my mom is starting an aquarium, need a bit of advice

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desolation

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Aug 4, 2006
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my mom wants to set up her own aquarium and she asked me for my help seeing as how i had a saltwater tank a good 5+ years back. over the years i have forgotten pretty much everything i knew, but am still very willing to relearn things to help her.

she is looking for roughly a 65-80 gallon aquarium. i believe she wants to get 2-3 medium sized fish (such as tangs) and 5-6 smaller fish (such as clownfish). is that a little too heavy of a bioload for that size of a tank?

i have millions of small questions but i dont know where to start. i'm sure all of them have been more or less covered in online tutorials. if there are any good general links or advice you can give me for setting up an aquarium, it'd be GREATLY appreciated.

also, i thought i might note, she really wants to have a reef as opposed to a FOWLR

thanks.
 
Right directly above your post is a post by Quarryshark that links to some articles here at AA. Those would be a good read. Otherwise, reading old threads will help. Utilize the search feature of this site for thousands of threads. And you can always ask questions, no matter how dumb you think they might be.

Welcome to AA!
 
Devilishturtles said:
Right directly above your post is a post by Quarryshark that links to some articles here at AA. Those would be a good read. Otherwise, reading old threads will help. Utilize the search feature of this site for thousands of threads. And you can always ask questions, no matter how dumb you think they might be.

Welcome to AA!

thanks.

i already read those though.
 
Minimum size for tangs is usualy around a 75 gallon for the smaller species since they are very active movers and require lots of space. The stock list is going to be heavy with those numbers, so my suggestion is to figure out what fish you want first off. Go visit some stores and just look at fish. It helps if they have more fleshed out reef tanks and not just overcrowded stock tanks to figure out the normal behavior of the fish.

Some suggestions:
- Get metal halide or T5 lighting if you're going to go reef. Anything else and you'll eventualy want to upgrade. My pick is for MH.
- Get a reef ready (pre drilled) tank. This will mean getting a sump too, but a sump can be as cheap as a 20 gallon tank. Don't get a wet/dry filter. If you do, then remove all the bioballs and turn it into a sump :)
- Get a skimmer. One that sits in sump or under the tank (feeding from the sump).
- Do get plenty of live or live+base (or even live+dead) rock.
- Figure out how you are going to get water movement in your tank (closed loop? powerheads?)
- Stop by here with an equipment list before buying anything. There is a suprising amount of junk out there, but luckily a good amount of quality products. Get some second and third and fourth opinions on equipment.
- Don't buy Odyssea/Aquatraders/Jebo lights. Fires are bad, even if you saved a lot of money on your lighting. Saving money on your car insurance is ok though.
 
Check Robert Fenner's "Conscientious Marine Aquarist" also for a good read on starting SW tanks. I'd recommmend doing so before you buy ANYTHING. And as mentioned before I'd go with at least a 75g for tangs.

Decide if you wanna go reef with your fish too.
 
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