terrified teacher

[Zippy-T]

Anyway someone on another forum suggested a JBJ Viper 70MH. But 70watts over a 20gal?

The price of this fixture with shipping will cost me $6 less than the nova extreme.

 

Would this be a good fixture for my 20 gal and what i want to keep? I want my corals to be vibrant and healthy not drab.

 

Glad to hear the tank's still in the works.

 

As for the light, I would *think* it'd be ok. I'm in the process of upgrading my 12g AP from stock PCs to a 70w MH (sunpod). I'm not interested in SPS - just want to get the most color I can out of what I have (zoas, rics, etc).

 

But definitely get someone else's opinion on this.... I don't really understand all the different aspects and types of lighting.

 

~~~~Edit~~~~

This morning there's a thread on 70w vs 150w (on a 24g AP). Everyone's saying to go with the 150w. Now, I'm rethinking my 70w purchase; it has yet to ship, so I may have time to swap out for the 150w. Hmm...

 

Just when you think you've made a good choice in this hobby, some new information always pops up! lol

[uglyamericanV1.5]

when i was a kid, in 9th grade science class, my teacher had a saltwater tank. she had a substitute one day and me and two buddies thought it would be funny to put a little dish soap in her tank, it had fish and urchins and such. the tank foamed all up and overflowed to everyones DELIGHT! she was furious when she got back, got me put in in school suspension......

she also, at the end of the year, nominated me for advanced science.

i am now a physician.........who also has a saltwater tank (30 and 75 gallon). i would of beat myself half to death if i was her..........

 

i felt bad then but feel much worse after going through the process myself

 

i was a jerk....

hope you dont have any brats like me in your classes. good luck

[skabooya]

i have 2. a girl and a boy. Im actually in class right now and we just had a lesson on freshwater, brackish, and saltwater environments including estuaries. LOL they are all doing worksheets right now lol

 

So i guess im sticking to the 4x24 T5 HO nova extreme then

[thebrainbot]

Thats too bad Ska... the B&W clowns are AMAZING in person. I would tend to agree that they don't look impressive in pictures. But in person WOW! The B&W is extremely vibrant and really makes them look beautiful.

[skabooya]

oh my the changes the changes.

 

I decided to take a close look at my 20 gal and there is condensation building behind the silicone on the corners of the tank. I stuck my hand in to see how bad it is and its bad. Let just say im surprised the tank hasent sprung a leak yet.

 

Talked to my hubby and we decided im gonna need a new tank. No point on spending so much money only to have the tank burst.

So now i get to decide if i want to stay with a 20gal or go with a diff size although the bigger i go the more expensive it becomes which is what i dont want.

I still want low matinance just in case i have a rough week or two and cant do waterchanges.

Any advise?

 

I want to keep the total in the same price range as i had planned under $600 which is what the 20 would have been when i made all my orders

[skabooya]

What do people think of this tank?

http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~act...nd~vendor~.html

 

 

I cant find anyone here with experience using it and its got mixed reviews (mostly a heating issue)

[Zippy-T]

What do people think of this tank?

http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~act...nd~vendor~.html

 

 

I cant find anyone here with experience using it and its got mixed reviews (mostly a heating issue)

 

 

I'm certainly interested in hearing what others have to say! I've been eyeballing that tank for awhile now but haven't convinced myself to do a "full" upgrade.

[starfish609]

If you're getting a new tank try a 20L (30x12x12) about $35. Nice size and easier to light.

You can get the 30" Sundial for $206. One plug and more quite than the extreme. Two k-nanos for $50 from the same place. A heater and AC110 for around $80. Get a GFCI about $16. I think you should get a better refractometer think about $45, check out stevet's? thread on water changes. Basic test kit is about $18. That's the beginnings of a cheap simple setup.

[skabooya]

starfish i agree that is a very nice light. but its not $206. its $219 before taxes and shipping AND before duty

Already with just doing a mock order from marine depot i end up with $516.75 and that does not include the tank, the LR, test kit, etc

 

The rough part is finding a 20L locally to me. The only place where i think i would have a shot is in another town 8 hours away and thats no guarentee.

 

The lfs here would charge me a lot for a 20L. I paid 400 for my 32 gal. They charge $75 for a bag of fluorite for planted tanks. I bought it online for $18 a bag.

 

My best bet is getting a walmart brand 20gal tank i think maybe? That doesnt make me happy though. Sigh.

 

Stupid tank silicone failing stupid money buying new tank stupid *rant rant rant*

[starfish609]

skabooya: It's $206, for the 30" model look around! There is cheaper places for the rest of the stuff as well then the place you mention. Have any friends in the states? Ship it to them and go visit. If you're really going to get into this hobby for the long term what's the rush. Get your gear slowly and space it out over time, but get the right gear and gear that you will be happy with. Shop around, some places price match so if your smart about it you could get it all from one place.

