Guest FLIP Posted October 29, 2008 Report Share Posted October 29, 2008 :)I finally have a reason to post in this section of the board! Seeing I have a great job and can afford almost anything I want I figured a saltwater tank. I`d like to know about everything, what equitment I need, good starter fish, info on live rock, and general prices on the stuff you need to run one. The tank will be 55 gallons so I`d really like suggestions of fish to keep, I was thinking lionfish (dwarfs of course) or a community tank with lots of small colorful fish. Thanks in advance for your help. Oh btw I will look through the forum too for more info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rayfong Posted October 29, 2008 Report Share Posted October 29, 2008 :)I finally have a reason to post in this section of the board! Seeing I have a great job and can afford almost anything I want I figured a saltwater tank. I`d like to know about everything, what equitment I need, good starter fish, info on live rock, and general prices on the stuff you need to run one. The tank will be 55 gallons so I`d really like suggestions of fish to keep, I was thinking lionfish (dwarfs of course) or a community tank with lots of small colorful fish. Thanks in advance for your help. Oh btw I will look through the forum too for more info. You will need a protein skimmer for sure. If you want lps or sps corals I would recommend Metal Halide lamps, soft corals can do ok with pc or t5 lighting. You'll probably need about 1-1.5 lbs of live rock per gallon. Will you have a sump? You'll want some powerheads to get some current in your tank. Will you have sand or bare bottom? You'll need either a hydrometer or refractometer to measure your salinity. I would recommend using RO/DI water so you either buy it or you install a filter and make your own. Test kits cause you will have to cycle your live rock for probably about a month before you even add any livestock in. I'm sure I'm missing some things. Livestock: cuc: clean up crew, hermits, snails cleaner shrimp etc. starter fish: most books recommend damsels as they are hardy but they do get aggressive once they get bigger. as for adding fish or other livestock to your tank, can't float them and release them. You have to drip acclimate them as the salinity of the water they were in vs the salinity of your tank will be different. Do lots of research and ask lots of questions before and while setting up your tank. www.canreef.com is a good site. There are lots of reefers from Edmonton on there. Cost: be prepared to spend a lot. You might be able to find some things cheaper on canreef but generally salt stuff is a bit more expensive, especially the fish. If you want to do corals just keep an eye on bulletin boards, some people frag their corals and sell them for reasonable prices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fatpuffer Posted October 30, 2008 Report Share Posted October 30, 2008 My sw tank is very basic. 40 gallon breeder size tank with hang on tank metal halide (coralife), 60 lbs of liverocks, 2 aquaclear filters filled with liverock rubbles, and one powerhead. I do not have any protein skimmer or anything fancy. I have zoanthids, frogspawn, some sort of SPS coral and montipora corals, kenya tree corals, gps, mushrooms, and pipe organ corals. All seems to be happy and healthy. Bare bottom with clownfish, blue damsel, black and white damsel, pseudochromis sp., and flame hawkfish. I kept it simple and seems to work for me. I use tap water but I know everybody else use RO/DI. Jonah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest FLIP Posted October 31, 2008 Report Share Posted October 31, 2008 Wait so i have to buy water for it i kinda just want to use tap water too? So what kinda filter can i use? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rayfong Posted October 31, 2008 Report Share Posted October 31, 2008 Wait so i have to buy water for it i kinda just want to use tap water too? So what kinda filter can i use? You can use tap water, there are people who use it, I've bought frags from people that use edmonton tap water. Its just with RO/DI water you know there will be minimal additives in it and you add what you need in terms of salt mixture and other elements. Live rock should provide the biological filter. Any filter should work for mechanical filtration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fatpuffer Posted October 31, 2008 Report Share Posted October 31, 2008 This is definately not a cheap venture. I suggest you actually follow rayfong's suggestion as I have been keeping sw a little bit longer than you and familiar with the way my system acts and reacts to my maintenance. Go to Canreef.com and read more about starting out. Once you get a bit more experience and become familiar with the tank, you can experiment out a bit as I did. Good luck. Jonah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest FLIP Posted October 31, 2008 Report Share Posted October 31, 2008 well i got payed $900 today only $250 goes to car payments and $170 for the tank so i have some to spare but i think i'll just save for now. but keep the info coming please Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bignose Posted October 31, 2008 Report Share Posted October 31, 2008 I'd stray from the lion fish for awhile. Start with very hardy fish like a pair of clowns or some damsils. They will be able to withstand some mistakes along the way. Trust me you will make a mistakes from time to time. Just thought I'd toss in my two cents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharuq1 Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 In short: buy as much equipment and LR and so forth from people instead of at the store. It's way cheaper, will save you a bundle and if the LR has been in a tank for quite a while chances are it won't be freshly rank with a long cycle like you will get with the stuff fresh from the ocean at the store. You might luck out and get practically no cycle if you take it from someone who's had it for a year or more and keep it submersed and don't let it get too cold before you stick it in. -Don't buy a damsel, they are usually mean to all the other fish and :cuss: very hard to get out of a tank full