saltwater tank setup must haves?

Question

i have a 55 gallon tank a plastic hood with double strip flouresent lights ,a fluval 404 and 0ne 304 canister filter ,i have one emperor 5 double bio wheel filter heater air pump chemi pure for the filters i have instant ocean salt and sand also large natural dry coral id like to know if i can use some of these filters and use the flourecent light in the begining tell me what else is a must have for me to have success thanks

Answer 1

Craig covered most of the essentials, but there are a few other things I'd add. This list is from an answer I gave to a question yesterday, plus some modifications to fit your question:

SUBSTRATE - you want something made of aragonite to help keep the pH from changing too rapidly, I like the smaller shell material that Carib-Sea puts out - it doesn't have to be live sand, either. Some folks like crushed coral, but the particle size is bigger than I like, and it tends to have a lot of dust that never rinses completely out. Another very fine grained material is oolitic aragonite (looks like small white balls) and aragonite sand. To find what will work best for the organisms you plan to keep see this chart: http://www.caribsea.com/pages/products/dry_aragonite.html I also don't consider it necessary to get both live rock and live sand. All the "live" refers to is the bacteria that convert the ammonia to nitrite then nitrate. If you have live rock, it will colonize your substrate within a few months, and save about 1/2 the price of the substrate.

SALT MIX: If you're only keeping fish, you can go with one of the less expensive brands of synthetic sea salt. If you're planning invertebrates, switch to a better quality mix before you add them. These cost a little more, but you won't need to be using additives for the trace elements they need either.

HYDROMETER: This measures the amount of salt that's dissolved inwater. There are two kinds you can get, one made of glass that floats on the surface (more accurate, but easy to break) and a plastic container that has a needle that rises and falls as the amount of salt changes (less accurate, bubbles attaching to the needle gives false readings). For fish only, you want the specific gravity to read 1.020 - 1.026. If you're keeping inverts, you want it to be 1.024 - 1.026.

FILTER: It's possible that you may want to just use your old filter if it's properly sized (filters 5x-10x the tank volume per hour). If you need a new one, or are looking to upgrade, there are lots of choices, and what you'll need will really depend on budget, what you're trying to keep, and personal preference. I'd consider the best to be a refugium or wet/dry trickle filter. Next best would be a canister, followed by a biowheel, then a standard hang-on-tank. You want to be able to filter at least 5-10 times the volume of your tank per hour, so check the GPH rating for any filter you consider. Unless you're using sand or oolite, you can also use an undergravel filter to supplement filtration, but I'd suggest powering it with a reversible powerhead to blow the water up through the substrate (prevents stuff from building up under the filter and clogging it). Since you already have the canisters, I'd just plan to rinse them well and use these.

POWERHEAD(S): To provide more water circulation in hard to get to places.

HEATERS: For a saltwater tank, I'd suggest getting 2 and putting one on each end. This will provide more even heating, and your tank has a back-up if one dies. Figure the correct size as 5 watts per gallon divided by 2 heaters. If you need to heat the water more than 10 degrees above the room temperature, go one size higher.

LIGHTING: If you never want anything but fish, you can use the standard lighting and hood made for your tank. You might want to upgrade the lamps to a 10,000K tube, since this approximate what lighting an underwater reef around 30 feet or so deep would get. If you're going to try corals, anemones, etc., go with a compact fluorescent, metal halide, or combo system - these will provide more intense light that they'll need for photosynthesis.

WATER TESTING KIT: minimum of pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate.

CLEANING SUPPLIES: elbow length gloves, gravel vacuum, 5 gallon bucket, large plastic container and powerhead for mixing the salt (to be done well ahead of water changes), algae scraper, razor blades (for coraline algae and diatoms that like to attach to the glass).

WATER CONDITIONER: for removing chlorine or chloramine from your tap water (unless you plan to use a reverse osmosis filter or buy RO water).

The following are optional, but strongly suggested:

PROTEIN SKIMMER: This removes dissloved and small organic materials that would normally contribute to the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate in your tank.

GLASS COVER: This reduces evaporation and keeps the fish inside the tank, although with a metal halide lighting system, it can overheat your tank.

