The Great Conversion, i need YOUR help!

Hey everyone, i guess most of you guys know me by now and my little 37 G tank but now my dad is thinking (with my persuasion is going to) of converting his 180 G freshwater tank to saltwater. This would mean that my tank inhabitants will eventually move in to this tank and i can use mine as a fragging tank :dance:



First things first, i need your help because there are a few things that need to be changed & added so any and all advice, suggestions & recommendations will be greatly appreciated. So ill roughly break it down into categories of what needs to be addressed:

• Sump Upgrade


• Lighting Upgrade


• Addition of Powerheads


• Addition of Protein Skimmer

This is what the tank currently looks like



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Sump Upgrade



First things first the sump. Ill attach a pic below of the current sump as you can see it goes from filter wool -> media, carbon & sponge -> return/housing of juvenile electric yellow cichlid.



The aim for the sump is to make the first chamber big enough to house the heater (jager is sitting next to return in tank atm) & either socks or continue using wool, what would you guys suggest? also would putting a media reactor here work or should i use socks & place carbon in there when needed. The second chamber will be the protein skimmer then final chamber return pump & UV sterilizer? Only thing im unsure about is would the sterilizer kill off too much algae and leave minimal amounts for herbivores such a foxfaces? Also thinking of changing the ball valve to a gate value, i work at a hardware store (bunnings warehouse, idk if you guys have heard of it, think it may be Australian only) and from a quick look we have brass gate valves, would those be okay or should i outsources others?



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Lighting Upgrade



So being a FW tank, the current lighting is literally 2 led strips that wrap around the hood of the tank 1 blue, 1 white. Obviously these aren't of any use so they will need to go. We would be keeping LPS & some softies as i currently do but we need lights that have stands since we don't want to attach any lights into the ceiling as its in the living room. The tank is 6 ft long so that would mean 2 3 ft lights. What lights would you guys suggest? dimmable lights would be preferred.



Addition of Powerheads



From the pic below you can see the return in the tank, it is just a piece of tubing with alternating holes that basically acts as a spray bar except that it isn't shooting straight out. This actually does a really good job of breaking surface tension along the top of the tank but lower down there is minimal flow thus addition of powerheads required. I was thinking one on either side, mp40 seems to be the ones i see from thread to thread, but again any suggestions & experience with products greatly appreciated.



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Addition of Protein Skimmer



So last but not least the skimmer. Again from threads i see reef octopus making a name for itself but the question is WHICH ONE? I took a quick look and there are just so many different types like gosh, HELP ahahha i really don't know which one i should be looking at.



Well those are the current must do's, if you guys think of something please feel free to add on, as we won't be doing this until we return from our 5 week holiday. Ultimately, don't want to make things too expensive but if it happens to be so then let it be. The tank will be full of live rock so that will be the filtration media, again it will house LPS & some softies as well as my nem. Websites that ship worldwide/to Australia would be helpful too.



Thanks a bunch for any contribution!