very new to the hobby!!! please help

[hughes209190]

hello my name is jeremy hughes i am very new to the hobby. I have always liked saltwater aquariums and I finally decided to get my own. I just bought a 55 gallon tank but i have nothing else. If you could tell me whats the best supplies to get for my tank please be specific. I would also like to know whats the best way to start my new tank? thank you!

[aandfsoccr04]

The first question I would ask of you, is the tank drilled or reef ready? The majority of people here highly recommend using a sump in addition with your display tank to store things like heaters, protein skimmers, and add additional water volume to the overall setup.

You're gonna need some powerheads or a closed loop system for flow, some type of lighting to help the corals grow, and some way of purifiying your tap water to make it have a TDS reading of as close to 0 as you can get.

[Zappo]

Before deciding on what equipment to buy, start by thinking about what sort of fish/corals you want to keep. If you want to keep sps, you'll need very strong lighting, water flow, and filtration. A fish-only tank, on the other hand, just needs enough light to let you see the the fish, enough filtration to keep the water reasonably clean and enough water flow to keep things moving.

If you can afford it, try to get adjustable powerheads like tunze or vortechs that are capable of providing too much flow. You can always turn them down a bit. An oversized skimmer would be good too. I only say this because people often upgrade their 55 gallon tanks eventually to get more space for arranging rocks and corals. 55's are pretty narrow. You'll save a lot of money in the long run if you buy equipment that you know you'll be keeping for a long time.

As for how to start it, that's the easy part. Once you have the water/sand/rocks added, just toss in a cube of frozen food (or a small uncooked shrimp) and wait for it to rot. When ammonia and nitrites stop showing up in your water tests, it's ready to go.

[Ron Reefman]

Jeremy,
Do yourself a HUGE favor and look for a local club. You didn't say where you are, but RC has a list of most of the local clubs. The people there will be able to show you how they set their systems up and tell you why they did it the way they did. The concern is, there are almost as many ways to set up a system as there are people with tanks!

Read ALL the stickes at the top of this forum and think about what you want in your tank. You can do just fish, fish with LR (Live Rock), a reef with fish and easy corals, or more difficult corals or very difficult corals. They are all doable, but each step along that list will cost you more in hardware, time and inhabitants. See what other reefers in your area have done and then decide. Trust me, it's by far the best way. And getting to know local reefers can be so helpful when you need something. Oh, and big surprise, most reefers love showing off their tanks and talking about them too!

Good luck and please take your time. I've been at this for 7 years, my current tank is just over a year old (and it took me 6 months to get everything I wanted) and it's just now starting to look really cool... OK, look the way I wanted it to look.

[freetareef]

Before deciding on what equipment to buy, start by thinking about what sort of fish/corals you want to keep. If you want to keep sps, you'll need very strong lighting, water flow, and filtration. A fish-only tank, on the other hand, just needs enough light to let you see the the fish, enough filtration to keep the water reasonably clean and enough water flow to keep things moving.

If you can afford it, try to get adjustable powerheads like tunze or vortechs that are capable of providing too much flow. You can always turn them down a bit. An oversized skimmer would be good too. I only say this because people often upgrade their 55 gallon tanks eventually to get more space for arranging rocks and corals. 55's are pretty narrow. You'll save a lot of money in the long run if you buy equipment that you know you'll be keeping for a long time.

As for how to start it, that's the easy part. Once you have the water/sand/rocks added, just toss in a cube of frozen food (or a small uncooked shrimp) and wait for it to rot. When ammonia and nitrites stop showing up in your water tests, it's ready to go.

+1
You need to know what direction you want your tank to go before we can help you!!! welcome to rc and don't forget to read all the stickies a few times!!!

[dsn112]

[welcome]

like others have said, read the stickies, then go on a site like marine depot and check out some stuff and then look for it used

[dsn112]

Double post

[jucario]

I would just add to try to read at least one book, "The Conscientious Marine Aquarist" it is only one of many that come to mind that are quite useful and entertaining.

[skeeter_usaf]

Make sure you do plenty of research. Nothing good happens fast in this hobby. Be patient and welcome to RC.