AGA 54G Corner Tank With Twin Flow

[dont827273reef]

Hi All -

New to the forum and the hobby.

I have an 8G Oceanic BioCube that I have kept VERY stable for a few months. I've kept many, many fresh water tanks in the past 30 years. My BioCube has 5lb of LR, a Hammer Coral, Green Polyps, Mushrooms, "Nemo", 3 PJ Cardinals, and 3 Peppermint Shrimp (plus 8 snails and 2 hermits).

I am looking at getting a AGA 54G corner tank with Twin Flow. I am also looking at a matching sump system (comes as a set). The set also includes a yet to be determined protien skimmer. I plan on buying 50-60 lbs of LR.

My wife and I want this to be a colorful reef tank with 4-6 fish (undetermined as yet). We expect to have 2-3 different soft corals, a few clams, shrimp, snails, polyps... and other critters, maybe. Is this too much or not enough?

I've read through th forums and I see that most of you "create" your own sump/refugium. I do not have the time to do this and am willing to pay quite a bit more to buy what I need.

Have any of you had experience with the AGA corner tank? What commercially available sump did you use? What protien skimmers work well in this environment?

I also know that lighting will be a concern here. But if the tank will work (or wil not) I will ask the lighting questions later, but before I purchase the tank.

Thanks for all of the information you have provided in other threads. And thanks in advance for the answers to these questions.

Don

 

[dont827273reef]

With the above setup, what do I need to consider for flow? Will I need to add some sort of powerhead to move the water around?

Don

 

[ChrisRD]

Hi Don and :welcome:

First let me say that, although I know it wasn't one of your questions, 4 fish in your current 8 gallon tank is way overcrowded. Personally, I would plan on moving most of those fish to the new tank once it's ready for livestock.

Your plan sounds fine - make sure you get a decent skimmer from the start. IMO this is one of the more critical components in the setup and one of the most common areas where newcomers tend to try to save money, only to end-up paying more later once they get tired of fighting on-going nutrient/algae problems and upgrading to a better skimmer.

For a sump, you can keep it quite simple. No need to buy expensive commerical setups. A small glass aquarium (or any water tight, non-leaching container) with a submersible return pump works fine. Plan on a couple of baffles to prevent microbubbles from the skimmer getting sucked into the return pump and ending up back in the main tank. Sitting the return pump in a small bucket/container is another option to accomplish this if you want to avoid to making/installing baffles.

Corner tanks are a bit tougher to light because of the odd footprint. If you're serious about wanting clams in the future you need strong lighting (or a setup that can easily accommodate an upgrade in the future). I would consider halides or T-5s (with good individual lamp reflectors like the ones made by IceCap). Considering the odd shape of the tank, you might be better off with a single halide lamp and a reflector with good spread (like a Lumenarc). I prefer the shimmer of halides so the latter would probably be my choice.

As for circulation, there are many options, but probably the simplest, most energy efficient way to get lots of flow (which is critical to the health of a reef tank) would be propreller type pumps. Tunze Streams, Hydor Koralias, Vor-Techs, etc. Doing the propeller mod to regular powerheads like Maxijets, AquaClears, etc. is a similar, cheaper option.

Best of luck with your new setup and HTH...