starting my first saltwater tank

[nladd]

in the next couple of weeks i plan on starting my first saltwater tank, my plan is to use a 29g coralife biocube i plan on just getting premixed saltwater from a local fish shop for now planned setup is a live rock centerpiece and a few different corals throughout i also plan on stocking it with a couple clowns and smaller angelfish, any tips or advice on changes to the aquarium since i hear people modding those tanks a lot,equipment,any other needed also any corals or fish to avoid, or just tips in general?

[gone fishin]

I have not had one of those particular tanks. But I will offer this, make sure you test the water you buy from the LFS. There has been many threads where the water people bought was not up to par. This is due to lack of maintainance on their system or just bad luck catching the water right at the end of a run and the system is due for maintainance. good luck

[Nautifishy]

I agree with gone fishin, in the long run its best if you just make your own saltwater. People sell used RO/DI systems all the time for cheap, you can also get the replacement filters from your local hardware store as well. Making your own salt water is part of the fun, you should see the mixing stations some people build. Also since your just starting your tank you don't know what types of problems a bad batch of water will bring your aquarium while it cycles.

[dkeller_nc]

First, welcome to reef central!

A few tips/words of advice:

1) Get your advice on this forum, not your local fish shop (LFS). If you're really lucky, you've a really good LFS with knowledgeable staff. But that tends to be an exception; you will generally get much better advice on this forum, and none of us is trying to sell you anything. ;)

2) Consider starting a bigger tank. It might seem counter-intuitive, but it's actually much easier to start and maintain a saltwater tank with a mid-size water volume than a small one. A really good beginner-sized tank is a 75 gallon if you want a 4-foot tank, or a 40 gallon breeder tank if you want a 3-foot long tank. Generally speaking, the equipment cost for a tank of these sizes is nearly the same as a 20 or 30 gallon tank, and you then have a tank that allows quite an expanded range of appropriate fish choices, the added stability that a larger water volume provides, and plenty of room for aquascaping.

3) I can't stress this enough - read the threads posted here (http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1031074). It might take you a whole day to read through them, but it will be more than worth it. Many of us have seen examples of new folks that post a question or two, don't read the "how to setup a tank" thread, and spend hundreds of unnecessary dollars on needless equipment, supplements, and fish losses that they could've easily avoided with that small amount of time invested to read the beginner threads.

4) Since this is your first tank, consider setting it up as a FOWLR (fish only with live rock), with an eye toward converting it to a reef tank in the future if that's your eventual plan. You will save a good deal of money on the most expensive piece of equipment on a reef tank (the lights), and gain a great deal of experience keeping fish that can then be applied to a reef tank. Moreover, fish are a good deal tougher than other coral reef organisms. So if you make a mistake, there's a good possibility that your fish will make it through OK, where that might not be the case if you've started out with a full-blown reef.

[nladd]

thanks for the info so far ive already added more stuff to my shopping list but for right now just a couple more newbie questions, ive heard alot about live rock and seen it before but what exactly is it, and 2nd eventually i was planning on adding an anemone after the tank is going well, good idea? bad idea?

[ichthyogeek]

Live rock is rock that has been in the ocean, generally derived from dead corals. It supposedly has lots of beneficial life in the form of bacteria, copepods, amphipods, and, if you're lucky, corals, fanworms, and pretty things. Live rock also comes with problems, such as phosphates, algae, and "pests" such as crabs, aiptasia/majano anemones, and fireworms (not to be confused with beneficial bristleworms). Generally speaking, anemones need more light than your current Biocube has. Give us an equipment list, and a stocking list, and we can help you out more. Also, I would recommend getting a few books on aquariums.

[nladd]

Right now my equipment list sits at
Tank with lights and filter
Stand
Live sand
Live rock
Heater
Protein skimmer in near future not right away unless needed
Powerheads
And chemicals and salt, I'm sure there more here I'm not thinking of right now

Stocking list so far
Cleaner shrimp and crabs
And a couple of clownfish
Thats all I can think of right now,any suggestions for colorful fish that are not hugely difficult to care for?

