How to set up saltwater tank? Help needed.

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Oscar123

Gambusia
MFK Member
Feb 21, 2011
126
5
18
S Wales
So I've kept freshwater fishes for long time now, and now I just want to start up a small saltwater fish only tank.
I'm willing to spend money, but with the recession in uk, I want to spend less if possible
I wanted to have a 35-50 litre tank, I know that I need refractometer, heating, lighting, sand, love rock, but what type and how much of it?
One of the fishes I really wanted was a common clownfish, what else could I have? (something lively and colourful)
What else would I need?

Also does anyone know how much wattage of energy would a set up use daily ?

Thanks!


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i have a salt water tank and i love it! for a filter you will want a protein skimmer filter. lighting you want to make sure that your bulb will support corals and inverts. you will want 1 pound of live rock per gallon of water, so if you have 50 gallons of water then you will want 50 pounds of rock i live in the US and live rock here is around $8 a pound. you could also do a mixture of tufa rock and live rock tufa rock is basically dead dry live rock you would put the tufa rock on the bottom and put live rock over top of the tufa the organisims will eventually move into the tufa turning the tufa into live rock. i would go no more than half and half on live rock and tufa. tufa rock is around $4 per pound. with saltwater the bigger the tank the easier it is to take care of it! so i would go as big as possible. you could get a clownfish and maby some damsels or crabs or shrimp. just take your time with saltwater and do research and have fun with it!
 
forgot...
for sand i like to use live sand

i like my salt tank it is so well established i don't really need to do anything to it. my freshwater tanks need more maintenance than my salt water thank
 
Hunt down the thread in gen salt called "Help me Help my Friend." Its a nice list of all the things you need to do/get to start a saltwater aquarium. Start there, then come back here and ask left over questions. :thumbsup:
 
The most important thing you need is patiance. To start up the tank correctly takes a lot of time, so patiance is key.

I would start with a much larger tank. 35-50L is only 9-13g, that is a very small tank. Small tanks are very hard to keep stable and when something happens it will happen quick. You won't have to to react. I would try to use a tank that is at least 100L. If you are keeping fish only then you don't need any special lighting. The liverock will be your filtration and if you stick with a small bio load then you won't need a protien skimmer. Another important part is flow. Since the liverock is your filter you need a lot of flow to move the water around/into the liverock. Look at Vortech, Tunze, and Koralia powerheads for extra flow. You will also want to use RO or RO/DI water for your tank to avoid any algea blooms.
 
Basically what I wanted was a 2 diffent clownfish, a yellow tail damsel, a shrimp, and a different type of fish of possible.
Ive seen vids on YouTube saying all I need were a heater, filter, hydrometer, live rock, marine salt. I am guessing this is not enough???



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That's all I've got. Lol. Def go with a bigger tank.

A note on the clowns, I don't believe you can keep two different species in a tank that small. Get two of the same, one male and one female. I love my clowns. They are a really neat little fish. So much personality.


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A bio pallet reacter will keep your nitrates down,I had up to 80ppm and now down to 20ppm , I feed my fish all I went and nitrates will not go up,I have a tank that is 125 with fish & coral and do weekly water change about 25 gallons
 
KellyFrancis said:
That's all I've got. Lol. Def go with a bigger tank.

A note on the clowns, I don't believe you can keep two different species in a tank that small. Get two of the same, one male and one female. I love my clowns. They are a really neat little fish. So much personality.


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Click to expand...

So a pair of clowns? Would that be the max I could stock (of fish)?

Also, do your clowns breed?


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