FRESH WATER TO SALT WATER CONVERSION.... FIRST TIME MARINE

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nyyrules21

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Dec 5, 2011
14
0
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Long Island
Hello everyone, I have had an African Cichlid tank for a few years now and am looking to change it over to a salt water tank. (my brother just purchased a tank and will taking my cichlids). I currently have a 55 gallon tank with two Aqueon QuietFlow 55/75 HOB filters (800GPH). White Petco Aquarium Sand,
13" 200 watt Heater, and Two 18" Lights with Coral Sun Actinic 420 bulbs (Blue).

What will I need to do to make this tank into a saltwater tank?

What are some good marine fish too have? I like the way tangs look

How hard is it to keep live rock? or Should I do fish only?

I really appreciate anyone who has taken the time to read this and help me out!!! Thanks.....
 
You really dont need anything else to make the most most basic salt tank that you can have. Your lights will work fine and the sand that you have will work fine too. Although I, and alot of others would too, suggest not going this route because it will be much harder to keep fish alive and your maintenence will be alot higher too. My suggestion would be to buy 10lbs of Live Rock and 50lbs of dry(base) rock. Live rock is rock that has the beneficial bacteria already living in it. Dry(base) rock is dried out live rock. Live rock is very easy to keep. You dont need to do anything to it as far as maintenece goes. As far as fish goes it all depends on what kind of tank that you want. There are community,aggressive, semi-aggresive and reef tanks. It all depends on what you want to keep. Tangs would be in the community category. If you wanted to go with a little less basic setup I would buy a new light, a sump, a protien skimmer and some better substrate.
 
cichlid_king said:
You really dont need anything else to make the most most basic salt tank that you can have. Your lights will work fine and the sand that you have will work fine too. Although I, and alot of others would too, suggest not going this route because it will be much harder to keep fish alive and your maintenence will be alot higher too. My suggestion would be to buy 10lbs of Live Rock and 50lbs of dry(base) rock. Live rock is rock that has the beneficial bacteria already living in it. Dry(base) rock is dried out live rock. Live rock is very easy to keep. You dont need to do anything to it as far as maintenece goes. As far as fish goes it all depends on what kind of tank that you want. There are community,aggressive, semi-aggresive and reef tanks. It all depends on what you want to keep. Tangs would be in the community category. If you wanted to go with a little less basic setup I would buy a new light, a sump, a protien skimmer and some better substrate.
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x2.

Get a protein skimmer, 30 lbs. of plain aragonite sand, 55+ lbs. of rock (mostly dry with some live for seeding), a hydrometer, some powerheads, & a decent salt mix (Instant Ocean, Coralife, etc.), and you should be good to go once you cycle the aquarium.
 
Yep, to cycle the aquarium you could use the die off of the LR that you buy or there are a couple other methods that you can use too. If you want it to cycle really fast, like within a week you should buy 55lbs of Live rock. But that will be expensive at 7.00 a pound. The cheaper route would be to buy 10lbs of LR and 50lbs of dry rock. But that would take up to 6 weeks to cycle.
 
cichlid_king said:
Yep, to cycle the aquarium you could use the die off of the LR that you buy or there are a couple other methods that you can use too. If you want it to cycle really fast, like within a week you should buy 55lbs of Live rock. But that will be expensive at 7.00 a pound. The cheaper route would be to buy 10lbs of LR and 50lbs of dry rock. But that would take up to 6 weeks to cycle.
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x2.

It's worth using mostly dry rock and waiting the extra few weeks because the end results will be much better.
 
Thanks!

Do you know of any good Places to order Live Rock?

What would be good tank mates with Tangs?

I am confused about filtration, Do i need the two HOB filters if I am going to use live rock? Been reading other forums and not really understanding it.
 
This is what I think I need to do, so If anything is wrong please let me know with suggestions;
1. Drain Tank
2. Remove all decorations Filters heaters everything!
3. Rinse everything out with water
4. Get 50lbs of Sand, wash and install
5. Get 55lbs of Fiji Live Rock, wash and install
6. Fill with salt water (not sure exactly how to do this) Any tips
7. Reinstall heater, filter, and lights
8. Let tank cycle How long should it cycle?
9. Test and install Fish!!! :)
 
A really good place to order rock is from Marcorocks.com. This is where I ordered all of my rock and they come highly recommended from alot of people. Tangs are community fish so you can put quite a few fish with them ex: clowns,chromis,firefish, some damsels and quite a few others. Tangs are herbivors though so they need to be fed algae sheets. A good website to find out what fish can be put with eachother is Liveaquaria.com. They will tell you whether a fish is peaceful,semi-aggressive or aggressive and reef safe, reef safe with caution and not reef safe. Your live rock is your main filtration. Any mechanical filtration that you would use is basically a supplement to the LR and will help polish the water but your LR is your main filtration, thats why you need atleast a lb per gallon.

nyyrules21 said:
This is what I think I need to do, so If anything is wrong please let me know with suggestions;
1. Drain Tank
2. Remove all decorations Filters heaters everything!
3. Rinse everything out with water
4. Get 50lbs of Sand, wash and install
5. Get 55lbs of Fiji Live Rock, wash and install
6. Fill with salt water (not sure exactly how to do this) Any tips
7. Reinstall heater, filter, and lights
8. Let tank cycle How long should it cycle?
9. Test and install Fish!!! :)
Click to expand...

For number 5, 55lbs of Live Rock will be very expensive, like 385 dollars, so I suggest ordering 10lbs of Fiji Live and ordering 50lbs of Pukani Dry, for a total of about 170 dollars.
For number 6, it is easier to mix your saltwater in 5gal buckets to a SG of 1.024 or so in each bucket that mixing it in your tank and having undissolved salt stick to the glass. I use Instant Ocean Sea salt. It comes in all different size boxes but the best deal that I have found is the 5 gal bucket that treats 160 gallons. Alot of saltwater hobbyists use Instant ocean and reccommend it highly.
For number 7, make sure you buy new filters for your filters.
For number 8, If you buy all 55lbs of Live Rock your tank will only take a week or two to cycle but if you buy 10lbs of LR and 50lbs of Dry rock it can take up to 6 weeks to cycle. To cycle a tank there are a few different ways to do it. the LR method is just one of them. There is a sticky in the General salt part of the forum that tells you about cycling methods and procedures. What happens is something will create ammonia. the ammonia will get very high which triggers another form of bacteria called Nitrite. The Nitrie bacteria feed off of the ammonia bacteria bringing the ammonia down to 0. When this happens the Nitrite will be very high which triggers Nitrate bacteria. The Nitrate bacteria feed off of the Nitrite, bringing the Nitrite down to 0. The Nitrate will be very high when this happens. To get rid of Nitrate you do water changes. The frequency of your water chenges depends on how many fish you have in the aquarium. When its complete you should be able to put pure ammonia in your tank and check it 24hrs later and have 0 ammonia reading on your test kit. When you install fish do it slowly. When you get to the end of your cycle you need to add a "clean up crew". The CuC's job is to keep algae at bay and to eat excess food thats on the bottom of your tank. After the CuC survives for a week you can start adding fish( about 2 fish a week is what I did for the first month or two). Hope this helps!
 
Ok So with about 60lbs of Live Rock I wouldn't need the two HOB filters with two powerheads instead?
Has anyone gotten rock from live aquaria?
 
Nope with 60lbs of rock you will do just fine for filtration without any mechanical filtration. But when you get a lot of livestock in the tank watch your nitrates. A lot of livestock meaning 20+ fish or so. I haven't heard anybody buying LR from liveaquaria.com so I wouldn't know the quality

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