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We had a saltwater take about 500 gallons in our house for a couple years, I know you said reef however we had several componet of reef tanks in ours, so I can offer some tidbits of information. What size tank are you looking to get? We had about 85 pounds of liverock from Fiji in ours. Those of you familiar with liverock know how many unknown things live within them. At night with the light off take a flashlight and poor some frozen food and as lands on the bottom note all the little creepster worms coming out from their little private abyss. We used white sand instead of crushed rocks for the base, it was easier for the filter system plus made nice for the deep sand bed around the liverock. I miss the aquirium as my parents took it down when my sister left to college.
Any sort of aquiriums are expensive either way you look at it, if you're lucky the tank could be found maybe at a yardsale or elsewhere however you might risk possible side effects from previous users which could destroy your ecosystem. Check ebay, we sold ours on there. We sound the liverock for around $300 and the fish were sold back to a good rep fish store.
We did end up flushing about $200 worth of fish down the toilet during a power outage in the winter, so be certain to have a generator or hospital area for your tank just in case. My dad bought me a Red-General Starfish when I passed my driver's test although it promptly disinigrated a week later, starfish are very sensative to climate change so be care and do alot of RESEARCH before buying or setting anything up at all.
A good website I would recommend is saltwaterfish.com or any other good fish-forum similar to his nature.
Goodluck!
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