First timer

[jolopy409]

First as my first post on this site I would like to introduce myself. My name is Mike and I've been GRAVING a saltwater reef tank ever since seeing my friends 5 yrs ago in college. I have little knowledge of the necessary steps other than canvasing this forum as a guest for the last 2 months. Heres my goal.
1)I would like to have a reef tank.
2)1 or 2 clown fish for a little activity in the tank.
3)endless time spent staring at my hard work lol.

What i have already:
40 gallon seaclear acrylic tank(36 gallons i think dimensionally)
Emperor 400 bio-wheel power filter(hob) see i was reading slang on here lol
Marineland reef capable 36in led light system.

Besides substrate and live rock and salt water what do i need do get this going? I want to build off what i have. THANK YOU ANYONE WILLING TO PROVIDE THEIR KNOWLEDGE

 

[Yash]

Firstly welcome

Do you have a good fish store close to you that sells ro water? It's the first step

Also have u thought about how u will cycle the tank?

 

[KPCustoms]

here are some good ideas of choosing how you want to cycle your tank. this helped me out a lot.
FISHLESS
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums...ng-148283.html
FISH IN
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/articl...now/Page2.html
Fish-in Cycling: Step over into the dark side.
Here you go.

 

[jolopy409]

Yash- Yes there is a store that recently opened that has an ro/di filter who sells the water as well as many corals and fish. Problem though is he doesn't have a stock of supplies besides the base substrate. Most things I would imagine are ordered. Which I can do without a mark up haha.

Kpcustoms-I will def read thoughs over tonight and probably multiple times tomorrow at work. Without reading what you posted i have read that with fish usually the fish dies(a waste of money in my mind) So which would you think would be easiest for a first timer. I have an ace hardware 2 miles away for the janitorial ammonia. I read a lot of people talking about that already.

Edit- just checked the links and they say they are invalid.

 

[KPCustoms]

ya do a fish less cycle its easier and cheeper. doing a fish in cycle takes water changes every day with 40-50% water and a lot of the fish die. i think its cruel really

 

[jolopy409]

Kp- So do I. Do you have a full link to those links you posted? When I click on them it says "cannot be found"

 

[KPCustoms]

one sec i will find them again

 

[KPCustoms]

fish less
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...guide-and-faq-to-fishless-cycling-148283.html

 

[KPCustoms]

fish in
I just learned about cycling but I already have fish. What now?!

 

[KPCustoms]

and another fish in
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f12/fish-in-cycling-step-over-into-the-dark-side-176446.html

 

[jolopy409]

I love this website. Nice to see that it is active and people are willing to help others who are starting rather than just posting pictures of their tanks and sitting back and waiting for their heads to get bigger.

THANK YOU!

 

[KPCustoms]

haha ya i know what you mean it has been extremely helpful to me. with out it i probably would still be staring at an empty tank scratching my head

 

[Sniperhank]

I made my entire rock set up out of LR. It helped my cycle go quicker than it would with base rock and some LR to seed it. Adding the LR wasn't enough to get the cycle going, so I through an uncooked shrimp in. This kicked it off and it went by fast.

I was a fool for a sale and picked up two clowns before I cycled. They are still alive...but it is still not recommended. Clowns and damsels are pretty hardy and more likely to survive the cycle.

Plain and simple, be patient! I keep screwing up on that...usually a patient guy but my freshwater roots and having to much expendable income at this time.

 

[KPCustoms]

putting fish in to early might not kill them but it can definitely hurt them and they can develop a lot of problems

 

[jolopy409]

Kp- Ya I've had the tank since mid Oct. i know what you mean about sitting there and scratching you head haha.The article seems easy enough

Sniper- Ya I read in the link he sent me about adding alot of live rock to pretty much "do" the cycle for you. I always see people who are selling there tanks and materials including live rock. Could i literally just buy say 25 - 30 pounds from another persons tanks an call it a day? lol I probably cant but it could probably get my Nitratrite? nitrate? which ever one you want going correct?

 

[Yash]

Just add all the live rock you want right now before the tank is cycled since it will start a mini cycle if you add it later on due to the die off. Also, do you have a test kit?

 

[jolopy409]

No test kit yet, rock or substrate. Also need to pick up a heater. What type of test kit should i get? After that its just set it up, put everything thing in and follow the steps.

 

[Yash]

API test kit works pretty well.
Sounds good, let us know if you have any questions.

 

[Sniperhank]

API are great, I enjoy mine. Reminds me of chemistry in HS. I'd suggest getting a kit rather than buying everything you need individually. Save you $ in the long run.

And yes, you could buy LR off of others in your area. Could be hit or miss, depends on if they were doing similar things that you want to do. Some people would keep hitchhiking crabs that would hurt corals if they didn't want coral...and so on. It might be cheaper in the long run. I have a local friend from HS that I am holding some of my Caribbean LR for for her tank. But since I just had all of my inverts die off in 24 hours...need to make sure that my latest LR addition didn't have copper in it...something else you need to be wary of. Just let me say this, avoid Petco or bulk stores.

And adding the LR wouldn't give you your nitrates or nitrites, it would start the process with your ammonia and move from nitrite to nitrate. For whatever reason mine didn't start on its own so I gave it some shrimp. Went really fast from there.

 

[joy13]

One important piece of equipment other than the test kit is a refractometer. I get all my live rock off craigslist or local forums I always ask if it was in a reef tank. Sometime I get some nice corals attached to the rocks and other times I get stuff like green star polyps.