of LR without dismantling everything. Oscellaris are great starter fish and IMO so are royal grammas. -It's almost always more expensive than you might think, lol... - Buy a jug of prime so you always have some on hand. The stuff with aloe as an additive is nice for fw but it will make a skimmer go nuts which often equals a mess. Prime also detoxifies ammonia/trite/trate which can be handy if something bad happens. -Always have a bucket running with sw mixing in case of emergency and for your regular weekly water changes. I can't count the number of times that bucket has saved my butt. Ok, mostly I am bad with numbers which is why I can't count, but you get my drift. A great way I found to do this is to take a salt bucket, put a notch into the lid so you can close it even with two cords running into it, put an airline tubing sized hole in the top of the lid and put airline into it-attach airline to a powerhead and put a heater in there. This keeps it mixing and airated at all times, as well as heated so you can safely drop the water right in the tank. This keeps the water from getting dust and whatnot in it too, so even after a couple weeks it is still useable. Use the LR to start your cycle, not the fish. For my 120 recently I used a Brute garbage can for the same thing. Stuck it on wheels (brute dolly) and use the same powerhead to put water into the tank at change time and wow, easiest water change I have ever done. -I second buying the test kits, at the very least buy ammonia, 'trate and 'trite so you can tell where your cycle is. Even if they are the cheap hagen ones, something is better than nothing. -If you can afford it at some point you might want to buy a refractometer to judge your salinity. SO much easier to use than a hydrometer, more accurate too. The floating thermometer looking hydrometers are easier to use than the ones with the gauge that you put water into if you need something budget conscious. -Lastly, have lots of patience and when adding in livestock do it over a period of time so as not to shock the system. Really, you've been into fish for some time now, so I think you know the basic "fishy" rules; you should be fine. They apply to sw same as to fresh (the whole nitrate cycle and so forth), just the critters can be more sensitive to change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2manytanks Posted November 3, 2008 Report Share Posted November 3, 2008 (edited) I agree with Sharuq1, stay away from the Damsels, they are hardy and will take a tank that isn't fully cycled, but once they've settled in and established their territories they are mean little suckers. I like Damsels, but I think it's best to put them in to a tank last, after the other fish have settled in and established their pecking order. And a refractometer is a good investment, the hydrometers tend to go out of whack after a while. I and couple of other people I know have all had the experience of seeing our tanks decline for no apparent reason, only to discover that our salinity was way too high because our hydrometers were reading low. If you do get a hydrometer, replace it on a regular basis, and keep a close eye on how much salt you're adding to your water, if it seems you're adding more salt than you used to to get the same mix, perhaps you'd better check your instrument. Another good reason to keep a batch of water mixed and ready to go like Sharuq said is that not all of the elements in your salt will disolve immediately, it's best to let it sit at least overnight with aeration and heat, and even stir it if you feel like it to make sure that everything is absorbed into the water. I use a winemaking vat. Like Fatpuffer, I used tapwater with good success too, in fact I really can't tell any difference in my tank since I started using RO water, but I like the assurance that the worst of the contaminants have been removed, especially the chloramine and copper. At the same time, there are also beneficial elements in the tap water that we are hoping are being replenished by the salt mix we use, but can't really be sure, because it's hard to find out the exact make up of some of the salts on the market, and some of them have problems with inconsistency from batch to batch. Also, some brands supposedly have a problem with inconsistent particle size that causes some of the compounds/elements to settle out in the package resulting in differing levels of the compounds/elements in each batch you mix. As well, larger particles may take longer to dissolve, another reason to let your new batch of water sit for a while before you use it. For me though, what I have found has made the biggest difference is lighting and current flow. People are finding more and more that high and varying current are extremely beneficial, so plan for good flow with a high return rate from your sump (providing you're going to use one) and good powerheads placed so that the water currents from them battle against each other and create some turbulence instead of always flowing in exactly the same direction. Wavemakers are a nice alternative, but expensive. As for the lighting, like everybody says, get the best you can afford for what you want to do, becuase you'll just wind up wishing you hadn't cheaped out. At the same time, brighter isn't always better, if all you want to keep for coral is something like some Xenia and Colt Coral for some colour, some nice T5's or something would do just fine. But even then, boy there's something to be said for the shimmer from MH's. Another piece of equipment that's worth getting the best you can afford is a protein skimmer. If you're just doing fish, not as big a deal, but I've sure been sorry I bought some of the skimmers I did, they just wasted my money. Even after your rock is cured, it's best to take it slow, with hardier fish at the beginning. I found when I first started out that even when my tests indicated my water qualiity was great that I had some kind of problem which I'm assuming was bacterial, that caused me all kinds of problems for a long time. There were lots of fish that I just couldn't keep alive, particularly Tangs - and I wanted Tangs so bad. Everybody came down with white spot when they got in my tanks and even if they made it through it, lots