[ichthyogeek]

Okay...you might need to be a bit more specific when it comes to details, sorry if I'm being picky:
Tank: 29 gallon Biocube?
Lights: Metal Halide? LED? PC? T5HO? How many, how many watts total, what kind, etc.
Filter: HOB, canister, box, sponge? What kind, how many gallons per hour?
Stand: as long as it can hold the tank, that sounds good.
Live Sand: I'd save the money, and buy predominantly dry sand, and add a small bag of live sand to inoculate with all the nice stuff, how many pounds of live?
Live Rock: how many pounds?
Heater: What kind? How many watts? etc.
Protein Skimmer: tell us what you're looking for, that way you can find what you need.
Powerheads: or circulation pumps? how many GPH? How many pumps?
Chemicals: do you mean a test kit? Or buffers, kalkwasser, iodine, molybdenum etc.?
Salt: I don't think this matters, as long as you're using a brand good for your needs

Stocking List: state the species, and how many
Cleaner shrimp: some sort of Lysmata spp.? How many?
Crabs: Mithrax, hermit, gorilla, porcelain; there are too many different crabs in this hobby for one to just say "crabs"
Clownfish: a pair of the regular clowns ( Amphiprion ocellaris or A. percula) should do fine in this tank.
Other Colorful fish: a bicolor blenny (Ecsenius bicolor) would help eat algae in the aquarium. Wrasses would be a good idea, I'm partial to the yellow/banana wrasse (Halichoeres chrysus). A firefish (Nematoleotris magnifica) is also nice, but prone to jumping. Do remember, that only about 4 fish would comfortably fit into your tank. You also said you were looking at corals and anemones? What did you have in mind?

[dkeller_nc]

Nladd -

A couple of other thoughts:

A reef tank can be maintained without a protein skimmer, but usually by folks with a good deal of experience, and even then, with a good bit of additional maintenance in the form of water changes. Given that you've little experience with reef tanks, and you intend to purchase/transport home pre-mixed saltwater (so water changes will be limited) a protein skimmer is highly recommended.

Anemones are difficult animals to keep healthy, and definitely not a beginner's or new tank's preferred invertebrate. If you insist, then the bubble-tip anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor) is the least troublesome of a difficult group of animals to care for.

With respect to live rock vs. dead rock, there's a thread on the beginner's forum called "Beginner's guide to Live Rock" that is worth reading and will define a lot of terms and give you a lot of basic information (it's also linked to in the "Setting Up: How To!!!" sticky thread - you did read that, didn't you? ;)).

Generally speaking, you've a choice between buying rock from the ocean, shipped wet, versus dead rock that's either been terrestrially mined or harvested from the ocean (usually Pacific Ocean) and left to dry out on the beach.

As a beginner, I'd strongly encourage you to buy actual high-quality live rock from a vendor like Premium Aquatics or Tampa Bay Saltwater rather than start your tank with dead rock. Starting a tank with dead rock is a valid choice, of course, and is generally cheaper. But it's also much more difficult to control algae outbreaks during the initial set-up/cycling on dead rock, and it takes much longer for the rock in the tank to populate and develop into a suitable substrate for corals.

[edinphilly]

Lots of questions and lots of good advice you're getting. I will only add two things.

I agree don't buy your water premade. However if you're not ready for a RODI (I didn't want the hassle) distilled water from the grocery store is an easy alternative. I have a 29g too. Any larger and I'd bite the bullet and go with RODI.

The second thing is I think 29g is plenty big. Don't get me wrong I'd always like an upgrade but I don't want the maintenance that goes with a larger more complex system. At 29g you'll have water stability without a huge system. It DOES limit you're inhabitants though for sure.

