prodogg02 Posted October 18, 2006 Report Share Posted October 18, 2006 hi i hav never had a saltwater set up before but was thinking of coverting my 20gal.was wonder what you would nedd and about how much the equipment would be tanks for any info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcin Posted October 18, 2006 Report Share Posted October 18, 2006 Hey. Basically you salt(50-60dollars for 5 gal bucket) a powerhead-I got one rated for 55 gal tank for 25 dollars at www.ilovemypet.com. Live Rock- about 20 lbs you may want more-the more the better( I have 30lbs in my 10 gal) I would suggest you check these forums out for it(Lfs gives you crappy rock for a high price)also might want to check out canreef.com lots of people selling Live rock for like 4-5 dollars a pound. You will need some live sand or just sand(can be other substrate like crushed coral but you should use special marine sand that acts as a calcium buffer-raises calcium and ph) again you can ask someone on the forum i mentioned above and most likely they will give you some or sell it to you for cheap. A bag in stores is usually 30-40 dollars. If you want to keep a reef tank then you will need a good light. Might want to look into metal hallides depending on if you want to grow stony corals or just soft corals like zoanthids, mushrooms, and green star polyps. Dont get me wrong the soft corals grow like crazy in MH light and it is better for them. If you are on a budget you can always get Power compacts. I have 105 watts of power compact light in my 10 gallon. You may also want to put a simple HOB filter on just for removal of large particles to keep your water clearer. (do not use carbon it can become toxic to saltwater inhabitants.) I use 3 foam inserts in my aquaclear mini but bioballs are acceptable too. Other than that you dont need anything else except a heater which im sure you know. If you do go with the metal hallides you should get fans in your ballasts or near your tanks because they produce lots of heat. Also just to let you know 105 watts of pc lighting cost me 100 dollars. When you set your tank up put LR and LS in and then let the tank run for a month. Once every 4-5 days add some food like mysis, brine shrimp or other meaty food so the critters in the tank dont die and have something to feed off. If you decide to make a reef tank watch your tank closely for any crabs that may hitchhike on your rock and get him out of the tank. 99.9 percent of the time hitchiking crabs are bad for your tank. They may eat or destroy your corals and if the opportunity presents itself will kill your fish. Once the tank has been running for a month check your levels ammonia, nitrate, nitrite and if it is stable you can add a hardy fish like a damsel or clown. Then if you decide to have corals a week later you can start adding a few corals at a time. I personally have done it the other way around and added corals before fish, but its up to you. Also keep in mind that city water may have ammonia in it. For example in edmonton our water has 0.5-0.75 ppm of ammonia which is pretty high so you may have to use a product such as PRIME water conditioner which will remove it. The trusty aquaclear water conditioner we used for freshwater doesnt do jack. I learned a few days ago when I asked an experienced reefer why my tank water never goes below 0.25 ppm ammonia. This was the reason and PRime sure enough removed the ammonia. If you plan on keeping a reef tank I recommend you keep snails and hermit crabs out since they like to knock things around which will be a real pain when you have to put them back in place every day. Just use the old glass cleaning magnet. But if you decide to put invertebrates in I suggest you get only 1 turbo snail which will clean all your glass. I made the mistake of putting them in 1 month after my tank was set up (4 snails, 5 hermits in a 10 g) and they cleaned the tank up in 2 days but later began slowly starving to death which made me give them up to someone(20 dollars down the drain). Hope this helps. By the way if you want coral frags later on I sugget going to canreef.com lots of people are selling or giving away frags for cheaper than stores. You can also get LR and LS from people on Canreef and many may even give it to you for free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prodogg02 Posted October 18, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 18, 2006 hi thanks for the info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlkWolfe Posted October 19, 2006 Report Share Posted October 19, 2006 Grab a bucket of salt, a hydrometer (refractometer would be better), 100w heater will do fine. Carbon is just fine for marine animals, just keep up your maintenance and change it out before it leaches nasty poop back into the water. Most people go 4-8 weeks before changing, however you really dont need it. Aquaclears are great for extra water volume on small tanks, and throwing extra live rock and perhaps macroalgea with a light in it to serve as a refugium, but personally i'd never run them with foams in a marine tank You didnt mention what kind of tank you had in mind. SPS reef, LPS/softie reef, fish only, predator? That will determine what kind of flow/powerheads and lighting youll need. IMO halides are overkill even for a 20g sps tank. dont worry about adding anything food wise to the water while the rock cycles, theres plenty of dieoff to fuel the cycle, and the only thing that'll eat what your adding probably arent wanted anyway. Just buy the rock (your in the perfect city for it) throw it in the tank and wait 6-8 weeks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prodogg02 Posted October 19, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2006 was looking to keep a few small fish and some sort of nice colorfull coral rock i hav a good bright light a 75 watt heater and an aquaclear 50 should i run just foam in the filter ? thanks for the info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlkWolfe Posted October 19, 2006 Report Share Posted October 19, 2006 extra pieces of rock if you have any leftoever, otherwise just use it for flow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murminator Posted October 20, 2006 Report Share Posted October 20, 