New to the reef hoby - Tri-Cities Reef Club Forum

jlgross · Newbie

RE: New to the reef hoby

joeogio · Guru

yeah it totally works, not all screens have the polarized filter though. for example it doesnt work with my phone but it does for his.

you can build a sump pretty cheap you can diy just about everything

Floggin · Senior Member

You can use polorized sunglass and use smart phone, or a laptop screen to tell. Heres an article on it. http://www.salt-city.org/showthread.php?9542-How-to-tell-if-glass-is-tempered

jlgross · Newbie

wold love to run a sump, but funds dont really allow for much upgrade at the moment. Plus tank is second hand, dont know if tempered glass or not so afraid to try to drill it for over flow. Any way to tell?

joeogio · Guru

welcome to TCRC! cant wait to see some pics of what you have going on. you should totally start a build thread for your 90g. as far as skimmers go i like asm skimmers they are cheap and get the job done. but that all depands on if you planed on running a sump or not.

jlgross · Newbie

Hello everyone.

I just discovered the site last night surfing the web while stuck at work. I am also assuming that you guys are the group that the guy at Aquatx in johnson city was telling me about when we stopped by there on Tuesday.

As the title says i am new to the reef keeping hoby. I have had a Saltwater tank for the better part of 15 years but just keeping some fish and invertibrates. I had a 55 gal. tank with live rock and sand with just standard floursecent lighting and 2 hang on filtration. My wife reciently let me make the plunge and set up a tank to try keeping corals.

The new tank is a 90 gal. currently using one of the hang on back filters from the 55 gal with a marineland cannister filter and a couple of power heads. For lighting we have a coralife reef light with roon for up to 4 65w compact floursecent bulbs.

I am looking for suggestions on what kind of bulbs anyone would recomend using as well as recomendations on a good protein skimmer. teh one i was using on the 55 would have been undersized for the new tank and broke in the transfer anyway, so looking for a new one. Possibility with the potential to upgrade to a 125 later on when we finishh our basement. Funds are kind of low at the moment due to she also let me buy a jetski so spliting funds between the 2 so i am open to all options on the skimmer even a diy one as i am pretty handy, or if anyone has a used one that would work for a good proce i would love to have it.

As for the fish we currently have in the tank 4 damsels and a sand sifting goby that made the move from the 55 with recient additions of a lemon peel angel and a pair of percula clowns. Also looking for an aneomie or 2 for the clowns as well as suggetions on what corals to start with that are easy keepers.

Sorry to have gotten so long winded. I will try to get some pictures of the tank up as soon as i can. Thanks in advance for any and all advice that you can give.