[Whacked]

The lfs here would charge me a lot for a 20L. I paid 400 for my 32 gal. They charge $75 for a bag of fluorite for planted tanks. I bought it online for $18 a bag.

$75/bag for flourite!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And they actually sell it???!!!

Holy crap!

 

The petsmart/petcos around here sell it for $24 and i've found it at other LFS for $18-$20/bag.

And the bags at the chain store have been there so long they are nearly ground to dust

[skabooya]

Starfish: Where is it $206 show me. And what other websites in Canada can i find this stuff for cheaper. I have been shoping around. A lot. Ive looked at jlaquatics, oceanaquatics, marine depot, bigalsonline.ca, all the links on canreef

I dont know anyone in the states and i have never been there. If its cheaper in the states thats great but then i gotta think about duty as well.

 

I am in no big rush to start but i would like to do it this summer. Ive been researching for over 2 years. But im not gonna buy things online here and there over a period of time. It will actually cost me more because instead of paying 1 or 2 shipping cost for all the items i would end up paying it 5 or 10 times over, wasting more money. No i want it all planned out figure out where im getting everything first and then buy it all in one shot. If this process takes me another month that thats what it will take.

 

I dont make any money over the summer so im on a very tight budget $600 total. That does not include corals which i wont be getting until i start working again when school starts. Even then it will be slow going because i will be on the sub list in september which means i wont know when im working. It could be any day between monday and friday. I will be on call as all subs are.

 

 

And yes that is a lot of $ for flourite and yes people buy it. Crazy eh?

[starfish609]

Here's your proof. www.webaquatics.com BigAl's price matches - don't know about the canadian version. I think duty exemption valve is high if you travel, you get next to none if shipped.

[skabooya]

thank you for giving me the site starfish. I just wrote to bigals to see if they would pricematch between canadian and US sites but we will see. It would be nice if they did.

[skabooya]

I recieved an e-mail back from big als online today. They state that price match is from US to US or Can to Can not Us to Can or vise versa.

So unless there is a canadian site that has that fixture for the same price $206 im sticking with the Nova extreme esp since the light fixture you pointed out is over $300 on bigalsonline.ca (canada site)

[ocean_of_mirth]

I just want to add a note about the GFCI -- get a high-quality one that won't trip on a power flicker. I had GFCI's that did that while I was away, and the tank crashed due to low oxygen.

 

power outages are an issue to deal with and battery powered air pumps will work well, you just have to make sure that if it happens over a weekend it won't kill your tank (I had a major tank crash this way and it's something to think about. I was away and couldn't reset the GFCI until I came back and found the mess)

[skabooya]

owch thats gotta suck but i can relate. I was away at universty and my 20gal tank was at my moms and my mom and brother were looking after it. Well the power went out and they didnt tell me that the tank never started back up again.

When i came back 3 months later! almost my entire stock was dead, there were bodies bloated and floating (some sunk), plants were so overgrown that the lower parts had no leaves. The bottom of the tank had a layer of rotten food on it and the water level was LOW and i mean LOW. And then when i cleaned the tank more fish died from the huge change in conditions.

 

In a salty tank it would happen in way less than half the time of that... ive read it hapenning in a couple of days, crazy.

[Kimberly63]

Hello skabooya! I just read through your thread and I thought I'd give you a few suggestions. First if you plan on just keeping softie corals but want them nicely colored, I'd go with the Nova Extreme T5 fixture. This fixture has a good reflector in it PLUS it has light timers on the fixture itself. I don't know if you thought about timers but since this tank will be in a classroom, you'll eventually need to have light timers because you won't be there 24/7 to turn them off and on. You can buy timers separately, but it would be nice to have them built into the fixture itself. I did a lot of research on trying to find a good light aside from Metal halide and that would have been the light for me if I had the money to spend.

 

Second, I know you said you had other fish tanks so you might already have one, but I highly suggest getting a digital thermometer. I used to use the float kind and I found out that it was 2 degrees off which is not acceptable in having a salwater tank. The thermometer I have takes temperature inside and outside of the tank.

 

