Thinking about starting a salt water tank

[Kirky88]

Hi all as the name so obviously suggests I'm thinking about doing a salt water reef tank and would like to know what is a possible stock option

It would be a 40 gallon tank
Looking to know if I could do live coral and what fish and anything else cool could go into it

I know this is a really broad question but i would love to know what's possible before I go further

 

[Convict2161]

That's a really loaded question right there. I'd start in the saltwater section to be honest.

You can have certain fish that will be ok with corals and other fish that will nip at them. So you need to figure out that's more important. Corals with fish only with live rock (FOWLR)

Here's a good site that will show what fish can go with what. And placement of corals.

http://www.liveaquaria.com/

http://www.thereeftank.com/blog/setting-up-your-saltwater-aquarium/

Here are some good videos to check out

http://youtu.be/UwRvd5kS4wY

 

[Kirky88]

Also probably a silly question
But can you use water and sand from a beach
I'm assuming no but thought I'd ask

 

[TheTodd]

I would not. Anything at a beach is probably going to have contaminants.

 

[Kirky88]

Also if I don't have a sump what do I do for filtration

 

[kdpuffer]

As for filtration that's where the live rock comes in. The more porous the rock the better, this is your main biological filtration. You can also use a normal filter but this should be primarily used for mechanical filtration to remove debris in the water. Check out YouTube for BRStv, they have some great videos that I found very helpful when I was setting up my tank.

 

[Daniel Fishy]

On using water from the beach depends on where you live.I use water from the inlet on high incoming tides and my lfs uses ocean water to unless there dumping in excess rainwater then we all just wait.i have never used salt crystals and never had a problem with ocean water.

 

[Kirky88]

I live on the gold coast Queensland Australia so we have a lot of open beaches and inlets, is there a way I could test the salt water for contaminants with out being a biologist?

 

[Gregcoyote]

At the very least the water would have to go thru a very fine filter first or be stored in a dark container for a few weeks to be sure all active pathogens have been killed. It is too easy to use artificial seawater as it is rich in calcium, which you will want, and it is free of contaminants and pathogens. This is a small closed system and it take very little to upset such a system. In public aquariums that handle millions of gallons, about half of them use filtered seawater and about half use artificial. Where you live you have a good chance, especially if collected a few miles off shore of having suitable water. But that seems like a pain to me.

IMO, I would go for a small coral garden and concentrate on smaller fish. Forget about tangs and big angel fish, think gobies, wrasses, fire fish, etc. there are many, many to choose from.

 

[uh.oh...]

Beaches are nature's protein skimmer

 

[Kirky88]

I would love coral 2 clown fish and some crabs and shrimp and I'd be happy with that if I could get 1 or 2 more fish that'd be great too

 

[Gregcoyote]

That sounds simple enough.