Starting my first saltwater tank and would like some advice

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RockGreenLite

Aquarium Advice Newbie
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Mar 28, 2005
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I'm new here and am starting my first saltwater aquarium. I've had many fresh water tanks in the past and have some education on the subject but am a little scared in that this is going to be expensive.

I'm going full out. The tank I currently have picked out is a 215 gallon Oceanic with all the fixins. So far the package has been quoted to me at $4000. Included is set up in my home.

Anyway before I jump in I was looking at some things and would like some advise.

Glass or Acrylic? I'm thinking Acrylic

Who's got the best pumps, filters, and protein skimmers?

I'm starting with live rock and sand with hardy fish. Any suggestions, other than clown fish which is what all the stores have told me.

I thought about a reef but I'm really nervous about that and the additional thousand clams for lights. Any thoughts?

Thanks
 
I have a 225 and went with acrylic. It is nice but it does get scratched. You just have to be real careful working on the inside of the tank. I also got rounded corners on the front of the tank. It looks nice but a magnet cleaner does not get the corners so there is a disadvantage.

I went with lifereef filter and protein skimmer. It seemed expensisve but after receiving it and seeing the quality, ease of use and lack of maint, I would highly recommend it to anyone. I installed and extra bulkhead on my sump so I can run 2 pumps (in case one pump fails I have a backup to keep the water flowing) The think I really like about my lifereef stuff is that it is upgradable and if you decide to go reef, you have hookups for calcium reactor, it has hookups for R/O D/I and you can get filter cylinders and float switches.

HTH.
 
Forgot to mention. My set up costs

Tank $1275 shipped to my door
Lifereef LF1-300 with 36" skimmer $1100 (included 2 little giant pumps 1 for return and one for skimmer.

I added float switch filter cylinders, extra pump, 40 gal refugium ($350)
Lighting 2 Icecap 660 ballasts with 4 72" vho bulbs ($500)
Moonlights www.thelebos.com with lunar tracker $125

$3350 for an empty tank ready to fill with sand water, live rock. I am super happy with my setup and will be upgrading to some mh lighting from darin at captivereefs soon so I can get some corals.
 
One thing I've not considered yet is power requirements. I wonder, should run a new circuit for the tank?

Thought about building since I have a wood shop and build stuff from hardwood but that would take longer than I want. I'm real picky.
 
I built my whole room around my tank and I ran 2 20 amp circuits. Over kill yes. But I have one circuit that is dedicated to lighting and one to pumps/powerheads etc.
 
Wow. The more I read here the more I think it might not be a good idea to do this. I thought saltwater tanks were less hassle than freshwater.

Once set they were good to go. From what I've been reading that doesn't seem true. :cry:
 
I spend very little time maintaining mine now. I do water changes every 3 weeks and that is about it. The water that evaporates is replaced by my R/O unit that is on a float switch (on timer in case float gets stuck I don't flood) and that is it other than feeding and magnet cleaning the front.

Don't let all the info discourage you. Once they are up the pros definately outweight the cons IMO.
 
RockGreenLite said:
I thought saltwater tanks were less hassle than freshwater.

Whatever gave you that idea?

Seriously though, while there are a lot of aspects to keep track of, a healthy system that isn't overstocked will pretty much run itself.
I do weekly to biweekly 5gallon water changes in my 40gallon reef tank.
My 75gallon tank gets about 30gallons changed every week to 10days.

The more organized you are from the beginning, and doing a correct setup and cycle will really make success an easy task.
 
I was told by my retailer that I only had to do water changes every 4 to 6 months. I could simply add water when evaporated.

Is there any difference with the larger tanks? With my intended 215 gal that would be roughly 75 gallons a week. I didn't do near that many water changes with my fresh water tank and I kept it up and running for years. I took it down when my last fish got to big for the tank. I had a Pacu in a 20 gallon.
 
You need to do water changes at least once a month (most people do biweekly). You wouldn't need to change out nearly 75 gallons per water change though. I would suggest 20-30. If I were you I wouldn't trust that retailer anymore...
 
tmcpeek,

instead of running a timer you could connect two float switches in series. that way if one fails he other one will stop the pump. a sort of backup system. the fancy name is dual redundancy.

mark
 
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