well, the plumbing is all quite similar, just at different scales. Check out Amphibious'
thread on his tank and
PM him for some advice. He's a very experienced aquarium plumber!
I would make one recommendation concerning your substrate. I started out my tank with crushed coral and really regretting it. It's quite coarse and ends up trapping a lot of
detritus, which over time ends up causing a lot of nutrient issues. If I were to do it over again, I would just stick with fine or sugar fine sand. Definitely set it up so that it's 4" or greater. The sand will condense and get used up over time, so in order to reap the benefits of a
DSB, it's better to go on the deeper side.
On a side note, is your sand or
aragonite base or silica? You'll want to make sure it's
aragonite-based, otherwise you'll have a lot of algae problems.
Diatoms feed off of silica, which is a major problem with the silica-based sands.
Also, make sure you heat your salt water before measuring the
salinity. Different temperatures have different densities...
The best way to set up a reef tank is to do it slowly and patiently. Don't rush any of the steps. Make sure you get some good test kits (Salifert are highly recommended and are my personal favorite) and watch your values as your tank is cycling. Try to be regular about measuring the following:
pH
Alkalinity/KH
Calcium (I'm not sure if you're planning on having corals as well??)
Magnesium
Phosphate Nitrate Nitrite Ammonia
by following these parameters, it will give you a great sense of how your tank functions and what the good signs of health are. It also helps in the future for being able to easier predict how the health of your tank is.
ummm....I'll stop for now!
