Thinking about trying out a simple saltwater tank

[Ryan]

I've been lurking on reefcentral.com for a while but it's making my head spin. There is so much to take in.

I have a spare 55 gallon sitting around and my cousins wanted me to try my hand at a simple saltwater setup. Maybe a few ocellaris clowns, a flame angel... nothing fancy. I don't really want to get into expensive lighting or coral. Just FOWLR, I guess.

Can anyone give me an idea on a basic starter setup for a 55 gallon? What sort of filtration would you recommend? Do I really need a sump for a tank this size with a fish-only configuration? A skimmer? Suggestions and comments are welcome!

[Skip]

exactly ryan.. me too!! i would like some fire fish.. figure keep it small and they fish are very colorful and fairly inexpensive

[Darrell Ward]

Some live rock for bio, and a good skimmer is usually sufficient. A sump is a good place to keep the skimmer, heater, other hardware, and can give you better circulation with a good pump, but it's certainly not a requirement.

[alleykat0498]

The problem with sw is that its 250% more addictive than anything else in the world of aquatics. I started a 10 gal nano tank for just a few fish and somewhere around 10k later I lost 15-20k in corals during hurricane Irene. Nothing in sw is inexpensive. It's a wonderful hpbby, but be prepared to enroll in reefers anonymous within six weeks or so.

I will mention that any saltwater owner should have an RO unit, besides the skimmer its hands down the most important piece of equipment.

[Second Hand Pat]

Ryan, would you consider a 24 gallon cube? I have a 24 gallon if you would like to try it and it has everything, lights, pump, skimmer and filter. It does lack a stand however. It should allow you to keep a few clowns with some live rock. A bit small for an angel however. I would be willing to let you borrow it and you can get your feet wet.

I will warn you saltwater is addicting. A couple of these are really cool.

[Ryan]

Thank you for the offer, Pat, but then I'd be compelled to also fill up the empty 55 gallon and I'd be even more poor. I actually just managed to sell some cichlids and move some grow-outs around, so now I have the empty tank. My cousins spend a lot of time here and it'll be a project for us to work on. I'm just not real sure on saltwater basics.

I have a book on clownfish that talks a bit about basic tank setups, but much like the discus hobby, there are several ways to do things. Everything I've read in the clownfish book has been basically dismissed or disagreed with in my read-through of a Salt Tank 101 sticky at Reef Central. I figured some like-minded hobbyists (aka, discus folks) would have some suggestions on what equipment to start with, what I need for cycling, etc. Is live rock and live sand necessary? How much do I need, and how long does it have to sit? Do you feed it like a freshwater cycle?

[Skip]

can you go bb with salt tank if you have live rock..? instead of live sand

[Sean Buehrle]

can you go bb with salt tank if you have live rock..? instead of live sand

Absolutely

Get In a local reef club to curb expenses , I've never spent more than 20 bucks on a coral and have had some showstoppers.

Frags can be had for next to nothing.

Best bang for your buck on a skimmer is an octopus brand skimmer, they friggin rock.

I've always liked aquacave to buy reef supplies, he has good prices and fast shipping.

Don't buy someones rock either , buy new from a good supplier like tampabaysaltwater.

Don't under any circumstances use Tapwater, ro/di only.

I want to add to this

Take great care in selecting your lighting to go along with your tank size, reef lighting is pretty intense in some cases and can cause big problems.
Halides get hot and can cause big temp swings especially if you have a canopy. But no other lighting will match it for looks and intensity, reason I say that is because you can't get the shimmering effect with other lights.
Pay attention to what bulb you like and match it to your ballast, some ballasts don't fire all bulbs.
Electronic ballasts rock.

T5 lighting is nice and you can get some good colors out of them, but no shimmer effect.

Ya gotta pay alot of attention to lighting.

[Ryan]

It looks like I need $500+ worth of live rock just for the 55 gallon? No kidding when they said saltwater was pricey.

[pcsb23]

I had a reef tank for a while. In the end I just got bored with it ....

The tank below is (or was) a 300 litre tank, around 75 US gallons. Had some 75Kg of live rock and coral sand. The sand wasn't massively deep either. I had a T5 216watt (4x54) fixture over the top. It is a juwel tank and still had the built in internal filter (right side) and I added an external cannister too (if memory serves it was a horrid rena xp3) and I also had a large powerhead in there too with a sponge on the intake to stop the shrimp and smaller critters getting mashed. I did use a skimmer, which was a hob type, and it worked ok. I didn't dose anything.

