reborn newbie

[micahdeane]

hello, i am back into the hobby for be out of it for 5yrs or so. I had a 55 fowlr w/ dsb, it wasn't very succesfull mainly b/c i was never home to care for it. I also had a cheap skimmer and some power heads for water movement. i am now setting up tank again (55gallon) but i kinda would like some guidence. i have read alot of info and im just kinda stumped on what i should do. 1st i know i still want the LR and im thinking of still using the dsb. I know i will need a protein skimmer and i know some people this is all they use. I know some use sumps in which i dont really understand them fully. so can someone advise me in which way flitration i should use that is moderetly easy to maintain and still work effectively. maybe a filtation kit that is already together. i dont really see myself having many corals at all maybe some polyops or some easier soft corals. thanks in advance!

 

[cindre2000]

Basically a sump is a place to put all your equipment so it will be out of the way. You plumb the tank so that a return pump takes water from the sump and pumps it into the main display. The display then has an overflow (called that because the water overflows into it) that returns the water to the sump.

A sump will allow you to get a bigger, better protein skimmer and would allow you to put in a refugium or a remote deep sand bed, as well as a place to hide the heater's and other equipment.

You could easily attach a hang on overflow and not drill your tank, however, I prefer drilled tanks. As for all in one units, Marineland has just come out with a new sump and skimmer combo that would work, and since they just came out you can find some good deals online due to promotions by Marineland. The one rated for 100g would work fine one such a system.

If you want to skip the sump, I would suggest the DOC tunze skimmer series. They can be placed in the tank, though that does take up some space.

Other than that, dual T5HO would work great on your system and provide a good bit of light for a number of different easy corals. Finally, make sure you have plenty of water flow, a couple modded maxi-jets (algae free brand) would work great. Tunze and Korallia also make propeller style powerheads that work good (2 modded or unmodded tunze nano stream 6025's would be plenty to start out with).