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POLARBEAR0871

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
1,169
Ok so I'm 16 and have an empty 40 gallon tank tall and I just got rid of the fish inside of it and am now wanting to start a salt tank plz tell me how to do this properly I wanna try and start a nano reef but how could I do that and what are some cool fish to get once I start
 
Waiting... The hardest part of starting a new reef aquarium :banghead:

To start you can decide whether to go with a Bare Bottomed tank or use some sort of substrate. If you choose to avoid the bare bottomed look I would go with a Fiji Pink grade aragonite sand, it seems to be the most popular one.

For filtration you will need to either get a live rock or dry rock (I would probably go with 75% dry rock and 25% live rock for seeding). 40lbs would be a good starting point and you can go up from there based on how much more you want. As for water movement in the tank you will want to do approximately 20x-30x tank volume in water flow per hour. I would lean more towards the 30x flow rate so approx. 1200gph flow on powerheads.

Before adding anything to your tank it will need to go through a cycle similar to the way a freshwater tank is cycled. There are TONS of articles on this.

Lighting is by far the most difficult part of owning a reef. I am going to start up a 40 breeder tank in august and I plan on buying the light found at this link:

2 120W Marine Organism Aquarium Coral Reef Fish Tank LED Lamp Black Dimmable | eBay

That should allow you to grow just about any type of coral you would like.
 
Oh ummm yeah I have blue LED lights from the freshwater tank I had before
 
Unless those lights were advertised to be reef ready I wouldn't imagine they would give the par rating you need to keep corals. A good idea tho would be to go FWLR while saving up for a high quality light fixture. I would think that either those LEDs I linked or a 4 bulb t5ho light fixture would be sufficient to keep most corals. I have greatly been preferring LEDs over the fluorescent fixtures because the bulbs on LEDs only need to be replaced every 3-5 years whereas the fluorescent bulbs might need to be replaced every 6-10 months. The difference in bulb costs themselves would more than make up for the difference in cost a LED fixture would give.
 
Ok so I'm 16 and have an empty 40 gallon tank tall and I just got rid of the fish inside of it and am now wanting to start a salt tank plz tell me how to do this properly I wanna try and start a nano reef but how could I do that and what are some cool fish to get once I start

Please tell me you gave the fish to someone not just threw them away
 
Ok so I'm 16 and have an empty 40 gallon tank tall and I just got rid of the fish inside of it and am now wanting to start a salt tank plz tell me how to do this properly I wanna try and start a nano reef but how could I do that and what are some cool fish to get once I start

Hate to be a party pooper, but I really think a marine tank is going to be too difficult and too expensive for you at this time. I understand you are still at school and live in an area that doesn't provide easy access to the equipment you would need.

After the rough experiences you've had over the past few months, I'd recommend getting some easy-to-care-for fish to build up some experience with filtration, water testing, disease prevention and treatment etc etc.
the fish that you have not been able to keep alive were IMO too advanced for your current experience and budget.

There's plenty of time for a salty when you are bringing in a wage. For now just enjoy the simple pleasures of an easy tropical tank :)

Just my 2 cents.
 
I do have a job that pays over $8.50 an hour and I have family that have experience with salt tanks but I just wanted your guy's opinion on what equipment I should use that could potentially be cheap and not over expensive
 
Saltwater tanks are not that expensive to maintain, its the initial cost that adds up. Are you going to do a FOWLR or reef? The fish only is much less costly due to not needing as expensive lighting and filtration. If you must do reef, you are looking at a lot up front. Maybe start FOWLR and convert to reef over time if money is an issue.
 
Saltwater tanks are not that expensive to maintain, its the initial cost that adds up. Are you going to do a FOWLR or reef? The fish only is much less costly due to not needing as expensive lighting and filtration. If you must do reef, you are looking at a lot up front. Maybe start FOWLR and convert to reef over time if money is an issue.

Ok what that could work I didn't think of that. Now I went to a fish store bout half hour from my house and they had this crazy looking fish looked like a lobster but it was the size of a crawfish it was purple and red blue and green craziest thing ever would that be able to go in a tank with fish
 
Ok what that could work I didn't think of that. Now I went to a fish store bout half hour from my house and they had this crazy looking fish looked like a lobster but it was the size of a crawfish it was purple and red blue and green craziest thing ever would that be able to go in a tank with fish

Nice to know I'm like white noise over here, I said the same thing a little rearlier in the post :D

I am not really sure what you are talking about but I would avoid most inverts like that in a reef tank. Most are potentially dangerous to either fish or corals. It could have been a reef lobster or mantis shrimp. We would really need to know what its name is first.
 
I'll ask if he has it there next time I go I'm currently in Florida I live in indiana
 
Its probably some kind of Mantis Shrimp. They are very aggressive and usually are kept in a species-only tank. They will go after just about anything else in the tank.
 
Nice to know I'm like white noise over here, I said the same thing a little rearlier in the post :D .

You did. :) I think its a good way to go. Just gotta plan everything with that in mind. Get fish and rock and all that going and save for a good skimmer and lights (go LED).
 
Its probably some kind of Mantis Shrimp. They are very aggressive and usually are kept in a species-only tank. They will go after just about anything else in the tank.

On that note mantis shrimp are freaking awesome! :cool:

If my house wasn't full of fish tanks already I would have a mantis shrimp tank
 
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