly realistic with 3-5 damsles and a goby pistol shrimp. Thoughts on this

I have also considered doing a single angler.

Anyway this is where I am so far in my plans. I am still researching where to buy the tank. Not big on glasscages although they seem to be the cheapest so far.

 

[byronious]

Rockadile sounds good. I am new to the addiction, so I have no advice for you.
I am just down the road from you in Muscatine.

 

[ShannPeach]

If you do the 3-5 damsels, depending on the species, you may only end up with one or maybe two. Something a bit more peaceful/less aggressive would work better (perhaps orange lined cardinal fish or something?).

I have a yellow leaf fish (not an angler, but similar in terms of care) and it is one of the coolest fish I have. Once trained to dead food, they are pretty easy and have minimal food waste (they eat all of what you give them). When it was eating live foods only, I gut loaded the ghost shrimp (get them in the freshwater section) and soaked them in garlic. After a couple weeks of that, I soaked frozen krill in a couple drops of garlic, and would put it "upstream" of the leaf fish. It would slowly drift past and then it would snap it up. Now I can forgo the garlic and it eats directly from tongs.

I have been able to keep it with hermits, snails, and a smallish maroon clown (too big to eat at least) with no problems. Shrimp, obviously, are not an option lol