2006 Throw the foam out....nitrate factory Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prodogg02 Posted October 22, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 22, 2006 Set up the 20gal today got 5 pounds of live rock for now some sand and salt and traded fish for a hydometer.Had a reading off 1.023 2 hours later it was 1.021 will check to see what its at in the morning.if it goes down to like 1.018 will the live rock be ok cant seam to find much on the subject of live rock.got it from golds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2manytanks Posted October 22, 2006 Report Share Posted October 22, 2006 I don't know why the salinity would go down. Maybe you just had a bubble stuck on the needle of the hydrometer the first time you checked it, giving you a false reading. Make sure to tap the hydrometer a few times to loosen any air bubbles that may be sticking to the needle before you take the reading. Also, the water temperature will affect the reading. As far as I know, the live rock should still be OK at the hypothetical lower salt level. You're going to want to get about 15 lbs. more rock when you feel like putting out the bucks, and you got it from a good place, Gold's has nice live rock. Was the sand you got live? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prodogg02 Posted October 22, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 22, 2006 no just basic reef sand i also got reef crystal salt 24 bucks for a 50 gal bag the rock was fiji and they hav a couple of other kinds got a mixed bunch.some green some purple what are the odds of any hitch hikers like mantis shrimp was told thoses are nasty mean.Had one other question sould i run an air stone and if so do i need a saltwater stone or are the ones for fresh water ok. thanks for all the info, gonna be hard not to put anythink in there for like 3 weeks :boom: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2manytanks Posted October 22, 2006 Report Share Posted October 22, 2006 no just basic reef sand i also got reef crystal salt 24 bucks for a 50 gal bag the rock was fiji and they hav a couple of other kinds got a mixed bunch.some green some purple what are the odds of any hitch hikers like mantis shrimp was told thoses are nasty mean.Had one other question sould i run an air stone and if so do i need a saltwater stone or are the ones for fresh water ok. thanks for all the info, gonna be hard not to put anythink in there for like 3 weeks :boom: No kidding - waiting really sucks, and I'm not very good at it. And sometimes I just can't resist the temptation. You'd better do it though, you don't know how well cured your new rock is. I got some great stuff at Golds that had been there quite a while and found that it was pretty much completely cured, I didn't have any increase at all in my ammonia/nitrite readings when I added the rock - but I also had live sand in the tank and it would have helped digest anything the rock may have thrown out. You may not really have enough rock to sufficiently filter the water (depending on what you throw in the tank) so I would suggest putting some biological media in your filter to help compensate. And I would stay away from useing a bubbler, especially when you don't have a protein skimmer. With saltwater full of disolved proteins you'll wind up covering the surface of the water with foam. As for hitchhikers, who knows. You're bound to have plenty of them, but most or all of them will be beneficial or at least harmless. Plants, snails, worms, clams, crabs, mantis, only time will tell. And it may take quite a while to see who you got with your rock. I don't think you're to likely to find a mantis, but there's a pretty good chance of finding a crab or clam, or 2 or 3 or 4. I have kept all of my crabs, and I guess I've been lucky, they seem to eat mostly plant matter and will occasionally come out for a taste of whatever I'm feeding the fish or anemone. If you have something like clams or other filter feeders and decide to keep them you may need to get some food for them too, but be careful of polluting the water since you don't have much filtering to fall back on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prodogg02 Posted October 22, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 22, 2006 going to be puting more rock in tommorow might get 3 pounds more for now.hav an aquaclear 50 with some rock in it, was told the foam wound turn into a nitrate factory.I think there is a few clams and today noticed little white worm things on the glass they move very fast anyone know what they are?.checked my salt level this again its at 1.021.going to check rest of levels on wed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snaggle Posted October 23, 2006 Report Share Posted October 23, 2006 if you have the monry I would get one of these. 20K LED Solaris I did the math you save like double the cost of the light just on light bulbs if you where to go MH. Brad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlkWolfe Posted October 23, 2006 Report Share Posted October 23, 2006 Your doing fine so far. Hydrometers can be finicky, try immersing them in the saltwater and shaking them around a bit to remove the bubbles. Readings should be a little more consistent. Dont worry about your biofilter or adding anything for it. Give the rock time and it will establish itself on its own. I would look into maybe getting a couple small powerheads for extra water movement, like maxijet 900's the rock will be fine at 1.018, although personally i run my tanks between 1.025 and 1.027 (about 34-35ppt) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prodogg02 Posted October 23, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 23, 2006 thanks for the help guys bumped up salt to 1.023. cant wait for fish, found some kinda worm today looks like a snake tiny orange head,about 4 inch long 2 mm wide brown strip down middle branching onto sides not a brissle worm, and some kinda pink fleshy thimg stickin out of one rock scares me,was scared to stick my hand in the tank at golds couldnt see in it dont know what will get you in there a mantis would hurt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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