Sorry to join this conversation from a different point of view, but hear me out.
Mr LFS man knows you want a reef, ive got quite a bit of expirience myself, and ive found that yes there are many ways to do things, and yes you can do it for cheaper, but at the end of the day its not really what you want. And by the time youve baought all the second rate gear, been through a bucket full of shoddy powerheads and spent hours and hours researching how your going to improve a very tempremental system. Well lets say that i dont think reef readys such a bad option afterall.
I can get a 75 gallon regular tank from Petworld here for $105 and the stand for a little more than that. I was going to get a VHO setup for lighting providing 260 watts. No sump. 80 lbs. of live rock and 40 lbs. of sand. Two powerheads and a hang on the back filter with just the material in it to catch debris. (no carbon) This guy at the LFS told me I have to buy a reef ready from him for over $250 in order to have a healthy tank.
I can see from this statement that firstly you have greatly underestimated the importance of circulation, if your going to achive circulating 10 times the aquarium volume per hour with two powerheads the i can tell you your velocitys will be so high that your corals probably wont have much tissue left after a week.
Secondly, theirs no controller for the circulation, so an alternating current is out of the question, unless you go for rotating pumps. But are these ever crappy, man youll have a bucket of them before the year is out, and noisy sheesh. Get something like the Tunze Streams on a wave controller, SWEEEEEEET.
40lb,s of sand is a bit general, especially seen as your only form of nutrient export is a hang on the back "filter", which im sure your actually refering to a Skimmer. The sand bed should ideally be 4inches deep of oolitic 2-3mm grains of Arragonite sand. Read up on DSB's and im sure you will see the light. The anoxic area of LR is going to be too small to denitrify to a nitrogen gas efficiently enough to keep Nitrates to 0, especially with a crappy hang on skimmer. And with no sump your going to have to have the DSB inside the tank. Seen as this effectively will have to be a very proactive component of the system, eliminating dead spots is vital to ensure that it works efficiently, your rockworks going to have to be perfect. Your husbandry will also have to be restricted to micro fauna and infauna freindly inhabitants, because again you cant have this DSB screwed arround with, and if you ever have to work on the DSB its going to be a mare. My solution, a macro algal DSB refugium or "sump". The sump is also usefull to place things like heaters so you dont harm animals in the main system who might decide to go to sleep o it at night or something.
Carbon = bad, unless your going full on LPS, SPS and softys, but lets just take this one step at a time i think. So good there.
When you say VHO's i assume your talking about Flourecents, why not go for T5's, same price but they last longer, stay brighter, and are truer to their origional spectral output for longer, and generate less heat.
I would also think your going to expirience heat bulid up in the summer, so the use of T5's over regular flourecents would be advised as they generate much less heat. And lets face it if your on a shoe string the last thing you want to shell out for is a $1000 chiller, allthough to fill a 75G your probably talking about the equivalent in coral's, so thier defenately worth it in the long run. Or id say its as important to consider heat exchange as a problem if you intend on doing without. Another reason why the powerheads are going to give you headaches. If your going to skip on the chiller go for a Closed Loop Circulation System, much less heat exchange.
Ok, on to Cacium supply, well you could dose Kalkwasser nightly thorough a drip. Which is the cheapest way to go, but its another chore to add to the list because your tank will need everything including its ass wiped if your going so bare boned. Id personally go for a Cacium reactor, which reall needs a sump to dose into, and then when your tired of checking the PH every day to adjust the flow rate of calcium, im sure youll end up getting a PH prope and computer controller. Preserving probes in a reef tank is a real mission, so youll want a dark area to stop the corraline growing, like a er, sump i guess. And once your cruzing allong with your calcium reactor youll probably end up going for a kalkwasser reactor to work with your automated topoff system. Which again really benefits from a sump. Unless your going to keep this FO, in which case youll not have to be too concerned about this.
Anyways my point being, if you want a reef the guys bang on, i dont think he had the time to talk you through buying every component and designing the system for you, so a reef ready is great, you can learn whats important and what brings the best results and then hone it later on to suit your particular biotope. If you only want to keep fish, then i think he's a bit off with the reef ready, but honestly, if you want a FO then a FO you will have, dont even think of trying to "upgrade" it to a reef, because with your system components youll have to chuck the lott and strat again.
Got RO/DI?
FO, consider UV
makes a change from the usual "yea you can have Nemo in a goldfish bowl" type scenarois. I dont think he was trying to scare you, but if he did maybee you should think carefully about what you really want.
His reccomendation of the blastomosa is actually quite good, nice easy coral to grow, and fairly cheap as far as the acro's, monty's and piorites go. And if the guys willing to LEND you a book id say he's an LFS saint. Id have made you buy probably two books at least before i would even talk to you about a system, no point otherwise your never going to take it all in for a half hour conversatin in a shop, ive been keeping fish for knocking on 15 years or so and i still learn new stuff.
I read the first paragraph and I would have walked out of the store!!!!!!!
then you would have walked away from someone who cares about his business and animals, and who's honest and upfront about whats needed.
In the long run I can only give you my reccomendation that a sump is a great thing to have but not essential to a functioning system.
but it sure takes the arse ache out of reefing, do you want to be the slave or the master!!!!!
