Starting first marine tank

[Tom-tom]

Hi there I'm starting my first salt water tank, Been a avid cichlid breeder for 2 years, I've just purchased a 65gallon tank with a large canister filter, skimmer, steriliser test kits ect

I've been reading books and they all conflict each other

What's the best media to put in my external filter? Activated carbon? I'm just not sure

I would like to have fish and coral

Any tips would be greatly recived

 

[ronk]

People say that if you are going to use filter pads to replace often or you will have excessive nitrate build up. Other people go with crushed up LR.

 

[ronk]

And are you doing an in sump skimmer or a hob

 

[Tom-tom]

I'm goin for a hang on type, yeh I Hurd live rock inside, and to replace active carbon once a month, can't wait to set it all up thanks for the advice

 

[uscamaro]

It will benefit you in the long run if you use a sump instead of a canister filter. This will allow you to use a filter pad/sock for your mechanical filtration and LR for biological. Also, a sump would give you a place to hide your skimmer/heater/probes/etc. I don't have experience with them, but I've read that canister filters require a lot more maintenance.

 

[Feelthereefer]

Ditch the canister its headache waitin to happen build a sump or buy one its way better in the long run...good luck post pics...

 

[joy13]

This is how I did my HOB filter I used chemi pure elite, ran filter floss for a couple of days to polish the water and a couple of pieces of live rock. The only algae I had was the algae growing on the output of the filter it was like it made its own algae scrubber.

You can run carbon which is part of the chemi pure elite but I find that just carbon doesn't work as well in my tank. I still run chemi pure elite in my tanks but no longer have a HOB.

Chemi-Pure Elite removes phosphates and silicates as well as filtering organic particulates.

 

[Tom-tom]

Thanks for all the advice, I'm goin to my fish shop sat morning to get all the rest of the stuff, and I'll post some pics on setting it, stocking it when its circulated, so when someone want to start they will have my progress to learn from thanks again guys