[nladd]

sorry for the delayed responses (one of the joys of working somewhere open 7 days a week



ichthy:im not very specific usually but with this project ill have to learn to, and for me for showing my newbieness i dont know species very well yet but were getitn there
tank: 29g coralife biocube
filter:factory 3 stage filtration system on the biocube
lighting: factory 2 pc bulbs 6 led lunar bulbs
rock: i was thinking of using between 10-20lbs.
heater:i was thinking of 2 50 watt or 1 100 watt heater
protein skimmer: not looking for something real fancy just needs to do the job right
powerheads: wash thinking 2 coralife 750gph circ. pumps
chemicals: test kit for sure but now looking i wont need conditioners or safe start since im starting to lean towards making my own saltwater with distilled water and i plan on it cycling for at least a week or 2 before adding fish
salt: instant ocean
stocking list: as of right now the only fish i for sure know i want in the tank are 2-3 ocellaris clowns will probably find a few more soon
cleaners: hermit crabs, and probably 2 peppermint shrimp or scarlet cleaners

dkeller: definitely going with live rock just need to do my research and find a good place to buy from, also starting to lean towards making my own saltwater but still probably going to buy a skimmer just for added protection

edin: im doing the 29 right now mainly because lack of space would really be nice to have room for a 75-125 gallon tank but not yet the smaller one will hopefully be good and if i dont have room for a bigger tank dont think ill have the space for an RODI system

[ichthyogeek]

nladd, don't worry about it.
Filter: from the DrsFosterSmith description, it's a wet-dry filter, with activated carbon, bioballs, and a return pump on the back. Since I just have a filter sock and protein skimmer on my tank, I'll leave somebody who knows about wet-dry to help you with that.
Lighting: Most anemones won't survive with that little light. I think you can add soft corals, and some LPS, but not positive.
Rock: It depends on how porous it is. If it's incredibly holey, then you can probably get away with ~17 lbs, but I would stick with the 1-2 lbs/gallon rule.
Heater: If you go with 2, then you spend more money for more stability, in that if one of the heaters malfunctions, the tank will take longer to cool down or heat up.
Protein skimmer:There's needle-wheel, venturi, and wood block protein skimmers. Look around on the forum for something good.
Powerheads: combined with the filter pump,that's a good 60 X turnover/hour. I think I read somewhere something about 10-20x turnover/hour?
Chemicals: sounds good, I thought you meant supplements or something
Cycling: 1-2 weeks is not enough time. At All. You need to cycle the tank, and test for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates, maybe not every day, but frequently. You don't want to add a clownfish, and watch it die just because you thought the tank was cycled. Not positive, but ~4 weeks is a good period of time for the cycle to finish.
Salt: This is good for a FOWLR, but get the reef crystals or another reef salt if you plan on adding corals.
F Stocking: maximum of 2 clownfish. When the juveniles mature, the pair will gang up on the odd one out, and you'll have a dead clown. You will almost always get a pair if you buy 2 juveniles.
Cleaners: Sounds good! The hermits will eat algae and meaty bits of food that the clowns don't eat, and if you get peppermint shrimp, then the shrimp will produce larvae that the clowns can eat, and in addition might eat Aiptasia. Not sure on the cleaning ability of the shrimp though compared to cleaner shrimp.

[nladd]

thank you for the advice so far, plans are starting to get set into stone ill alsoo have to look into the lighting and see about upgrading it sometime, the 2 heaters were mainly a just in case one failed but ill probably be going with a single higher watt heater since i have 2 in my freshwater tank i could take out in an emergency just long enough to get the issue taken care of, no problem with adding some more rock will make the centerpiece look that much better, will probably drop down to 1 smaller powered circ. as opposed to 2 , and salt ill probably find the reef crystal now since i do eventually want to add coral once the tanks established and lighting is upgraded

[nladd]

Also for an RODI system, how hard are they to set up, what all is needed and how much space do they take up?

