Never had a salt tank before! Advice PLEASE!

alexou812

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 24, 2012
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New York
My and my girlfriend are buying a house very soon, and we have always wanted a salt tank. I have multiple large freshwater tanks 10,40,60,100g with mainly catfish in them, but that's all the experience I have. I'm thinking of a 30g to house a snowflake eel and a few clownfish, but I have NO idea what the cost will be. I know I obviously need a tank, live rock, and something called a protein skimmer, but what else? I just want to make sure I'm not getting into a 1,000 project :)
 

Yoimbrian

Dovii
MFK Member
Feb 11, 2013
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Just buy the stuff on Craigslist. Plenty of people get out of it. I regularly see 55s for a few hundreds full set up

Saltwater is a lot different than fresh. You need to balance water parameters a lot more and it's harder on a small tank.


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Cu455

Fire Eel
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Mar 8, 2011
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A snowflake will need more then a 30 gallon tank. I will just take it one step at a time. I will by the tank add saltwater, powerhead, some live rock and some base rock. Just monitor the water do you get the practice. Then you can add a small clean up crew maybe a fish. Then add a protein skimmer and the rest of your stock. I find adding one or two items at a time eases the transition. I see a lot of people get overwhelmed by adding to much to early. Clowns and snowflakes are both great fish to start with.
 

Aw3s0m3

Piranha
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May 6, 2012
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^ I couldn't have put it better myself. It really depends though on what kind of tank you want. A FOWLR (fish only with live rock) won't need as much flow or equipment as a reef tank, but you will need to do bigger water changes whereas a reef, you'll need the proper lighting, plenty of live rock, depending on the corals you might need calcium reactors, phosphate reactors, possibly an auto top off, but the water changes will be smaller. Overall, a reef is a lot more work than a fish only.

If you have your heart set on an eel, you should upgrade or build up your experience and get a banana eel. Those will be able to live in a 30 for life but they're pretty expensive.


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alexou812

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jan 24, 2012
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New York
The only thing I don't quite understand is this "protein skimmer". I was told it is just like a filter, but I thought a sump tank was necessary? Forgive my arrogance, I'm just trying to find the cheapest route lol

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Aw3s0m3

Piranha
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May 6, 2012
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The protein skimmer uses bubbles to remove all sorts of proteins and wastes in the water released by fish and corals that are too small to be removed by mechanical filtration. You can buy in sump ones and hang on back ones. In small tanks, I don't think its really necessary cuz water changes will do an efficient job of removing everything. I have a 14g reef with all sorts of difficult corals and I've never had a protein skimmer on it and it's been running for almost 2 years now.


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Cu455

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Mar 8, 2011
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If you are not set on getting a snowflake you should look into the all in one aquariums, such as biocube or red sea. They look awesome, you get good quality stuff, you can grow coral and it will introduce you to all the equipment in a simple way. You can also get them pretty cheap. A lot of people buy them and get tired of the tank or they upgrade.

I am not sure where in New York you live but check out mannhattanreefs.com. There are a lot of stuff for sale and stuff will remain on the market for a long time to it is constantly getting cheaper.
 

Cichlaholics Anonymous

Polypterus
MFK Member
May 23, 2006
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There's a couple of eels that can live in that tank that will stay smaller than the snowflake...such as golden dwarf morays and gymnothorax richardsoni
 
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