kinnadian

If you want to light a 90cm tank (presumably at least 200L) for under $200, you are either going to have a fish only tank, have the most basic of soft corals, or have corals not remotely grow (or worse, die). I (and many others before me) have repeated this constantly. When it comes to Marine keeping, nothing is more important than quality of salt water, lighting and flow (in that order, in my opinion). Marine keeping is not a cheap hobby, and you have to enter the hobby with realistic expectations. I'm telling you now that you won't sufficiently light a 90cm tank with only $200. You are likely going to spend that much alone on T5 bulbs, not including the fittings or the regular replacement of the bulbs. Plus for T5 you will get fairly poor penetration, it won't look that good and will be quite dim. Realistically you need to look at metal halide or LED at that size. Some have success with T5, but even for $200 you are kidding yourself sorry. DIY you could potentially do it for $300 if you got a heatsink local and made up your own hanging kit.

There is already a thread about 2 threads down the front page http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=67205 And there is this sticky http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=45424

http://nzmas.co.nz/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14428 This is what me and my flatmate currently use. The only bulky in-tank aspect is the float switch, which is quite small. The rest can be hidden anyway wherever, and it is quite cheap to make.

Very fine sand will get picked up and turn your tank into a mini sandstorm in no time, unless you provide low tank turnover in which case your corals won't be too happy. Also brown sand is ugly, you definitely need white. Coarse rocks like Aragonite are recommended for this very reason. After personal experience I'd recommend going bare bottom until your live rock is semi established and you've gone through the diatom/green hair algae/cyano. The reason for this is that they will stain your sand and it will look ugly. What is your budget for lights? This entirely dictates what our recommendations will be. If you are willing to do a road trip, there is always coral rock in Christchurch from either redwood or living reef. A good collection place just needs to be clear of visible pollution or excessive foam, and needs a good method for collection, ie a 1000L IBC filled via a boat ramp. We bought this item which is both cheap and good (so far): http://www.ebay.com/itm/100-G-Aquarium-Reef-RO-DI-5stage-Reverse-Osmosis-Water-/180544571860?ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123. Been running 2 months and no issues. We replaced the prefilters immediately with 1 micron filters because 5 micron is bad. If you want you can put a T junction between the RO and the DI with a valve, and valve off RO water when you want to produce drinking water, or close it to produce RODI water.

Watch out for that star polyp growth, soon enough it will start taking over everything.

Let me put it this way. If you are going to spend $1000+ on fish and coral, do you want to gamble on the life of those animals by saving a few bucks trying to use tap water, rain water, etc? Do you want to go through the 1+ year cycling stage and growing stage of all your corals if you crash the tank due to poor water quality? I'm not trying to have a go here, but marine keeping isn't a cheap hobby and if you can't afford decent water, lighting and flow then I question if the hobby is for you. There is no "quick fix" for non RODI water, if there was more people would be doing it. Carbon dosing CAN help but it is by no means a guarantee, and unless you spend hundreds of $$ on testing equipment for harmful chemicals it isn't worth the risk; and at that point, you may have well just bought the RODI! If money is an issue, use clean natural salt water from the sea. Otherwise I very very thoroughly implore you to buy an RODI unit.

That's great to hear. How are you finding the humming of the pump? You can put the pump on a sponge or a neoprene mat (neoprene is what wet suits are made of, you can grab really cheap tablet cases which are made of neoprene) to put under the pump to quieten it down.

You basically need to adjust the flow so that you get a good column of bubbles and there is enough residence time for the bubbles to collapse at the top of the skimmer and produce skimmate in your cup. It will take some time to generate foam, sometimes skimmers days a week to settle before decent foam is produced.

Agreed with both posters, don't get tap water or you will later regret it. I have a nano and calculated if we get an RODI unit we can halve RO costs in the first year alone (as compared to Puredew water, which is the only other option), and have it even cheaper in the following years (even considering RO or DI replacement). We have this one and I'd recommend it: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/180544571860?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649. Just replace the prefilters with 1 micron ones. The other option is of course collecting your own natural sea water at high tide in a clean place.

For whites, most people are now using a mixture of cool white and neutral white (roughly 70/30 or 60/40). LED light hood manufacturers have found that the old cool white/royal blue combo only shows off green but not other colors. (Neutral white gives orange/red spectrum). With your blues, majority royal blue with a few violets I think gives a nice spectrum of color. People are experimenting with a few other colors, like reds or yellows, not sure if there is any real gains there though.

So if I understand correctly, you are drilling holes in the black perspex and then mounting the LEDs in the holes? What are you using as a heatsink? Also if you're going to DIY, at least use decent LEDs like Cree, and make sure you get new model ones and not old (the old ones aren't great).

Well I got the Satellite today, coincidentally. The regular version. It was the 24-36" version to fit over my 2' tank. It's very disappointing, certainly not strong enough to run on its own, I'll have to run it as well as the T8. All the information I could find about the unit raved about how bright it was (some say even too bright), but this is certainly not my experience. Wouldn't recommend the regular version in the 24-36" size at all. Retrospectively I should have saved the $85 and spent around $50 to upgrade my T8 hood into a DIY LED hood. Oh well...

Nope. Adding an inline valve is basically the same as having a greater head to pump to, it makes no difference to the pump.

What is your current pump? I would recommend buying a quieter one. Jebao DC range is quiet, so are Syncra pumps. Eheim 1260 if you can afford it.

Did you end up getting either? I have the regular version coming from Amazon. Will provide my comments when I receive it. I have a 2x T8 light hood and find it too dim in my 2" tank. I'm hopeful just the LED is enough, but might be running both!

Until you need to replace the bulbs... I think a sump is necessary for a new marine keeper. Of course you can get away with it, but the extra water volume alone will significantly help any spikes for a new marine keeper.

I'd recommend HPM brand ones over Arlec or elto, elto are not too bad but they have a weird setup for the unit (its flat rather than vertical... hard to explain). Arlec are crap. What light are you looking at getting?

Just put an inline ball valve on the return.

Agree with Jebao WP-40, good for a budget build. Vortech or Tunze obviously better, but much much more expensive. Grab one from fish-street.com You'll definitely need a sump, so keep that in mind. Plenty of info around about those. Bubble magus make the best bang for buck skimmers. LEDs, rapid LED make a good kit, try the 75g one on http://www.rapidled.com/by-tank-size/. Try to get it without a heatsink, makes the cost ridiculous. You can get heatsinks for much cheaper (once you factor in shipping) from NZ. Alternatively use those kits as a base line and buy individual components off of ebay yourself. If you don't want to go DIY, try two of these 120W units from ebay. If 2 is a bit dim for a 200L, you can always get a third. These are pretty good units for the price but of course no where near as bright as the $1000+ units. Heater, stick with Jager. Also, imo, put it on an external digital thermostat. Get a 100W and 200W, so you have some backup incase one fails.

Honestly if you get a digital one it won't buzz. Morc chooses analog for whatever reason, the digital ones don't buzz.

They probably won't be under very good lights since it's just acclimating.

So you're chilling with water baths? What are you using to actually chill the water?

Wow never had one buzz before. Are you using analog or digital timers? I know analog tick. As I said I've got 7 timers and not a single one makes a noise, and I would know because I hate noise. Got HPM, Arlec and elto brand ones.

If you put your ear right up to the glass, it is probably as loud as someone talking normally. From more than 1 meter away it's probably as loud as someone constantly quietly humming. For some that may be quiet but for me it is near my thresh hold!

Fish street are pretty good, 5-8 working days normally. But you can't beat the functionality of a $10 timer. I have like 7 set up in my room alone between all my pets.