[Jeff210]

Bulk Reef Supply has a series of youtube videos on RODI - here is a first episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58J4Jrw4ZbY

[ichthyogeek]

With the AquaFX Barracuda RO/DI that I use, it takes up maybe 2 square feet? It has a screw on adapter so I can just attach it to the faucet. Easy to set up, doesn't take up a lot of room, and the 50 gpd unit is 144$ at the moment at DrsFosterSmith. The price was recouped from no longer having to pay a local 89 cents/gallon @10 gallons/week.

The first stage of the filter is a micron filter that catches tiny particles that can ruin the filter. The second stage is a carbon block to absorb chlorine (?). The RO unit is a semipermeable membrane that gets rid of anything larger than an ion, and the DI unit is a mix of resins that bind with ions. At least, that's from what I understand.

[nladd]

ok so an RODI system is something im really going to consider now,
in regards to QT how big of a tank is needed for that also does it need to be set up with everything the DT will have in regards to protein skimmers t5 lights etc., and i know that the LFS that i plan on buying my fish and coral from quarantines all fish and coral they get is it a good idea to still put them in QT when i get them?

[ichthyogeek]

If it's just the clownfish, then I'd suggest a 10 gallon QT. QT tank size depends on how big the fish being quarantined is. 10 gallons is big enough for the fish to swim in, and small enough for easy maintenance. Lionfish and other large/predator fish will need bigger QT. A simple light for observation, a heater to keep the fish warm, I'm not sure about the protein skimmer, and some sort of shelter for the fish (PVC pipe is a good choice), and definitely some sort of biological filter. Even if your LFS quarantines, you should still quarantine the fish. There might be diseases in the water that you don't want established in your DT. If you want to quarantine a coral, you need a light powerful enough to give the coral the light it needs. Not sure where I read this, but somebody somewhere recommends preparing the tank to the salinity of the shop tank, and doing a 20 minute drip to acclimate; a slow acclimation to the DT salinity would follow over the quarantine period. If you're planning on quarantining coral, then make sure to never use copper based medications in the tank.

[nladd]

Ok sounds like a plan and just a few more things for the shopping list.

[nladd]

Quick little update here.Tank setup will be pushed back to about mid January when our Christmas decor comes down so we don't have to do a bunch of shuffling of furniture, but I plan to start buying my supplies next eek but before I do I have a couple of questions.

1. I heard that the API test kits are garbage, does anyone have any recommendations on a good test kit?

2. I was originally going to use a hydrometer to mix my salt water but heard that they all will show a different salinity so now i will be using a refractometer, does anyone have a recommendation on a good one as well?

[ReefPony]

Quick little update here.Tank setup will be pushed back to about mid January when our Christmas decor comes down so we don't have to do a bunch of shuffling of furniture, but I plan to start buying my supplies next eek but before I do I have a couple of questions.

1. I heard that the API test kits are garbage, does anyone have any recommendations on a good test kit?

2. I was originally going to use a hydrometer to mix my salt water but heard that they all will show a different salinity so now i will be using a refractometer, does anyone have a recommendation on a good one as well?


1. API kits are not ideal. However, during your cycle they are fine. Others may disagree but, in my experience, API kits do a good enough job of telling you when there's 0 of whatever you're testing for. However, once you get past the cycling point, you'll want to go Red Sea Pro of Salifert (opinions vary). Currently, I'm using Red Sea Pro kits for everything but I have also used Salifert. My argument is that, when you're first starting out and just need to know when ammonia and nitrite have gone to zero, the API kits are just fine.

2. I have used a hydrometer in the past and had decent results. However, I was using a lab grade calibrated hydrometer and have a lot of experience reading them accurately (home brewing). The swing arm hydrometers from pet shops, etc aren't really accurate enough from what I've been told. A refractometer is only going to cost you $30 or $40. If I was starting over tomorrow, a refractometer would be one of my first purchases if I was going to mix my own saltwater.