of them didn't live more than a few months. But slowly things improved, with disease less and less of a problem as the tanks aged, and it's been a long time now since I have had any kind of problem. I've since read that it can take quite a while for a balance to be acheived amongst the microbial lifeforms in a new tank, and I thinkg that's exactly what happened to me. Good luck, keep us updated. And have fun experimenting and learning. Edited November 3, 2008 by 2manytanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox Posted November 5, 2008 Report Share Posted November 5, 2008 I am considering starting a 10 gal saltwater tank and I was wondering what I would be looking at for start up cost to get things going. I already have the tank, I am just looking for the equipment to go in it ( live rock, I have read about power head etc?) I just need to know how much to pitch to the boss (aka wife :P) Thanks in advance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MMAX Posted November 12, 2008 Report Share Posted November 12, 2008 Found this site a few days ago, 1st post for me. I'm sure some people have had success with tap water but I paid the price for using it. A ton of phosphates caused a massive red slime algae bloom in my tank. After scrubbing everything in the tank and switching back to RO water I haven't had it come back. I'll use nothing but RO water from now on. If you're just starting out Fox be prepared to open up your wallet, even for a small tank. My 20gal cost me at least $500 to $600 (including tank) to start. That's tank, light, skimmer, filter, powerhead, sand and live rock. It's not a cheap hobby but it's rewarding. Jonah, what's with that "Losers" avatar? Don't tell me you're a Shames fan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2manytanks Posted November 12, 2008 Report Share Posted November 12, 2008 I am considering starting a 10 gal saltwater tank and I was wondering what I would be looking at for start up cost to get things going. I already have the tank, I am just looking for the equipment to go in it ( live rock, I have read about power head etc?)I just need to know how much to pitch to the boss (aka wife :P) Thanks in advance! If you haven't already checked out some of the all-in-one nano tanks, I'd suggest you give them a try to start out on. They really do include everything you need to get started and begin learning about SW and what kind of critters you have an interest in. The lighting, current flow and filtering is adequate for fish and soft corals, and there really isn't any need for a protein skimmer in a tank that size. Just clean the filter and do a water change more frequently. When I had a 12g nano tank running I used to like to clean it and do a water change about twice a week - it sounds like lots of work, but it really only takes 10 minutes for a tank that size. I think it's money well spent, it's amazing what you can do with a little salt water tank, and how well things can thrive in it. Here's a link to an Oceanic Bio-Cube, one of the more popular nano tanks around: Oceanic 12g Bio-Cube So, $320 , plus $80 to $100 for live rock and sand if you want it, a thermometer, a hydrometer, your salt of course, and a heater if the Bio-Cube doesn't come with one. $500 bucks or less and you're up and running. Then whatever you decide to spend on livestock - and don't hurry it, let the tank cycle and the live rock cure - it's interesting just watching the life develop on the rock. If you want to spend a bit more and go a bit bigger , there's something like the Red Sea Max : Red Sea Max Again, an all-in-one system, it's about 34g and also has a built in protein skimmer. They sell for about $800 I think (with the stand). The Red Sea Max has some small inherent glitches for anyone wanting to get into more involved reefkeeping, but is a great and good looking set up to start off with. You can spend less putting together your own system, and of course you can customize it the way you want then, and if you do go for an all-in-one unit there's always the possibility that you're going to want to customize it in some way in the future anyways, which can sometimes be a pain.. But I still think they're a great way to get your feet wet. I guess I'll throw a plug in here while I'm at it, if you wanted to go that way, and save some money too, I have a 12g JBJ Nano Cube DX that I'd let go for $100, and a 34g Red Sea Max that I'd be asking about $400 (with the stand). I have a bunch of stuff I've been planning on selling but just haven't got around to taking stock of it all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2manytanks Posted November 12, 2008 Report Share Posted November 12, 2008 Found this site a few days ago, 1st post for me. I'm sure some people have had success with tap water but I paid the price for using it. A ton of phosphates caused a massive red slime algae bloom in my tank. After scrubbing everything in the tank and switching back to RO water I haven't had it come back. I'll use nothing but RO water from now on. If you're just starting out Fox be prepared to open up your wallet, even for a small tank. My 20gal cost me at least $500 to $600 (including tank) to start. That's tank, light, skimmer, filter, powerhead, sand and live rock. It's not a cheap hobby but it's rewarding. Jonah, what's with that "Losers" avatar? Don't tell me you're a Shames fan. Not surprising. I'm not sure where Innisfail gets it's water, but generally in smaller communities you have a greater chance of having water contaminated with phosphates from agricultural run-off. I have never had a problem with Red Deer water, but decided to go with RO to be safe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fatpuffer Posted November 12, 2008 Report Share Posted November 12, 2008 Blackfalds water...I think is the same as RD water and it seems to be pretty good. I just need to do a water change soon though as I have not done a change in over 2 months. Everything seems to be growing and thriving...zoas are spreading. I placed a small rock by the zoas...MMAX I will pm you when I have small frags of the zoas. Js P.S. Yup...flames fan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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