complete noob needs some help

[fantapants]

Hiya, my name is Alison and I am completely new to marine tanks. I made the decission a few days ago to start looking into setting up a reef after seing a few friends nano tanks and falling in love with them. I have kept trops before, but that was a few years ago.....so i am starting from scratch! I have a tank that is 2ft x1ftx1ft and i am going to use that for starters and add the equipment i need to get it up and running. I was told i may be best to get a "plug and play" tank that has everything I need in it but.....well, I have never liked things easy. I would rather research and firm up my understanding of the science instead of relying on a tank to "do as its told" only for it to fail on me!


I have the tank, the heater and a filter. But I am struggling with my lights. The choice is just mind blowing and I really dont know where to start. The lights need to look tidy so idealy in a canopy as the tank is going in my bedroom. I want to keep a CUC and maybe a few small fish aswell as the reef if possible so am I right in thinking that my lights depend on whatI plan to keep or is it vice versa?


Thanks .

 

[AlexfromSATX]

Hi Alison and :welcome to Nanotank.com, and the addiction of Reefing! Tank, heater and filter is a good start. The lights really are dependent on what corals you want to keep. If you are just going to do fish then plain aquarium lighting will do fine, no need in the other things. I would recommend starting out with a T5 fixture like the Current Nova Extreme light. I found T5s to be great when I had my 40g Breeder set up you can check it out here: http://www.nanotank.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5283

If you know for sure that later on you want to keep SPS, clams and harder to keep things you may want to look into Metal Halide lighting or L.E.D lighting.

So to help you decide, I would start looking into corals and their specific lighting requirements and find what you like, then start to look for lighting over your tank. Hope that helps!

 

[fantapants]

Thanks alot for the advice, i have just rodered a T5 luminaire and some lamps to go in it so hopefully it will be enough to get me started. I have ordered some other bits aswell. I even went to my Local fish shop today and had a nosey around at what sort of stock they have available.

Hopefully within a few weeks I will have the beginings of my very own reef!