bozco Posted July 2, 2006 Report Share Posted July 2, 2006 It's an idea floating about in the air. I've been told that switching my 33 gal freshwater to a marine tank should be fairly simple. The advice that was given at the store was to switch the aqua clear to a canister filter (though I've no idea what size as I've never used them before) and replace the substrate with crushed coral, decorate accordingly, and I'm good to go. Is it really that simple? This is something my father and I are going in on together as he takes care of the tanks while I am away at school during the winter. We are wondering how easy and expensive it will be to make the switch (expenses not including fish purchases), and how different the daily maintainance of a saltwater tank is compared to a freshwater one. We are not completely new to fish keeping, as the fresh tanks have been running for four years. Besides setup and maintainance, are there any suggestions for stocking the tank? I've never personally seen a marine setup smaller than 50 gal, so I wonder what I could keep in a 33. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dunl Posted July 2, 2006 Report Share Posted July 2, 2006 Better advice? Start reading lots, and switch after at least a month of reading. No, it's not that simple, and no, don't switch to a cannister. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlkWolfe Posted July 2, 2006 Report Share Posted July 2, 2006 Keep the aqua clear, dont bother with a canister. Find some aragonite sand (sugar sand, or aragamax select would work), crushed coral is too large and allows all kinds of detritus to settle into it, which will just lead to lots of headaches later, and provides almost no buffering. I would highly recommend using live rock. It'll take care of decoration and biological filtration in one. As for maintenance...My 140g sps reef requires, aside from feeding, dumping the skimmer cup once a day and a water change/scraping every two weeks. Takes me about an hour. My 10g gets a 5g water change every weekend. Since i usually have a couple hundred gallons of saltwater handy, that only takes about 5 minutes. A small rubbermaid and an air pump would work just fine for prepping salt water And no, you dont have to have a skimmer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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