Fish Only or Not?

[lukeoslavia]

Hello,
I am pretty new to the forum and returning to fish keeping. I just set up a freshwater 32g about a month ago, and well the MTS kicked in super fast. I now have a 75g on the way.

I had planned to do an American cichlid tank, but was reading it might be just as easy or even easier to maintain a fish-only saltwater tank. I had a reef tank in the past that was more of a heartache than enjoyment and threw me off the hobby for a while (no fish deaths, just had to give them up due to cyanobacteria winning the war)

I am wondering though since it's been years. I have RO water with a re-mineralizer. And it outputs 7.3 - 7.5 ph water. This is perfect for FW but I'm wondering if it's practical to use for a fish-only SW tank. I don't want to go chasing PH around again.

Does anyone have any advice on SW ph or should I stick to the cichlid idea?

[BigRedsReefs10]

Your ph in a sw tank will be maintained by the rock sand and water itself. I’ve also never been a proponent of chasing a certain ph, just let the tank run at what it runs at, I don’t even test it. In terms of dealing with cyano, it’s usually a flow issue so you shouldn’t let that discourage you from keeping a reef. The new power heads are all pretty much customizable so it’s easy to maintain proper flow.

[lukeoslavia]

I don't plan on any live rock / base, I was going to use some fake reef-looking decorations from Petsmart or amazon.

So I should just add my sand and decorations and just forget about the ph level? I also had a refugium and skimmer and all kinds of stuff when I had the reef tank. I was thinking I could get by with just an fx4 with a fish-only aquarium plus two wavemakers. Does that sound about right?