New to Saltwater. Please help

[immortality6000]

I am setting up my first saltwater tank. 26 gallon bowfront. Here is my current situation. My wife bought me a stand for Christmas and it has a support piece down the center so the proclear wetdry that I have had wont fit without some cutting of a brand new stand. Second she bought me a Marineland Penguin 200 hob filter. I have been doing some research and they say a Aquaclear is the best hob to use for saltwater? For a 26 gallon tank how many GPH should I be pushing? Should I try and get that proclear wetdry filter under the cabinet? I also have a Maxi-Jet 1200 power head I can use. Please help me with the filtration. The wetdry is for up to a 75 gal tank. Should I return the marineland penguin 200 and get a different filter? Help.... Please


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[Drizzt]

If you want the best HOB then you gotta go with an Aqua clear.

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[jfritts91]

If your intention is to go with a reef type set-up, I would strive for the wet-dry, unless it's designed for Bioballs. The high nitrates those cause aren't very coral friendly. As far as HoB's go, AC's, from what I've heard, are the best for SW. Throwing on an additional power head would certainly help, however, imo, scale up the HoB AC, and attach a HoB Protein Skimmer. That should give you adequate flow as well as filtration for just about any fish that can fit into a 26bow, as well accomidating most corals, short of SPS.
Hope this helped And GL.

 

[quicklynx]

From experience with saltwater and filtration, nothing worked better for me than an algae scrubber. I had a 55 gallon with a 20 gallon refugium in which I had an upflow algae scrubber. My tank consisted of an overflow, flood lamps, air pump and stone for the scrubber, and a return pump. I had T5 high outputs above the hood. I did not have any other filtration or skimmer on the tank. Overflow was the only thing that hung on the tank. I kept the canopy off of the tank to keep temperatures down.

I cleaned the scrubber once a week. My Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates were at 0. My water was always crystal clear with no yellowing. I had corals, fish, and fed multiple times, a lot of food, throughout the day. The corals thrived as did the fish. The scrubber was an excellent breeding ground for copepods. I was able to successfully keep a green and red mandarin, as well as a few other blennies, well fed. Ditching the skimmer allows your corals to eat all the leftover food your fish don't eat. Whatever gets lost by the fish and corals becomes food for the scrubber!

The best part about the scrubber was I did zero water changes once it was established. It is a huge money saver over time. That does not mean you will not ever have to do them. You should still check your parameters. Your scrubber has to be sized correctly for your tank.

Search upflow algae scrubber and you will be quite amazed at the positive feedback!

I broke down the tank because I am purchasing a new home. I plan to upgrade tank size, although I think I am going back to freshwater for the time being.