My first Saltwater Tank!

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d20monsteroscar20

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 6, 2005
418
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Missouri City, TX
Listen guys I just got another 29 gallons to add to my collection three weeks ago. So now since I have had this wish to learn more about Saltwater. Therefore I was woundering if I could get help seting up my first ever saltwater tank? I wanna know exactly what I need to set up a fairly unexpensive tank. (list of matterials )
Should I just mix water and that salt they sell at the pet store? and Can I used normal filters like the whisper and Emperor? As you can see I dont know what I m doing so any help will be appreciated.
 
29 gallon FOWLR



Tank/stand - Wal-Mart sells a kit that includes tank, hood, HOB filter and heater for approx. $90.00 This is a wonderful deal because it covers most all the hardware needs except for a QUALITY heater.

Sand - 2 50lb bags; Any sterilized and bagged play sand from a home center. Should cost $3-4 per bag. You will also need to purchase about 5-10lbs of livesand to seed your "dead" sand with. Should be about $1.00lb at your LFS.

Salt - Instant Ocean 200gallon bucket (Big Al's #19355) $34.00

Hydrometer - Sea-Test hydrometer (Big Al's #2517) $6.00

Test kits - I personally use Hagen test kits, but most any brand that is specifically for saltwater will suffice.
Ammonia (Big Al's #1980) $7.79
Nitrite (Big Al's #1959) $7.79
Nitrate (Big Al's #1972) $7.79

HOB Filter - Included with the tank kit from Wal-Mart

Heater - Ebo Jager 150w (Big Al's #5644) $15.99

Baserock - An aragonite rock is preferred, but Lace or Tufa rock will suffice. You should be able to find both of these locally, if not then www.fellerstone.com usually has a 1lb for $1 deal going. You can even ask for hand selection of flats, boulders, stackers, etc... You'll need about 25-30lbs to get started. Another option, and really my first choice, would be to purchase aragonite rock from www.hirocks.com This is baserock that was once liverock in Hiwaii.

Liverock - For a tank this size, the most economical route is your LFS. The shipping on 5-10lbs of liverock would not be cost effective. This is one of the few times the LFS can actually save you money. This should be added after the cycling with the jumbo shrimp is completed to keep die-off of the creatures to a minimum.

Lighting - Power-Glo 24" $11.99 (Big Al's #1452)

Powerheads - Aquaclear 301 $13.99 (Big Al's #1062) 1 required.

One jumbo shrimp - $0.50 at your local grocery store. For cycling the tank.

Books -
The Conscientious Marine Aquarist: A Commonsense Handbook for Successful Saltwater Hobbyists by Robert Fenner - $27.97 at Amazon.com This is required reading for the hobby.
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Quoted From TheOscarSpot.com
 
i was just like u a couple months ago. getting a sw tank setup is fun, especially if ure poor and u find good deals on used fish supplies :D
ure gonna need a minimum of 29 lbs of liverock, (every gallon=1 lb) and enuff 1 inch of live sand along the floor. i picked up all that from a guy who was getting out of the hobby for 60 bucks, still pretty dam expensive.
ure also gonna need some strong filtration, i recommend just builded a diy wetdry but if u have strong filtration with hob filters i think u'd be alrite. u're also going to need a protein skimmer though. this takes off all that gunk on the surface of ur water, "skimmage" since u're probably gonna go with hob filters, u're gonna have to buy a hob protein skimmer which they make although most are made to be put directly into a sump.
get a 150 watt heater cus there really isnt alot of cool coldwater sw fish and throw in a small powerhead if u can. get some synthetic salt at ur lfs and use a hydrometer, a device that tests salinity, the "specific gravity" which is the same thing as salinity should be at about 1.019 - 1.022. once u have all that going on, let it sit there for a month. u need everything to cure, get all fishy from the liverock. then test it out with a few cheap fish like damselfish. but beware those bastards are hard to catch. if ur testfish is eats well and is healthy go ahead and put a showfish in there. gl with ur setup heres how mine looks
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v412/slimfadey/pets0002.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v412/slimfadey/pets0001.jpg
i got rid of the clown though, trigger's are the sht! imo :thumbsup:
 
If you want to get away with the bare mininum you could get a emperor 400($80),small protien skimmer($40), 40 pounds of argonite should be good( I don't remember how much). get some cheap fish and cycle away. Salt will run you about twenty bucks. Why do you need a bucket of salt that makes 200 gallons? It sounds like he is trying to save money. Granted with this filtration setup. You will probably have to keep a fish only aquarium. All my tanks have no live rock, and are fish only and I have never had any problems. If you want to keep inverts though it will run you up a little on liverock. Cycling will take a long time though with no inverts or live rock. Probably a month or longer.
 
Tanx for the help guys. I just brought live sand and aquarium salt for 25 gallons so that means I m 3 gallons short, but I will be getting some more tomorrow. For the filtration I think I m going to go for the fluval 404(I heard it a great one). I will post some picts soon!
 
Awesome. I have started a 10g salt water. All i did was add salt and water with crushed coral. To cycle it i used "cycle" and i had a 1inch puffer in it. later i got sum live rock from my LFS and added it. After awhile I got rid of the puffer and added 3 damsels, sum snails, lawn Mower blenny, Scooter blenny, a manderian Goby, and Sicosor tail goby. They are all doing great. Eat pellets and Blood worms.
 
d20monsteroscar20 said:
Tanx for the help guys. I just brought live sand and aquarium salt for 25 gallons so that means I m 3 gallons short, but I will be getting some more tomorrow. For the filtration I think I m going to go for the fluval 404(I heard it a great one). I will post some picts soon!
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sweeeeeeeeet
 
All the advice you got on this thread is meant for FOWLRs. Being used to planted FW tanks, I felt a FOWLR tank seemed kind of "empty". So after 20+ years in FW, I decided to build my very first Reef tank (10 gals) 6 months ago (Reef means corals). If you want a Reef tank, the equipment required is different and more expensive. I daresay that I'm having so much fun with my Reef tank (more than my Jardini tank, I'm quite sorry to say) that I want to sell my 55 gal with a 10" ZZ FH (any takers?) and replace it with a large, full blown Reef tank.

Without writing a "book" on this topic, the key difference between FOWLR and Reef is: (1) Lighting and (2) Filtration.

(1) Lighting - you'll need 100-300 watts for a 30 gal. Higher wattage if the tank is 30 high, lower if it's 30 long. Higher wattage if you want to stock LPS, lower wattage if it's zoanthids and SPS. Reef lighting requires both 10000K lighting, and 420nm blue actinics. You can't just use regular fluorescents...corals are photosynthetic and will die without the correct wavelength and wattage of light.

(2) Filtration - you can't just use a cannister, HOB, or wet/dry filter. These are "nitrate factories"; i.e., these filters are great at converting ammonia to nitrite, and nitrate to nitrate. But they stop at nitrate. Both FW and SW fishes can handle nitrates...but corals cannot. In order to complete the ammonia cycle and convert nitrate to nitrogen gas (which then evaporates), you'll need adequate live sand (2-3 lbs./gal) and live rock (1-2 lbs./gal). But this is truly inadequate either. So Reefers typically employ a powerful protein skimmer...the idea is to skim protein/wastes out of the water BEFORE they even get converted to ammonia. So, a protein skimmer helps the system partly skip the ammonia cycle, and the LS/LR converts what's left to nitrogen gas.

I can assure you a $40 protein skimmer is crappy and will not do the trick. The best ones (defined as "efficient") are in the $100 range.

Hope this helps.
 
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