TBrewerton

An acrylic tops a great idea as it will cut back the evaporation a bit too. Just remember acrylic will bow a bit from the difference in moisture between top and bottom - turning it over every few days can help prevent that.

Hey mate, What style of tank are you looking at? This can change some of these decisions slightly. A 60L is small enough that you can get away without a hob at all if you wanted to it just increases maintenance very slightly. The main thing with small tanks is keeping the water stable and evaporation is the main thing to throw out Nanos due to the already small water volume. I would recommend a good automatic top off system for evaporation over getting a Hob as this will keep things much lower maintenance for you as far as stability goes. For filtration your rock will be enough to take up nutrients and then just do small water change's each week and when you syphon out the water make sure to "surface skim" any build up of protein on the surface. I maintained a 60L like this for a few years no problems.

It will be fine, and if you decided to upgrade in the future you can always by individual filter housings and add on to it. For someone starting out that's a great way to do it without making huge up front financial commitments. I Run two DI Membranes on my unit now each membrane cost around $90 NZD each plus housings on top of that. Silicates can feed algae in a tank so if you are finding after 6-12 months you cant seem to get on top of the algae then i would be looking at doing something similar and adding a couple of DI membranes to what you have. Some sponges also feed on silicates so some people hit it lucky and have a sponge explosion in their tank that helps absorb the silicates.

That’s what I used when I was starting out, it’s fine but as said above it will eventually let silicates through.

You ideally want 1-2 pre filters, a reverse Osmosis unit followed by De-ionising unit. You can get really cheap units with all of that but not all De-ionising resins are the same. Most stock standard ones sold in NZ are just a mixed bed resin but not designed specifically for NZ water. What i have found is NZ water is extremely high in silicate which will get through a De-ionising cartridge faster than other things and being silicate you wont pick it up with a TDS meter. Personally I have got De-ionising resins from america for my unit but its extremely expensive - it really just depends on your budget. A basic unit is still going to better than no unit.

Looking real nice! (the enclosure)

Hi Vinnie, I think you will find people will give you a huge variation of answers on this. I personally go off the Triton Method which aims for 10x turnover per hour (After accounting for head height loss etc of pumps) I know others who are much lower in flow and others who are much higher. I think the easiest way is to think about the stock you are aiming to hold and then work out what sort of environment they like best and work back from there.

Yea sounds about right - I was getting it from Countdown and from memory it was around $6-7

I used Pure Dew when first starting out then had a RO/DI Unit custom designed and made in china via Aliexpress. Worked out a bit dearer than off the shelf units here in NZ but is a far superior system. One thing that seems to be common throughout NZ is high silicates within our water - this is also true for Pure Dew. Silicates can fuel algae growth and can be a big issue for many without realising it. While an RO/DI Unit helps with this Silicates can get through a membrane and the TDS of the water will still read zero as silicate is not conductive. Having a couple stages on the DI can help reduce this a bit.

A dead fish will produce far more ammonia than a live fish, the ammonia produced by a live fish is just from their waste - a dead shrimp is entirely waste. One should be enough

Yea you can use any raw product - Snapper would be fine. You just need enough to start generating ammonia as it deteriorates, I would also recommend putting what ever you use in to some form of mesh bag or stocking etc so it can easily be removed as it breaks down.

For that price it could also be Blue Treasure as they have a SPS Reef Salt mix too. I have had the Hydrosoft Pool Salt ICP tested and it is purely Sodium Chloride and therefore needs lots of buffering with Mag/Cal/KH and trace minerals. https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/38428/ (The maganese and Silicon were due to bad DI resin in the base water and not the salt itself)

Gorgeous Mark - what a great transformation!

Depending on the size of tank a sump isn't always required but I wouldn't replace this by using a canister filter. In smaller tanks you can get away with more frequent water changes to maintain stability but in bigger tanks a sump is usually preferable. Canister filters can be used but require regular maintenance as they become a trap for waste which then causes more issues than you would have had without it. Also if using a canister filter I would remove sponges and run with coral rock or carbon.

Hi all, If any one is interested I have $80 worth of Pure Aquatic Giftcard's for sale. These were a recent Gift but they don't stock Marine anymore so I can get what I am after. Willing to sell for $70 and am more than happy to meet you at the shop if you want to double check their value before completing the transaction. Can deliver Hamilton wide or you can pickup in Cambridge.