After many years in the freshwater side I recently decided to move (allbeit slowly) to the salty side.

As with everyone these days I tried to get the best value for mone around buy trawling websites, forums and stores (im sure that 1 or 2 hate seeing me coming ) and settled on the Betta Lifespace 1000 for my starter tank.

This is approx 300 ltr tank with sump which brings total volume up to approx 400 ltrs.
The tank itself comes with cabinet, sump , plumbing and return pump.

I know lads on the forum have modified their cabinet for ease of access but I didn't bother as im not that handy
Once the cabinet was constructed I did silicone all the joints and open areas to limit the water soakage.(thanks Jeff for highlighting that one)

Next issue was painting the back as the unit itself has no backround painted. This was an easy fix .. Woodies and Acrylic paint .. Hey presto the back is blue .

With the help of my brother in law we lifted it and put it into place

As i am new to the marine side of things I did more and more research into the whole water parameter side of things and decided that an RO unit was a wise investement

As for my lights i was really out of my comfort zone .. happy were the days of just T8s , now we have T5s LEDs and metal Halides. oh my word where to start. I purchased a Betta T5 luminaire with 4 T5s (2 actinic 2 white) to find out it was too short for the tank and there was no option to hang it.
Bringing that back to the shop i made a huge jump to an Aquael hanging unit. This has 1 x 150 w MH, 2 x 24 wt actinic T5s and an LED. I muat say at this point that it was the best investment to date as its fully programable and looks amazing too.

With the light sorted I stated to fill the tank with RO. The base is lightly covered with argonite sand as I dont like the bare bottom (no jokes please )

I got approx 20 kgs of Live Rock at a great price thanks to this trading section of this website (i knew it would pay for itself )

The live rock is in the tank with the skimmer TMC V2 600 running for a week now. Luckily the rock came with a few castaways too , approx 10 red mushrooms, 3 green mushrooms , 2 snails, 2 brittle starfish and 1 scarlet legged hermit crab called colin (blackadder joke).
Unfortunately it came with bubble algae and aptasia also but not to worry ill sort that

Thats about that for the minute Im just testing on a regular basis and waiting patiently for the day I can add a fish (or now thanks to Seahorse man a Seahorse because my wife loves them ... and possibly thinks Kealan's hot )

RO water
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0
Ammonia 0
Phos .2
pH 8.2
Salinity 1.025
temp 25*
Lights Actinic 9 hrs , MH 7 Hrs, LED 30 mins
Hydor Koralia 3 , New wave 1400 ltrs per hr
TMC V2 600 Skimmer
Seachem reef salt

A BIG THANKS TO ALL WHO HELLPED ALONG THE WAY.. ITS NOT OVER YET !!!!!!
















After doing all my tests and making sure that the parameters were 100% I went ahead and added the CUC
3 Turbo snails and 3 hermit crabs along with 1 peppermint shrimp to attack the aiptasia.
These guys really know what they are doing as the aiptasia is currently being beaten into submission (thankfully there was not too much)


Just this week i added approx 10kg more LR and a Clarki Clown kindly donated by StevieG.
He is doing great in the tank and i soon hope to get him a buddy possibly a percula clown
Sorry about the pic quality . it was taken using my phone



If anyone has suggestions regarding a tank buddy for Mr Kent (Clarki Kent ) please let me know

Tank looks really well mate! Fair play!

As for the bubble algae. Take the rock that has it on it out of the tank and with a knife or something chip a bit of the rock off that the algae is attached to making sure you don't burst the bubble.

Keep your nutrients low and you shoudn't see any grow back.

looks good mate keep up the good work

looking good keep it slow the way your doing it