Yet another new tank setup

Hi all, Just joined this site today was looking for a local group and this was the closest I could find. I am just starting up a FOWLR 44 gal bowfront tank with 30#s live sand and 20#s live rock and 20#s dead rock. Have cycled the tank now for a little over a month now and am just starting to look into buying my cleaner crew for it. I'm starting to have either brown algae or diatom issues with it and was wondering what the best set of critters would be. Also was wondering about what kind of water movement do i need to generate in this tank was looking at getting two of the smaller powerheads for opposite sides. Also I am hoping of switching this into a reef tank after everything is going so whatever kind of investments I can start on for parts now would be great.

First of welcome. If you want snails don't get hermit crabs they will kill all your snails. I like nerites and astria's for snails, every I'm sure has there prefferences. A little more info is needed to help with your other investments. What are you hoping to keep for corals down the road, softies, lps,sps? what do you have for lighting at the moment? Skimmers are a good mech filter, I like octopus brand. Reefkeeper lite for controling heaters, lights and others for a cheap start or neptune for a little more money.

Welcome to the forum. I agree with tinkerman what do you want to keep in your tank? I have a swc 160 skimmer and a reefkeeper 2 controllor for sale. along with a bunch of other stuff.

Keep in mind algea is very normal, clean up cew or not your tank will go through some funky algea issues, if you overload with cleaners they often just die off so I would go with 5-6 nerites, same with astreas and nassurius. I've never had an issue with dwarf hermits personally and like having a few running around. Water movement, I would probably go with koralia 2's or 3's in that size tank, I have a k2 in my 24 gallon as sole powerhead right now, or tunzes if you can afford them. How much flow depends on what you want to keep down the line, softies and lps need moderate, sps like a ton of movement. Lighting will be another big expense you have to decide on, again depending on what you want to keep but halides or t5 are the way to go IMO.

Yeah I have a friend of mine who upgraded to t5's and he said everything just popped after that. Lighting is something I definitely need to invest in though, right now I have a basic coralife 50/50 bulb in overthetop fixture. The other investment I will need to make shortly is a better skimmer. I bought a Seaclone because it was one of the cheaper skimmers on the market and I'm probably eatin the cost since the benefits are going to be pretty small. I think some softies are going to be the bult of the corals I would want to put in some lps and sps to give more dimension and structure to the tank. As far as cleaners go I'm hoping to make it to grand forks and get another batch of snails and a few hermits with the possibility of picking up a pair of clowns to get started in my 15g quarantine tank for a couple of weeks. as far the powerheads go did you order online or from lps. I have had success ordering minor parts from bigals

I have a pair of clowns that need a new home!!!

If you go with karalia get the evo's as they are suposed to work with cheaper wavemakers if you go that route later. With your clown fish selection keep in mind what they will host in if you are getting a nem. T5's are nice, if you get halides research which bulbs and ballasts go together. Like radiums require a specific ballast or don't last long. you could have got a octopus mw skimmer for what you paid for the one you have now and works pretty good, I had a nw 110 and upgraded to a xp sro 2000. I like aquacave, f&s, Marinedepot, and BRS for drygoods.

I think the first obstacle I need to address in this tank is the water flow or lack there of flow. It seems that two koralia's are in my coming addition to the tank probably looking at some online with the pair costing around 60 with the shipping. question on these is that I'm confused on exactly how they run as far as being an independent power source or if they need to be wired into a unit and then plugged in. Please help shed this light on me before I throw money on something I don't completely understand .... the joys of being a newb

Beside the engineering issues I feel i should shed some light on this beginning endeavor ... purchased tank stand filter (hang and canister ones) and light fixture (believe I can upgrade the light fixture with T5 bulbs once the tank is established and I have a good handle before introducing any corals). Continued to purchase a single 100 watt heater, Seaclone skimmer, 30 lbs live sand, and Reef crystals for making mix. Next came the rock with my first mistake in buying some lace rock. This has gone through major headaches and lots of cleaning to the point where they are now looking like bare rocks and not a rock found on a mountain. Purchased 20 lbs of live rock to compliment my lace and help seed the rock. I believe that I am finally starting to see coraline growth on two pieces with green algae in certain spots with diatoms and brown algae all over the place. Hoping my snails and hermits will help that problem along with the powerheads. Eventually I am hoping to house 1 or 2 ocellaris clowns, royal gramma, firefish, yellow shrimp goby, possible chromis or damsel (with very difficulties in putting in a damsel) and some ornamental shrimp with a final fish being a flasher wrasse of some sort. If i ever get this algae problem taken care of I will post a picture of the rockscaping that I have done. once fish and rock are settled will come the starting steps to a reef tank but thats looking like something to have as a new years resolution with the way my tank is going

Koralias just plug into the wall, although some of them you can use with a wavemaker to control the flow as well. Canister filters need to be cleaned out a lot so I would probably only use that for running carbon or the like.

They will just plug into the wall and the wavemakers at least the cheap one's are like a 2 or 4 plug powerstrip. I have a pulse duo running 2 mag karalia 6's.