What do I need for a 44 gallon saltwater aquarium setup?

Question

The tank doesnt come with anything

Answer 1

top
Filter
heater
hydrometer Tells how much salt is in the water
Ocean mix the salt
bucket to mix the salt
protein skimmer takes nitrates out of water most expensive piece
siphon to clean tank
thermometer to tell water temp
once you have correct salt mix live rock about 44 lbs and crushed coral or sand
then sit back and wait about 6 weeks take your water to the pet store to get tested and when all the chemicals are 0 your ready. This is a great site for questions and reaserchhttp://www.wetwebmedia.com/index.html

Answer 2

Sorry to inform you yet... 10gallon is exceedingly a lot minimum for saltwater and thats for experts. in case you saved a 5 gallon salt, it may be on the portion of impossible to maintain the water ranges maximum appropriate and you're able to ought to be an 3x EPERT expert expert. Sorry to inform you!

Answer 3

1. Aquarium. Glass or Acrylic.
2. Heater. 5-watts per gallon. Not Titanium.
3. Filter(s).
4. UV Sterilizer.
5. Media. Sand. Cultured. Rinse well before adding.
6. Live rock.
7. Marine Mix Salts. R/O Water.
8. Hydrometer. Range: 1.022 to 1.026.
9. pH Meter. pH Strips. Range: 8.0 to 8.4.
10. Master Saltwater Test Kit.
11. Thermometer. Range 78 to 82 degrees F.
12. Protein Skimmer.
13. Lighting.
15. Cleaning siphon.

Answer 4

Depends if you wan't to keep fish or corals or both.
Lights (can be most expensive if keeping SPS or some LPS coral)
Protein skimmer
3X powerheads
44lbs live rock (min)
3" aragonite substrate
Hydrometer
Test kit
Salt mix
Cleaner crew (hermit crabs and snails to start)
Heater
I would recomend a 20gal sump or even bigger
If using a sump you need a return pump(at least 450gph)
If using a sump you need an overflow and plumbing
You DO NOT NEED any other external filter

Answer 5

Get a filter and pebbles for the bottom and some decorative ornaments you can get at wal-mart in the fish section.

Answer 6

Is this a tank you already own (or was previously used by someone else)? If so, you may be able to use most of the existing equipmment, which will save you some money. Then you can upgrade and/or add more (optional) items over time.

I keep both saltwater and freshwater tanks (several of each, actually), and once you get the tank set up, they're not much more difficult than freshwater if you've planned it properly. There is a little more equipment, the water chemistry is a bit more involved, and any of the "specialized" materials (and the fish) for saltwater tend to be more expensive.

I would strongly recommend that you do some research into the different types of tanks (fish-only, which is the easiest and cheapest; fish-only with live rock, which give you added biological filtration; and reef, which is the full-blown marine set-up with corals, anemones, shrimp, etc., which can be the most difficult and IS definitely the most expessive type). That's not to say you can't start with a fish-only, then add other items to the same tank as you get some experience and want to try more organisms.

If you need to get a stand for the tank, try to get solid wood. The particleboard stands won't hold up if they get wet and the glue separates, and the iron/metal stands will corrode if any salt gets on them (or, you could get a metal stand, just use a flannel-backed tablecloth under the tank to protect the stand from splashed water).

Some of the other items you'll need:

FILTER: You DO need one of these - a skimmer removes dissolved organic material, but not solids. You'll want to get one that's properly sized (filters 5x-10x the tank volume per hour - check the gallons per hour rating). 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 type 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. Unless you're using a fine sand or oolite substrate, 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).

POWERHEAD(S): To provide more water circulation in hard to get to places. This also helps circulate dissolved oxygen to the bottom of the tank.

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 heater gives out. 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 wattage 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 or a 50/50 actinic. 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.

SUBSTRATE - you want something made of aragonite to help keep the pH from changing, 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. Here's an idea of the materials available: http://www.caribsea.com/pages/products/dry_aragonite.html While it's possible to keep a marine tank with regular aquarium gravel or no substrate, the aragonite will keep the pH from falling below 7.8 (it should be 8.2-8.4).

SALT MIX: If you're only keeping fish, you can go with one of the less expensive brands of synthetic sea salt. If you get any invertebrates (shrimp, snails, crabs, corals, anemones, etc.), 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.

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, which is preferred for a reef tank).

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. Not 100% necessary for fish-only tanks, but will be handy if you have inverts to keep up good water quality by removing organic materials that become nutrients for algae.

GLASS COVER: This reduces evaporation and keeps the fish inside the tank (some are jumpers), 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 (shrimp, snails, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea stars, etc.).

CHILLER: If you use metal halide lighting, or the water temperature regularly gets above 85o (for corals or anemones, fish can take a little more heat), you may need to invest in a chiller to keep the tank cool. The water temperature should run 76-80oF.

There may be additional items that you could need, such as kalkwasser to raise your pH if you can't get it to 8.2, but you won't know these until you get the tank set up and running, and test your water.

You may decide that you want to use a UV sterilizer, but in my opinion, these are unnecessary. They don't necessarily kill all the parasites and disease-causing organisms, and they only affect free-floating algae, not any that's attached to your glass, rock, or substrate. The bulbs also need to be replaced yearly. Rather than pay the high price for one of these, you'd do better to buy an inexpensive 10 gallon setup kit and a heater and use these as a quarantine tank.

Before going out and buying all this, I would suggest some reading to see what you're getting into by keeping saltwater. I did research for almost 2 years before I set up my first tank, and I had about 20 years of freshwater aquarium experience already. Rushing into a saltwater setup usually doesn't give you good results, and the equipment and fish are a little too expensive to be finding out in a few weeks you got something that's not appropriate for what you want for your tank. I'd also recommend a good reference book for some research. 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

Some web sites you can check out for more info on keeping saltwater are the following:
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=16&cat=1990&articleid=2391
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/marineSetUp.htm
http://www.peteducation.com/category_summary.cfm?cat=1987
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/