Understand, you can run a very simple kind of 30 gal tank with nothing but a pump, a heater, live rock, regular tank light, and a Penguin filter, with a 'fill line' drawn on the glass to help you top off accurately with ro water from the supermarket. This is the ancient method. It will support a few crustaceans and snails and a couple of very small gobies or blennies or dartfish.

If you want more than that, your problem becomes too much nutrient in the system, not enough waste removal,...

[INDENT][B]Brief Introduction[/B]
[/INDENT]First I'll say a little about my aquarium keeping experience. I had my first freshwater tank at seven years old. Marine life has been a passion for me all my life and I've been keeping reef tanks since 1999. Reef Central has been a big part of my reef tank journey. This website has been such a learning experience for me and I like this one because it is such a diverse community.

All my tanks have been nanos and due to some...

When and how to start with corals...
Corals are in a way a responsibility: their collection in the wild likely cannot continue unrestricted: there is already a call for certain ones not to be collected. Communities have taken to aquaculturing them---putting them in lagoons where they can be grown in native waters, rather like farming.

And we can grow them for domestic sale or trade. Certain ones are quite easy to grow and break apart for sale, and if you want to get into this,...

Difference between a qt and a hospital tank...
There need not be. What describes a hospital tank can be a qt, IF you're willing to do very frequent filter changes, and you can do it as one tank. Follow with me. Understand the trade-offs.

A 'cycled' qt relies on bacteria. You can go as far as sand, rock, etc...or just sponges with bacteria. You put the fish in, you watch fish for four weeks. If you have to treat, you then move the fish to a hospital tank. And if it's a sand-rock...

Well, here is day 1 :wavehand:

Changed 65 250w MH. Moving to 14k vs. 20k on the DE system. BTW, I do not like DE MH systems. Affordable for sure, lousy reflectors in most compact type systems.