A Suggestion for Helping Newbies

I vaguely remember the name of this forum relates to three easy steps for a successful tank. That is a great and useful idea, but I have a suggestion to allow us to help the many newbies with questions and expand on this forum's legacy of providing easy to follow help.

I've noticed over the years that much of the difficulty we experience in this hobby comes from the sheer variety of options out there covering a huge range of variables. It is somewhat overwhelming at the outset to try to answer the series of questions that come up in setting up a tank - even moreso because each question depends on the answers to all the others. Do I need phosphate media? Well, that depends on whether you're running a refugium, a skimmer, a sandbed, doing heavy water changes, etc. What size skimmer works? Well, what do you plan to keep?

Here's my suggestion. Lets build a list of, for instance, 10 rock solid builds. Obviously nothing in life or this hobby comes with guarantees, but we can put together some integrated builds that improve the odds and reduce the confusion significantly. We can pick about 3 sizes, two price ranges (cheap, expensive), and 3 stocking plans (fish, softies, sps/lps). We then pick our favorite 10 of the 18.

We can mix a variety of technologies in the recomendations, but we make sure each recommendation uses a group of bits, pieces, stock, chemicals, etc. that work well together. For instance perhaps we have a 90 Zeovit in there, a 60 Berlin, and a budget nano.

Once we've picked the list of tanks, we can start a thread, one at a time, for each design, talk them to death, then write up the recommendation (I'm happy to do the summary recommendations once they're ready to go). We can "test" the recommendations by finding the folks on here who have similar tanks and show examples of their results.

Once done, we could point a newbie asking about how to set up a tank to the list in the hope the closer they stick to the recommendation, the less confusion and more early success they should have.

If you like the idea, chime in with your recommended tanks, thoughts on how to improve it, etc.

 

I'm intrigued.

 

This has the potential of providing a solid foundation for this site. Let me know how i can help.

 

A good place to start would be to lay out some catagories. What three standard tank sizes are the most helpful? 29, 60, 90 maybe? What about methods? I use Zeovit, but theres a fair amount of help out there for it so I don't know if its a good newbie choice - maybe it is for one of the 10 tanks. We can do a basic berlin layout, a biopellet setup, what else? How about stocking. Any ideas on how to recommend fish? Maybe offer a list and suggest they pick for instance 3 of the 5 or 1 from group 1 and 2 from group 2 or whatever?

We need a list of 10 builds in order to get started. Any ideas or recommendations on how we get a list of 10 is a big help.

 

I'll take a closer look later today and see where I think I can be of help.

 

So, you are looking or 10 separate ways of doing things? IMO, Noobs would be better served if we laid out 10 solid building blocks that can be used over a Large variety of tanks and scenarios. For me:

1. Good water in. Investing in a Quality RO/Di system is a Huge key to use from the start. This eliminates phosphates and other bad things from the start. Caveat: it MUST BE MAINTAINED. this would be my Numero UNO !
2. Quality Test Kits. having your own to be able to test regularly and when needed is Tantamount. Hannah for Phosphate and Alkalinity. Salifert or Elos for the others. No strips or low resolution API kits.
3. Quality lighting designed for your goals. This gets sticky and alot of opinions will be voiced. I am a firm believer that one does not need Radions to grow coral, but doesnt need to be using a PC fixture either. While the Reefbreeders, Ocean Revive and Reef Radiance value fixtures may not have as many options, they are decent lights and success can be had so long as you have the proper ratio of light to water. a TEK T-5 fixture will also produce good results so long as it is sized properly as well.
4. Water movement in the tank. whether your are on a Jebao budget or Ecotec budget, a decent water mover is important. i have first edition Jebao Wp40s and love them. they work very well for my tanks. I love the looks of that new Maxspec Gyre. wow. having 8-10x sump turnover and then 40x turnover in the tank itself I feel is a good average. I keep LPS, and zoas now. WP40s are at alternating 1/2 speed and I have ~450 gph thru my sump
5. Go slow. Dont rush it.

I am sure others can add their blocks to this. in my 18 or so years of reefkeeping. the rest is up to the build, but these keys can transition from my 5 gallon pico on my desk, to my 66 at home to the 180 that I tore down 2 months ago.

 

See while I appreciate the logic and you make great points, I'm trying to come at it in a different direction. If I follow all these, it still tells me nothing about what works with what. Having been a newbie at one time (probably still), and having read a lot of the newbie threads, it is very difficult to wade through all the good advice out there. How do I know whether my setup needs a skimmer? What type of light do I need for my stock? Do I need to run a reactor of any sort? What do I put in them? You sort of identify the problem in #3. A newbie doesn't really know how to define their goals, let alone how to put all the pieces together to achieve them. I'm trying to offer a range of starting points that work.

I'm not looking for 10 separate ways of doing things. I'm looking for 10 builds a newbie can pick from, each designed to work together.

 

Ok. I kinda see where you are going with it. yes. there are alot of questions that can go along with reefing. Lots and Lots of variations. articles upon articled have been written. and you know what they say about opinions...

its going to be pretty difficult to put together. I would say, my system (the 66 rimless) works very well. But that is for me. My goals for the tank were a simplified, easy to maintain clean system. So far, it has been that, except now that I have discovered my tank is inhaling ALK and I am having to start dosing daily. But the system works. Barebottom, Skimmer, Reef Radiance Light, Wp40s, DC6000 and a Reefkeeper elite.

 

So you're trying to create a list of "pre-setup tanks?" Maybe on top of this, explain the significance of refugiums, skimmers, reactors, etc

I think you must approach this as a newbie would. Most start out with FOWLR, wishing to eventually convert to a reef, starting out with softies and working up. Budget is a big issue for most newer people because who wants to spend a ton of money and have no idea what you're doing.

That being said, I think a budget 29g biocube or 28g jbj would be the most used "building block" followed by either a 55g or a 75g. AIO tanks make it so much easier for newer people.

 

I think this is a great idea, I wish I had some type of reference like what you are describing for my first setup, my current setup, and even though i am not a newbie now but by no means an expert, I think it would currently help as well.

I am willing to help out with this as well if you need, just let me know how i can help.

For starters I think reg 55g tanks are pretty common and I see a lot of people with 40g breeders. I would say anyone on a budget and new to the hobby would be without a sump, so a HOB system i think would help.