Hello I am wanting to set up my first saltwater aquarium. I want it to be 55 gallons with only fish no corals yet. If I got everything I needed for the aquarium how much would it cost and how much maintenance would I be doing thank you in advance
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- Thread starter TheOscarFishKing
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Cost depends mostly on what you want to buy. Even if you want a 55 gallon without coral, you're still looking at quite a lot of money.You'll need the following, which you should do price comparisons between places like DrsFosterandSmith, Petco($/gallon sale), BulkReefSupply, and other online stores. I'm not going to do the work for you, but here's a preliminary list of what you'll need:
The tank and stand (Petco has $/gallon sales, and I know Walmart still sells stands for 55 gallon tanks)
Calcareous Rock (preferably dry): Approximately 40-55 pounds of this, look on BulkReefSupply for more information
Calcareous sand: Think aragonite, oolite, or if you're keeping fish that don't spend a lot of time on the bottom of the tank, crushed coral does well.
A protein skimmer (This is non negotiable, I recommend the Coralife Super Skimmer rated for 125 gallons)
Some sort of light: I like LED's, but a simple double T5/T8 fixture will do good as well (one actinic and one white bulb).
A heater (I believe it's 2-3 watts/gallon), a hydrometer/refractometer for measuring salinity, and at least two circulation pumps, with the total GPH being somewhere around 8x the tank's capacity (ie. each circulation pump should be able to run about 220 GPH).
Salt: Instant Ocean brand is good, I suggest getting an initial bucket of it from a place like DFS, and then buy bulk (the 200 gallon boxes) in the future.
Optionals:
A sump with overflow (55 gallon tanks can't be drilled unfortunately); this will increase water volume, and give you a nice place to store the heater and the protein skimmer, but it's not strictly necessary. If you buy this you'll need to get a return pump as well.
An RO or RO/DI unit: You save more money this way, but it is a bit expensive. It provides you with the water you need for mixing saltwater
The tank and stand (Petco has $/gallon sales, and I know Walmart still sells stands for 55 gallon tanks)
Calcareous Rock (preferably dry): Approximately 40-55 pounds of this, look on BulkReefSupply for more information
Calcareous sand: Think aragonite, oolite, or if you're keeping fish that don't spend a lot of time on the bottom of the tank, crushed coral does well.
A protein skimmer (This is non negotiable, I recommend the Coralife Super Skimmer rated for 125 gallons)
Some sort of light: I like LED's, but a simple double T5/T8 fixture will do good as well (one actinic and one white bulb).
A heater (I believe it's 2-3 watts/gallon), a hydrometer/refractometer for measuring salinity, and at least two circulation pumps, with the total GPH being somewhere around 8x the tank's capacity (ie. each circulation pump should be able to run about 220 GPH).
Salt: Instant Ocean brand is good, I suggest getting an initial bucket of it from a place like DFS, and then buy bulk (the 200 gallon boxes) in the future.
Optionals:
A sump with overflow (55 gallon tanks can't be drilled unfortunately); this will increase water volume, and give you a nice place to store the heater and the protein skimmer, but it's not strictly necessary. If you buy this you'll need to get a return pump as well.
An RO or RO/DI unit: You save more money this way, but it is a bit expensive. It provides you with the water you need for mixing saltwater
Maintenance and Fish
Maintenance wise, you'll be doing at least 20% water changes per week, no excuses. This involves buying RO water or getting it from the RO/DI unit, and mixing it to a specific gravity of about 1.024, then letting it sit for a while and come up to temperature.
You'll also need to get some sort of razor blade to scrape the glass every week/day to keep up with algae growth on the glass.
The protein skimmer should also be cleaned as needed, anywhere from once every week to every 3 days.
For fish, what do you have in mind? The really pretty ones are often very expensive, and if you want predatory ones, they need frozen food at the very least.
Maintenance wise, you'll be doing at least 20% water changes per week, no excuses. This involves buying RO water or getting it from the RO/DI unit, and mixing it to a specific gravity of about 1.024, then letting it sit for a while and come up to temperature.
You'll also need to get some sort of razor blade to scrape the glass every week/day to keep up with algae growth on the glass.
The protein skimmer should also be cleaned as needed, anywhere from once every week to every 3 days.
For fish, what do you have in mind? The really pretty ones are often very expensive, and if you want predatory ones, they need frozen food at the very least.
Great info I ichthyogeek I would like to add if possible build or buy a better stand made of real wood. Most of the stands are made of pressed wood sold at Petco and Petsmart.
tlindsey thanks! IDK much about real wood vs pressed wood, can you elaborate more on that for me?
Oh, I also forgot: if you DIY anything like plumbing, PVC is your friend since it's cheap, although it looks utilitarian.
Yes from experience with my original stand that came with the 180 gallon after water spills, splashing from the fish and salt creep the saltwater was absorbed by the pressed wood which weakened the stand . The pressed wood started to bow and crumble very nervous situation.
From other thread how much your tank cost, I listed how much the cost for a 48G saltwater setup (FOWLR), it's around $850 dollars to cover mostly all the standard equipment. I do 2x water change per week, 10 Gallons each time on Tuesday and Saturday.
Here is the overall setup of 48G saltwater, I recently pulled out 2x Fluval G6 Filter from my storage and use them for this tank.
Here is the overall setup of 48G saltwater, I recently pulled out 2x Fluval G6 Filter from my storage and use them for this tank.
If this article is correct, then why buy metal halides?, and if you cant, what can you buy? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_dolphin