[edinphilly]

I agree. I prefer Red Sea. Will say though that I don't test super often. Ammonia and nitrite API is fine. Nitrate I have API and Salifert. That's what you need for the first few months. Then as you add coral calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium. Hobby grade phosphate tests are worthless I wouldn't bother.

Also agree with refractometer.

I have a cheap 30 dollar eBay one and it's been fine. Just keep it calibrated.

[edinphilly]

To elaborate on the phosphate test statement... once you get past the first phases of cycling (not just nitrogen cycle) algae blooms etc (this takes several months) your tank will "settle in" and be much more stable. At that point you won't need to test nitrate as much. The presence of algae will signal elevated nitrate and phosphate. In a 29g you can keep them in check with a bag of Chemipure elite or something similar tossed into one of your filter chambers. Obviously along with good husbandry. You don't want to just mask the problem such as over feeding.

At that point you'll want to be focused on testing the elements you need for coral to grow. You'll keep an eye on nitrate but only be testing ammonia and nitrite at the sign of a problem.

Keep a journal of levels you test, water changes, livestock additions (and deaths) etc. I didn't and wish I had. It would have made things easier.

[oceanlassiter]

I got a RO/DI unit for about $90 from amazon 0PPM Portable 150 GPD Reverse Osmosis RO+DI Filtration POQ-4B-150 It has worked well so far. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FAYBVB8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[nladd]

Hope everyone had a merry Christmas, just another quick update here. Most of my items are now in my possession,will be starting a build thread soon, plan on buying a tunze 9001 and intank media basket Thursday and then dry rock in 2 weeks then the tank gets setup but i have one question first. I've heard the stock biocube lighting is terrible for corals, can anyone recommend a good lighting upgrade that wont 100% break the bank and is somewhat easy to install?

[chefbill]

I've heard the stock biocube lighting is terrible for corals, can anyone recommend a good lighting upgrade that wont 100% break the bank and is somewhat easy to install?

BAH
May not be the best, may not support colorful sticks, but for most of everything else it is fine.

My tank after 11 months, stock lighting.


The following is my stock list from a previous post:


current livestock is:
rainfordii goby
pink spot watchman
gold strip maroon clown
mis-bar occ clown
chalk basslet
bittle star
emerald crab
cleaner shrimp
nessarius snails
trochus snails
astrea snails
tiger tail cucumber
maxi mini anemone

softies:
green polyp toadstool
devil's hand
misc mushrooms
green star polyps
xenia
green yuma

Z and P:
magicians
red people eaters
blue hornets
rastas
bam bams
radioactive dragon eyes
grandis
eagle eyes
purple rings
pink rings
several un named

LPS:
4 different frogspawns
pink hammer
blue candy canes
green candy canes
4 color lobo
fox coral
duncans
favia
3 color platy

SPS:
cyphastria
cactus coral
ORA mint pavona
ponape bird's nest
grren polyp bird's nest
red monti cap
brown monti cap
green slimer

NPS:
chili coral
sun coral

I run a skimmer in chamber 1 along with a phos ban reactor with carbon and GFO. Cheato and a chunk of live rock in chamber 2. I use a 2 part daily, and dose 1 single drop of iodine weekly. I do a 5 gallon water change every 8 or 10 days.

Everything grows in my tank...except for acans and rics. Go figure.

As far as recommended for beginners, main anything but SPS, with research and more research on every addition. Zoas and palys offer an immediate boost of color at (sometimes) reasonable prices. I like euphilias (hammers, torches, frogspawns) for movement. Xenia and GSP are fast growers, often considered weeds or invasive at the least, but actually do look nice and have some movement.

Good luck and thank you for the compliment.

[nladd]

Tank looks good,have you added any of the LED bars or is it 100% factory?

[chefbill]

sorry, yes added blue and soft white LED bars. These are visual only, they do nothing the the coral.