Hello everyone,

Supplements

This in an article explaining the necessities in starting your very own reef in the house. lets start with the sand and supplements first since those are the essentials in feeding your reef.  In the beginning you would need the essential 1 lb of life sand per gallon it may be costly but its cheaper in the long run instead of letting everything go out of balance the reason for live sand is because it comes with live bacteria already in it and helps cycle your tank in the process. now to the supplements I personally used B-ionic Alkaline (carbonate hardness) and Calcium to help keep my alkalinity in the right parameters as well as the calcium levels, take in note though calcium won't raise if your alkalinity is out of order and below its 8-12 dkh; calcium levels need to be around 420-500 in order for corals to thrive. Next I would suggest putting out a little cash for a reef masters tester kit this allows you to read for nitrate levels, calcium levels, phosphate levels, and carbonate levels its a very handy tool and needs to be applied atleast once a month in order keep the reef in its right parameters.

Protein Skimmer

  Next is order a protein skimmer (take note this is not a necessity but will do a great deal of lowering your nitrates in your water) mine is a simple biocube protein skimmer around 40 dollars for a cheap one they can get costly but do work and will ensure happy fish. 

Clean up crews.

Next thing in order to run a nice clean tank would consist a clean up crew from snails, hermits, crabs, sea cucumbers, urchins, cleaner shrimp, bristle stars, and other such inverts will help keep you from doing as much to clean your tank.  Mine consists of turbo snails as they each much algae and fast take in note they eat so much that its not common for them to starve themselves.  Another member is emerald crab as they are known to eat bubble algae which is introducing itself to my tank. a blood fire cleaner shrimp as he eats both detrius and is a beautiful addition to the tank.  I do not suggest hermits if you use snails as they grow bigger they will kill the snails for there shells if you do add bigger empty shells they can exchange into.  urchins eat detrius as well be careful as some are poisonous.

Livestock

next I will explain small nano reef tank fish that will add such personality to the tank smaller clowns such as perculas and ocellarius, six line wrasse and other wrasse's, gobies, blennies, damsels, some such hawkfish, and basalets.  Take in note though always do research before purchasing a fish as they could kill some invertebrates and other items in the tank. 

Powerheads

Powerheads are yet another important aspect of the saltwater reef tank in order for calcium, iodine, and other set supplements to be circulated throughout the tank powerheads must be installed first; and the bigger the tank the more circulation you need. 

Refugiums

Refugiums though among many other important items are the most essential for a successful reef tank; I will describe in terms how a refugium is set up and what its purpose is it has 3 chamber compartments the first one deals with sumping the old tank water into the refugium and removing nitrates through some sort of filtration (protein skimmer in my case), after the nitrates are removed the water is dumped or pushed into the second chamber where there it picks up beneficial microorganisms from sponges, bioballs, or even live rock (its the owners preference), then finally it dumps into the 3rd chamber where then the water containing beneficial microorganisms is being sumped back into the tank over the liverock and corals thus giving them the essential nutrience they disire. 

Lighting

Last but not least I will talk about the lighting (not being good at it myself), my biocube came with the sufficient lighting for coral growth and I will tell you what it includes: two LED coral growth lights, 2 T5 daytime full spectrum lights, and 2 T5 Blueish tinted.  I would recommend the T5 daytime be kept on 6 hours of the day the blueish 8 hours and the coral growth LED's always be on.  Sorry for the lack of knowledge in the lighting compartment but this is how i handle it and as of right now i have a massive kelp and seagrass growth as well as coralline algae (good algae) growth meaning that my levels and parameters are all met. Hope this helped some new reefers

Thank you, Alec-Creolity