Noider;145289 said:
Like power will I need a dedicated power source for a 150g? Will I need a w/d with 4 inches of sand and Lr? Or will a simple sump do? I plan on getting mostly play sand and a bit of live sand to start .. good or bad idea its says ok for fish and I read Reef Central to use something similar? I live in a apt and plan on moving in Oct. How hard is it to move a Lr setup or would it be best to set up somewhere semi permanent? I will have lot of questions along the way and but its going to be a long road im sure. This hobby appears to be allergic to cheap. Once again thanks for the welcome and I look forward to getting to know you.
Skebo Congrats on your build and Good luck.
Thank you sir. I have a 90 tall now with a crushed coral substrate, and a HOB wet dry with some bio balls. I left my over the back filter on from my freshwater days and I am glad i did. For me my water has 0 am, 0 nitra, 0 nitri, but my phos was always higher. So i added a canister with phos-ban and have it down to 3ppm. These values never change for me so its really about playing with it. However I was never a fan of sand as it has less surface area for the no2 scrubbing and is so much harder to manage. If you use sand, use it w/ something else to give it more surface area for No2 breakdown or you need a ton of sifters.
I have a dimond back watchman goby who still has no problem filtering this stuff through his gills, but I did buy him at 3" so it would be easier for him. He moves my whole substrate around 2x a day. I had to put my mandrin in my fuge (just added) because I did not think the copes would be in enough qty for him because of how much that goby sifts everything.
PErsonally, if you know your moving, keep it in a cycle stage. LR and some damsiles or something with cuc's. Get your bactieria levels up before you add corals and it will make your life easier for the move. At least, until you move

Tehn again oct is far to far away to wait. LR in some buckets with your tank water will be ok if you watch the temp and try and circulate. Those seriously rigid 30gal bins with the yellow lids have worked great in the past for me. My hob filter from the old days will have to go someday, but after I plumbed in a fuge for isolation (not QT) i was able to pick of a ton of copes for the fuge to get it going, and of course just used substrate from my tank. Crushed coral is a great buffer for ph. I even threw some in my 55gal drum where i dump my RO and add salt and a heater. I for one, never will add something to move ph. I find tehm too volitile. Hope that gives some ideas.