[enfuego]

Hi everyone. When our son saw his first aquarium at 3 months old, he seemed facinated by all the beautiful colors and motions. After seeing a few more here and there, we knew he had to have one. OK, just at 8 months now, his mother and I may have wanted one too..... Anyhow, we picked up a nice used complete set up, and the seller was more than informative about what to do etc... going into the 2nd week of ownership the questions keep piling up. First, a little about the equipment...125 gallon Oceanic tank, appx. 130lbs live rock and sand, Coralife lights, 2 white 2 blue w/6 leds, Two Emperor Penguin filters, and a Red Sea Prizm Pro Skimmer. The livestock that made the move...Yellow Tang, Firee Clown, Clarks Clown, Zebra Damsel, and a Blue Damsel. Lots of mushrooms, Giant Trumpet Coral aprox 14" , Giant Pink and Green Condactilus Anenome 18" , Rose Anenome, and some bubble and candy coral, frogspawn, and a bunch of snails and crabs...Would love input on proper maintanance, what else might be good additions to the tank, and how to run the equipment...how long to run the white bulbs, the blue ones, etc...I am truly a novice so all advice will be greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance.
Thane

[glampka]

Welcome to RB!
First off - read as much as possible. There is tons of information here. You need to understand your equipment & what everything does. You also need to understand your livestock & what requirements they have as far as food, water flow, lighting, etc.
Let's start with lighting - run the daylights for 8 to 10 hrs/day. Turn the blues on 2 hours before the daylights go on & turn them off 2 hours after they go off.
If I were you, the 1st thing I would do is upgrade that skimmer. It's not the best. Get yourself a good quality skimmer. Consider ASM, Euro-Reef, Deltec, AquaC
If you plan on keeping corals, I'd consider adding a sump/refugium to the system. You should also add a few powerheads to the system to get proper water flow.

[enfuego]

Thanks for the reply, guess I forgot to mention there are 4 powerheads in the tank, can't recall exactly what they are, but seems to do a good job of moving the water. There is so much good info on this site, it sends me into overload..

[NATIVEVAMAN]

One of these days soon all that disjointed information you have rattling around in your head will jell,the light will come on.One word of warning,dont go to the local fish store for information,they will just sell you something that wont work.Remember the two main rules of reef keeping.Nothing good ever happens in a hurry in a reef tank. and,If you cant test for it,dont put it in the tank.Did you get any test kits with the tank?You will need kits for nitrates,nitrites,amonia, ph and salinity almost yesterday.Those big anemones are worth a lot of effort,and they need super clean water.Check out your lights and see if the wattage adds up to around 5 to 6 watts per gallon.I agree with gary on the skimmer,you need to get a really good one and consider moving the canisters to the gold fish bowl,they tend to produce nitrates that are no good for the tank.

[enfuego]

Overload! Overload! Is there a way to search the forums? how does a novice go about picking one skimmer over another, and I don't know anything about refugiums. Just discovered the search feature. That will be most helpful. I can see I will spend alot of time on this site!