New to the fish world
- Thread starter ponch37300
- Start date
ponch37300;803375; said:
Ponch....sounds like a great project. I see you posted in the DIY section. That is where you'll get the best advice. Heres a hint post pictures and you'll get alot more traffic which helps with advice.
I'm not sure about the building and electrical cause I have never done it but A LOT of guys here have and they can help you out. THe DIY is your place for the build.
Is there a good place or web site to get the filter and heater from? Any suggestions on brands or things to look for or just ones rated for the size of the tank? I was in Hawaii snorkling in Feb and loved the colors and styles of fish there! They were amazing. How hard is it to take care of salt water fish like those? Would i need anything special for them or just the heater and filter i will be getting anyway. Thanks
ponch37300;803403; said:
You can usually find a good filter or heater at your local fish store. If not, there are plenty of online site such as petsolutions and Drs.Foster&Smith. Just look around. As far as filters go, you probably want a cannister for such a large tank. You could also include a power filter such as the aquaclear 110 for extra filtration. Creating a saltwater fishtank can be very expensive.
ponch37300;803403; said:
no saltwater is a whole new world. You'll need different filters and biological filtration which is Live Rock, if you do reef or certain fish you'll need special (and expensive) lighting.
They are definately beautiful fish but its more work and more expensive to start a SW. Once you get it going the upkeep isn't that much more the fresh but starting it up is more work.
Here is a link to help you build the tank if you need
http://garf.org/index.html
I would start out with a large canister filter they are easy to maintain. As you learn more you can always step it up to a wet/dry filter.
You want to flow at leat 600 gallons per hour so check out Fluval FX5 or some of the bigger Eheim filters.
Get yourself a good quality submersable heater 300 watt.
As far as electric, you can plug into pretty much any outlet on a 15 or 20 amp circuit, make sure you have a surge protector on it. Online companies to check out with great prices are bigalsonline.com and thatfishplace.com for a lot of supplies. As far as fish to start with African Chiclids are easy to take care of and nice to look at if you like bright fish
http://garf.org/index.html
I would start out with a large canister filter they are easy to maintain. As you learn more you can always step it up to a wet/dry filter.
You want to flow at leat 600 gallons per hour so check out Fluval FX5 or some of the bigger Eheim filters.
Get yourself a good quality submersable heater 300 watt.
As far as electric, you can plug into pretty much any outlet on a 15 or 20 amp circuit, make sure you have a surge protector on it. Online companies to check out with great prices are bigalsonline.com and thatfishplace.com for a lot of supplies. As far as fish to start with African Chiclids are easy to take care of and nice to look at if you like bright fish
andr3w, do you have a link to building a filter? I was looking online and they are pretty expensive so if i could build my own that would be great. thanks
Here is a link on building a sump or wet dry. By the time you are done building a wet dry with the water pumps and fittings and glass and everything else you need you will probably be up around the $150 mark depending on how tou go about doing it. The easiest way would be to find an old 30 gallon tank and use that.you need some glass or plexi to make your baffles inside. roughly $30 in pvc fittings and hose from Home depot The water pump is the big hitter I would put a Mag Drive 900gph on it. That will run you $80 alone. A wet dry is the way to go if you are a bit handy to make one. Your overall water quality will be much better. Once you learn on how they work, they are very easy to maintain.
For heating the tank I would get two 250 watt heaters. Thats what I did for my 125 gal tank, I got the stealth heaters which I would suggest getting. They keep the temp right at 78 degrees all the time. For filtration I would look into the Rena xp4 canister filter, I personally like the xp's but some people might say they are loud but if you make sure there isn't any air in them then it will be a quiet filter.
