Hello, we recently moved into a new (20 year old) home, which came with a roughly 20 year old 90 gallon saltwater "in the wall tank" between our dining room/garage. It looks to be in good condition and very long and narrow. We have 1 Tang and 1 Foxface and 40 pounds of live rock. We love it and our goal is to turn it into a Reef Tank with several fish. The problem is the equipment is starting break and we are finding out how expensive it is to replace it, but we are pulling the trigger and investing in quality replacements (from my research and veteran reefers). We recently purchased 3 NANO Cree Pros LED lighting from Reef Radiance (arriving this week) as our old Fluorescent light setup shorted out due to salt corrosion on several wires. Our pump died and we bought the Mag Drive 950. We have a chiller system and white tubular tank on top of the chiller the glows green neon at night (not sure what it is) but someone told me it kills bacteria. The purchases we have made are to allow for future expansion in to the reef world. Any comments or words of advice on next steps would be greatly appreciated. Here are a few questions I have as well, if someone could answer:
1) How long does a tank last? (Ours is 20 years old and looks ok but before we start putting in alot of money/reef into the tank I want to make sure it is good for the long run)
2) What should I put above the tank around the hole in the wall in the garage? The framing above the tank looks to be copper flashing but is now dark green from saltwater corrosion. The copper has started to breakdown and my fear is that it will start dropping into the tank (bad news). I think I should remove all the flashing, but not sure what to replace it with to protect the wood and drywall, and also prevent ill effects to the coral/fish tank beneath it.
3) How big of a sump tank do we need and what kind of skimmer? We have an overflow box running down into a bioballs sump currently. I think we need to replace it and get a skimmer sump system.
4) Lastly what kind of corals and fish should we add once we get all the other stuff above straightened out?
Thank you, your advice and help is much appreciated.
1) How long does a tank last? (Ours is 20 years old and looks ok but before we start putting in alot of money/reef into the tank I want to make sure it is good for the long run)
2) What should I put above the tank around the hole in the wall in the garage? The framing above the tank looks to be copper flashing but is now dark green from saltwater corrosion. The copper has started to breakdown and my fear is that it will start dropping into the tank (bad news). I think I should remove all the flashing, but not sure what to replace it with to protect the wood and drywall, and also prevent ill effects to the coral/fish tank beneath it.
3) How big of a sump tank do we need and what kind of skimmer? We have an overflow box running down into a bioballs sump currently. I think we need to replace it and get a skimmer sump system.
4) Lastly what kind of corals and fish should we add once we get all the other stuff above straightened out?
Thank you, your advice and help is much appreciated.
