I am not sure how best to advise you, but I will do what I can. Firstly, what type of marine tank are you planning to set up? From the kit you have listed I would guess you are going for fish only, or fish only with live rock (FOWLR). If you are thinking of a reef you may need to rethink your kit list. The filters and marisys are not ideal for reef systems and you will definitely need more lighting. However for FOWLR it should be fine.
Onto your dilemma. The list of items on offer would certainly save you some money so are worth considering. Questions I would ask myself are:
Are the inluded fish and livestock what I want to keep?
Is the live rock on offer enough for my tank size or is it too little/too much? (not a big issue but worth thinking about)
More importantly - is your tank ready and are you ready to take on and host the livestock?
It sounds like your tank is still stocked with freshwater - you would need this empty, cleaned, set up and ready before receiving the livestock. Would also be useful to have the tank full of salted RO water and up to temperature. It depends on whether the water from the current system is enough for your tank and whether or not you are able to transport all of it. Do you have access to RO and salt?
In terms of moving the livestock it is just a logistics exercise - once planned it should not be a big problem - just make sure you have what you need (bags for the fish, polystyrene boxes and enough food grade containers for water, live rock & sand) and someone who can help you pack up, transport and unpack.
Good luck with whatever you decide!
Take care,
Wayne
Tank1: 125L Tropical. 1 male betta, 4 scissortail rasboras, 3 neon tetras, 4 glowlight danios, 1 candy stripe loach, 1 female bristlenose, 6 amano shrimp.Tank 2: 65L Nano reef. 6kg live rock, 96w T5 lighting, 3 x turbo snails, 5 x red-legged hermits, 1 x peppermint shrimp, 1 small pistol shrimp (hitch-hiker), two percula clowns, 1 neon goby, 1 sun coral, 1 clove coral & 1 tree coral
Thanks Wayne.
No I feel I am rushing a little to be honest. I am planning to clear, clean etc the tank tomorrow.
Organise barrels to collect water etc.
Sunday - to logistically move the fish, rock, water etc into mine. I am going to get the media into the Aqua Marisys so that it kick starts straight away.
At present I do not have Salt or RO water - the guy is going to give me all his salted RO water .....
Can any one tell me what the problem is with the MariSys 240? Why is not ideal for Reef systems??
I am total newbie so not going to rush into corals etc - I am going FOWLR first atleast for a year and then branch out -
But - can I with T8's not have any sort of coral at all.... would like one or two... but that is it.... ?
Atleast until I can find a Juwel T5 set... ;-)
Any others ideas anyone has would be welcome....
live rock is the best filtration so you don't need an external. You can still keep it and use it if you wish to house rowaphos etc in it, this will also give you abit more flow.
T8's, there are quite a few corals which you can keep under them but i'd suggest setting it up first if you go for it then ask Q's about what types, many toadstool leathers will be fine and some corals like some certain sea fans, mushrooms, sun corals etc. Basically stay away from most hard corals with T8's. Ask here before you go looking
Cheers Richy - will do.
Can I ask what rowaphos is?
I am going to look for some more live rock, I know of someone who wants 4.50 per kg for theirs so I might check it out. (when I saw it - it looked like Tuffa Rock with a lot of red?? but then what would I know?? - lol) I am going to be placing an order for some BOYU wavemakers or Resun wave makers 3500l/hr each for flow...hoping to get 2 of then either side of the tank. - anyone have any knowledge on these.... some good deals on ebay from HK.
Rowaphos is a phosphate remover compound that you can run in your filter. It is very good at removing phosphate and so helping to keep algea under control.
By wavemakers do you mean powerheads (to create flow in your tank)? Wavemakers are used to control powerheads to simulate a tidal environment in your tank. They can be quite effective but I don't think they are necessary, especially for a beginner setup. You will do just fine with powerheads alone to create flow. I use Koralia powerheads in my tank, but also popular are Tunze and Maxijets. Depending on the stock that you want to keep you will need between 10 and 30 x your tank volume flowing through the powerheads. So you are looking for a combined flow of between 2400 and 7200 lph.
My comments about the Marisys were based on what I have read from others who have used it or run marine tanks. From what I understand it is a trickle filter sump combined with an air driven protein skimmer. As Rich has said modern reef keeping methods only use liverock/sand as the biological filter (no ceramic media or sponges as these will give out too much nitrate). With this in mind I would only put chemical media (carbon, rowaphos) in the marisys filter section. As the skimmer is air-driven, to keep the skimmer working effectively you will need to replace the wooden airstones every 4 weeks.
Hi Fly,
i am pretty new to marine fishkeeping but will give you my opinions based on my ltd experience so far.
I recently bought a perc 120 fully setup, it was a nightmare to move and took a whole weekend to get setup properly. in fact longer then that. One of the upsides was that i got some terrific equipment and some lovely stock however there was some stock which i never planned to have and it has restricted me a little bit.
If it were me setting up the 240 which is an ideal tank imo, i would loose the hood and lights, get a 2" wide by the length of the tank but of 6mm plate glass cut, i would then silicon this along the front of the tank just under the brace bars, wait for the silicon to set and then remove the brace bars, this is to stop shaddowing. I would then get an arcadia 4 x t5 light bar which sits on the tank with brackets, or alternatively hang it. you could have two artinics and two marine whites on seperate timers i beleive if you get the right one.
Filtration wise i would get suitably sized powerheads, seio, koralia, tunze. I would steer clear of cheap far eastern rubbish, they really are rubbish. buy your own live rock, its readily available from fellow aquairists all around the country if you keep an eye on for sale sections.
Skimmer wise i would get hold of one of the MCE600 skimmers, these seem to be very popular and efficient. It maybe an idea to get a small external to aid flow and to put extra filter medias in to help with various thinks like calcium, phosphates, magnesium etc etc. you want to rely on your rock for the bio filtration though, any other bio filtration could up your nitrates.
Matt
Can't disagree with what's already said.
I'd lose the filter myself too, unless you use for Rowaphos/Carbon.
Also as Matt has said a Deltec would be a good skimmer for that, there is the cheaper option of the V2 Skimmers which are good and I've used 2 in my experience with no problems, however Deltec are better.
Tunze units for powerheads are ace, however pricey. As Wayne mentioned Korallia's are a cheaper alternative, but good.
FD