Third, I recommend for you to get a refractometer. I got mine off of ebay for $45 after I had already purchased a hydrometer and testing with both the hydrometer wasn't always correct. If you run into a problem with your tank such as your zoas looking very sick or something and you can't figure out what the problem is, being able to quickly test with a refractometer is helpful. If you think your hydrometer is off, the only thing to do to figure out if it's off would be to take water samples to your LFS for them to test. Once you put money into corals and fish, you'll want to guard them with your life! lol sounds silly but true.

 

I can't give you advice on the Koralia 1s because I've never used them. I recently upgraded my 8g to a 10g and I think I'll get Koralia 1 or two Koralia nanos. If you have a TON of flow in your tank, you might want to get a size up from sugar grained sand because let me tell you that it's no fun having "snow" storms in your tank. The size up is still a finer grain but a little heavier and you can't tell the difference.

 

With the LR, it doesn't matter what kind you get really in my opinion. I have all fiji because I like the look and it's more porous. It's better to get rock that's not dense and fiji is good. You can even mix it up and get different types of hitch-hikers.

 

If you plan on doing softies, you don't need a skimmer. To keep my water clear, I put (don't laugh) poly-fill fiber in my filter. Like the kind you stuff pillows with. it takes so much yucky stuff out of my water I can't even believe it and boy is it CHEAP! like $4 a bag at a craft store. I put a small handful in the filter and change it every water change. Skimmers are mainly used for SPS tanks. In my filter I use activated carbon, poly-fil, and chaeto algae with a light.

 

Like you I LOVE zoas and mushrooms and that is what I mainly have. I bought a biocube 8 and I absolutely loved it and everything grew like crazy and it was only a total of 36w! My only regret was I should have bought a larger one - like the 14g or 29g because 8g wasn't enough room for me. I upgraded the pump and powerhead and modded the back with a light and chaeto algae to export nutrients and I never had a problem with my water quality.

 

I can't remember if you said what kind of water you were going to be using. A lot of people recommend getting an RO/DI unit for stripping water of nutrients. I don't personally because I couldn't afford one, but I use distilled water and never had a problem. Don't use tap water, you'll have terrible algae outbreaks.

 

Like you I was scared to death to start a saltwater tank and I kept bugging people on here till I was blue in the face. lol - but don't worry, keep asking questions because we'll all help you out! Sorry I guess I wrote you a book but I thought I'd give you my opinions to help you. Looking forward to your tank thread!

[Berkey]

Just to let you know in case you haven't found the site another decent store in Canada is reefsolution.com, they have decent prices on some stuff. I met the guys the other week while I was down in Montreal they are pretty nice.

[skabooya]

What do people think of this tank?

http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~act...nd~vendor~.html

 

 

I cant find anyone here with experience using it and its got mixed reviews (mostly a heating issue)

 

 

So no one has anything to say about this? It looks like it is a nice tank. Im thinking of getting this for my new tank. My only issue is that if anything goes wrong with any all in one tank then how easy is it to replace/upgrade parts? If something important like the lid breaks then is the whole thing garbage and time for a new tank or can it be easily replaced?

 

Im curious let me know.

[Kimberly63]

pretty powerful light if your planning on just keeping mushrooms and zoas. Plus that's a lot of money for a tank then adding rock, sand, and getting everything else. A 20g tank is $30-$40 plus a nova extreme light is around $215

[skabooya]

Well what about a regular 25gal tank with the 24" 4x24 T5 HO nova extreme, 30lbs LR, 20lbs sand, 1 K2, Rio Nano skimmer, and everything else ive mentioned previously.

[Whacked]

I am going to retract what I said earlier about the Rio Skimmer.

 

It started out doing OK. not stellar but for $30 it wasnt bad.

Now the performance is going downhill. bioload increased but skimmate decreased. did a water change and the water had a yellow tint, yuck! tweaked and tweaked some more.

Dont know why its not performing like it did. I thought about a mesh wheel mod but figure since I cant get a decent amount of skimmate anymore, it might not help any.

 

So now I figure i'll pull the plug on this thing and probably build my own.

[Kimberly63]

Well what about a regular 25gal tank with the 24" 4x24 T5 HO nova extreme, 30lbs LR, 20lbs sand, 1 K2, Rio Nano skimmer, and everything else ive mentioned previously.

 

Not saying you can't get a 25g tank but I've never seen one before. Would be a good size if you can get one. I wouldn't get a skimmer unless you're going to keep stony corals. You don't need one if you're keeping just softies but if you really want one and can get a good price - go for it.

[skabooya]

Thanks for the update whacked. I guess i will wait on the skimmer until i can find a good one that is cheap from a member on the canadian forum.

Kim i see 25gals regularly at walmart. They are an entire kit yes but hey i can sell off a bunch of stuff from that