LIVE ROCK: This give the tank a more natural appearance, provides hiding places for the fish and inverts, and increases the biological filtration. Not to mention, you get all kinds of cool critters that hitchhike into your tank. Quality live rock can be expensive, so you can buy dry rock (sold as base rock, lace rock, or reef rock) to put on the bottom, where the organisms that need light will die off anyway. Buy some good live rock to put on top and in the front. The non-photosynthetic organisms will colonize the dry rock in a few months. If you get Pacific origin rock, you need 1 lb per gallon, but if the rock is from the Atlantic or Carribean, it's less porous and has less surface area for the bacteria to grow, so you'll want to get 1 1/2 to 2 lbs per gallon.

I'd also recommend a good reference book for saltwater tanks. Either of these would be a good one to start with: The New Marine Aquarium by Michael S. Paletta. Microcosm Ltd. ISBN 1-890087-52-1 or The Conscientious Marine Aquarist by Robert M. Fenner. Microcosm Ltd. ISBN 1-890087-02-5

One thing to realize about saltwater is that the fish are more territorial than freshwater community fish (they're more like cichlids in their personalities), although there are a few peaceful species. Given their behavior and intolerance for poor water quality, you aren't able to stock as many fish per tank as in freshwater. Some general recommendations would be to choose fish that are from separate families, and that don't have similar colors or body shape. This will prevent the fish from seeing one another as "rivals". The exceptions would be those species which can be kept as a pair, and the few schooling species.

Here are a few good websites that you can look at for saltwater tank info:

http://www.fishlore.com/SaltwaterBeginners.htm
http://www.peteducation.com/index.cfm?cls=16
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/

Answer 2

get a skimmer, run the fluval 404, and the emperor with 1 or 2 maxijet 600's for more flow, and add some more live rock and your set for fish, corals will not survive under those lights and a good marine test kit, and use RO water ebay has a good under 100 dollar filter that is safe for human use or walmart sells it for 33 cents a gallon for refills of culligan water

Answer 3

Your filters for salt water are the same for freshwater. You should clean them out real good and you will have to cycle the tank again. if you are just keeping fish you should be fine with what you got maybe add a protien skimmer. I think they are needed but others will say they arent. i know of people who have kept beautiful fish only tanks with no skimmer.
You will need a few new water tests same stuff as freshwater pH Amonia Nitrate Nitrite. you will also need a hydrometer to test the salinity of the water.

Live Rock/Live Sand: you need 1-1.5 lbs of live rock per gallon and enough live sand to cover 1-2 inches.

Lighting: to keep fish only your current lighting is fine. If you wish to keep soft corals you may want to move up to VHO lights 10k white and true blue actinic. for keeping hard corals (LPS,SPS) and or light dependent creatures like anemones you will need to go with more power in the lighting department. Metal halides and true Blue actinic possibly a LED moon light.

Filtration: with the filters you already have there is no need to invest more money in a new filter. if you decide to up the filtration the only thing id reccomend you spending money on is a protien skimmer. For keeping corals i feel you need a RO/DI tap water filter. this will remove virtually all impurities from the water befor it enters your tank. this means you will have to add trace elements back into the water that the corals need to thrive.

Water Current: If you have an undergravel filter getting powerheads that hook into your undergravel filter will be needed to increas your current. if your keeping corals this is a must. certain corals require high current other prefer a softer current. If you dont have an undergravel filter they make powerheads that magnetically attach to the wall of the tank. If you want you can look at my 360 account and see the pics of my reef tank with the use of one of these powerheads.

Testing water Parameters: you will need a master test kit for pH,amonia, nitrite, Nitrate and a hydrometer. for fish only you will be able to get by just fine with only these tests. If you decide to keep corals you will want a test kit for calcium and alkalinity as well. the ammount of calcium added to the tank will be determined by how many corals you have that use up the calcium and how much your skimmer takes out of the water. More corals means more calcium to maintain a good ammount in the water.

Test readings: (ideally)
pH- 8.3
amonia- 0
nitrite- 0
nitrate-0
sg.- 1.022-1.024
dkh- 8
calcium - 400-420
Hope this helps and feel free to email me with any questions. i may have forgotten some things for there is a lot to getting started with saltwater tanks. What you will need is dependent on what you decide to keep in the tank. Always research any fish or invert befor you put it in your tank this way you know whats compatible and what will not get tro big for the size tank you have.

Answer 4

Actual live rock is better...because live rock actually breathes and helps filter the tank that is why with large reef tanks there is alot of rick so it can filter so much

Answer 5

skimmer. And you can't put fish in for several weeks. Eventually you need the really nice lights.