Much of the soft polyps developed from the live rock, but the others were added over time. I did have an anemone for a while and it was very happy for most of the time (15 months or so) then decided to go walkabout and that was it ...

I started from scratch with this tank and "cured" the live rock, which basically means sticking it in sea water with a high current and a filter. The filter gets cycled from the curing process. Live rock acts as a de-nitrator I believe - I never saw nitrates or for that matter phosphates. I did around 33% to 50% w/c every 3 weeks and topped up using straight RO water. Always made the sea water with RO and synthetic salts too. Maintenance was really quite simple, a wipe down just before water changes and an occasional blast between the live rock (using the powerhead) to flush and detritus out.

It was suggested that we started with green chromis as these are a "good starter" fish - yea right! Unless you like them don't get them, they are the marine equivalent of convicts imo (apart from the breeding!). Safe to say I don't like them. I really liked the anthias though, these are lovely fish.

[Sean Buehrle]

It looks like I need $500+ worth of live rock just for the 55 gallon? No kidding when they said saltwater was pricey.

Yep startup sucks

In my opinion the rock is what makes a reef tank or fowler.

I could look at some nice shaped coraline covered rocks all day long.

[YSS]

I have a very basic SW set up. The most expensive part is the liverock. But you can get away with it by mixing baserocks with live rock. Same with live sand. I have a heater and a couple of HOB filter and powerheads for water movement, and a 200W CF light fixture. You can slowly add the live rock one at a time if you want more.

I have a few soft corals, 2 clowns, 1 fire fish, and 1 royal gramma. I also have bunch of inverts. I do 4G water changes everymonth or two in a 36G tank. At the moment, lowest maintenance tank I have. I love it, but I don't go overboard with it. Good luck with it. My clowns spawn now and then. It's pretty cool.

[Second Hand Pat]

It looks like I need $500+ worth of live rock just for the 55 gallon? No kidding when they said saltwater was pricey.

Ryan, this is why I offered the cube as a starting point and the offer is open ended. You can always add rock over time and start with a base rock as the bottom layer and add the pretty rock on top. I got a lot of my rock from these guys and they also have a base rock if you are interested in that.

http://sealifeinc.net/catalog/index....6f3bbe373402c7

I also have a 36 inch T5/MH 150 lighting fixture and in sump skimmer if you want to try those with the 55. My hubby build a DIY wall mount for the lighting fixture so it could be raised off the top of the tank to reduce heat buildup like Sean mentioned.



Anyway, happy to help anyway I can.

Pat

[TURQ64]

No such thing as a simple salt tank....think 'cashflow' always.....And unless you can guarantee captive bred stock, you become a major planet violator....

[ExReefer]

Absolutely

Get In a local reef club to curb expenses , I've never spent more than 20 bucks on a coral and have had some showstoppers.

Frags can be had for next to nothing.

Best bang for your buck on a skimmer is an octopus brand skimmer, they friggin rock.

I've always liked aquacave to buy reef supplies, he has good prices and fast shipping.

Don't buy someones rock either , buy new from a good supplier like tampabaysaltwater.

Don't under any circumstances use Tapwater, ro/di only.

I want to add to this

Take great care in selecting your lighting to go along with your tank size, reef lighting is pretty intense in some cases and can cause big problems.
Halides get hot and can cause big temp swings especially if you have a canopy. But no other lighting will match it for looks and intensity, reason I say that is because you can't get the shimmering effect with other lights.
Pay attention to what bulb you like and match it to your ballast, some ballasts don't fire all bulbs.
Electronic ballasts rock.

T5 lighting is nice and you can get some good colors out of them, but no shimmer effect.

Ya gotta pay alot of attention to lighting.

Some really good advice here! Based on my user name, you know I was a reef guy. Spent about 8 years keeping a reef tank and made lots of mistakes.
After years of insisting my tap water was "good enough", I switched over to RO/DI and my tank flourished. I should have listened to others' advice from the start, but I was trying to keep it low budget.

RO/DI and a good skimmer make the reef hobby pretty easy. Going BB with live rock helps too, but it looks unnatural.