New to marine fish

[Tom Truesdell]

I need some advise about starting a new tank. I've got a 40? gal tank and stand from my son. I. spent $400 on lights, filters, pumps and crushed coral. I've been getting my info from Petco and Saltwater Aquariums for Dummies. I resently went to an aquarium store in the Spokane valley and was told every thing I've done so far is wrong. The under gravel filter, the power filter on the outside, the crushed coral, even the protein skimmer I bought is'nt good enough. I only paid $150 for it, not $200 at least. It is a Seaclone mod 100. I've bought 10 lb of live rock but I guess I need another 35 lb ($350) a $200 skimmer and I'm sure I need a test kit that checks more than PH, alki and NO2. I have replaced the coral with sand, but I'm ready to dump the whole thing out and get some guppies. I have had 20 yrs experiance with fresh water and I thought it would be fun to try salt water. I knew it wouldn't be cheap, but $1000 and no fish. Any thoughts out there?

 

[Krish]

Welcome to RF!!! :welcome:. Sorry to hear about being caught off guard!! The saltwater hobby is a much more expensive hobby than fresh and whichever store told you that the under gravel filter, power filter and seaclone skimmer were not the things to buy gave you good advice . The crushed corals I would have skipped as well. I personally had a few issues with it myself (nitrate issues) and switched to a finer grained sand then eventually I skipped the sandbed altogether as I didn't want to keep up with the sandbed maintenance as well as the amount of flow I ran in my tanks, the sand would never stay put . $1000 is also pretty cheap as well considering what some spend for their setups. I think I paid about $300 for the skimmer I used on my 38 gal, chiller was about $300-400 if I remember correctly, lighting was about $250, tank and sump was another $500, then you have to think about all the pumps and so forth. It adds up real quick and for me living in the Bahamas, I have to pay an additional 52% import duty on everything I import here. My 75gal ran me about 5K when all was said and done so don't feel too bad . The good thing is you are in the right place. The hobby doesn't have to be that expensive and alot can be accomplished spending alot less. You just need to buy the right stuff. Your liverock is going to be one of the most important pieces to your aquarium. This is the foundation for your biological filtration and denitrification. No powerfilter, canister filter at all is needed unless you are maybe looking for a place to run carbon. The bacteria that will grow in and on your rock will do all the work for you biologically. A protein skimmer is a nice piece to have as well. It's amazing what it will pull out of your water! . You always want to make sure you have adequet flow too. Unlike freshwater tanks that operate off of minimal flow usually in the form of a little surface aggitation provided by a powerfilter, saltwater aquariums require a lot more flow than that as you don't want there to be any dead spots in the tank where waste can settle. Corals also require their food to be brought to them so you want adequet flow to bring the food to them. The idea is to keep all waste and detritus in the water column so that it can either be skimmed out, used up by the coral or filtered out of the system. Any waste left to sit and rott will degrade water quality shooting up nitrate and phosphate levels which will result in un-wanted nuicance algae to grow. I think alot of people will generally shoot for about a 40x turnover rate. Some go a bit more depending on what they are trying to accomplish. Lighting, well this will all depend on what types of marine life you plan to keep. I guess your best bet is to give us a breakdown of exactly what you have now, and what your plans are for the tank (ie a fish only setup or a reef type setup with corals). That way, we will know which direction to point you in. Also, keep in mind that there are many ways to go about things in this hobby and be successful so gather all the info you can and then choose which route suits you best.

Good luck and I hope you enjoy it here!!

 

[returnofsid]

Hi and welcome to Reef Frontiers!! Nice to have another Spokanite among us! There's actually a lot of us here.

Okay, now that the important part is out of the way, let's get you some help!

Unfortunately, you've succumbed to what a lot of new hobbyists do. You're not alone, by any means.

In a Marine Aquarium, 100% of your filtration can be accomplished with quality and the right quantity of live rock, good flow, and a quality protein skimmer.

Other filtration methods, such as Canister Filters, Undergravel Filter systems, HOB Power Filters, etc. typically create nitrates, unless they're meticulously maintained, which becomes a huge burden. Crushed Coral will also quickly become a nitrate trap, as detritus gets trapped in it, needing to be continuously vacuumed out. Finer grained sands typically work out much better, is a denitrator, and also don't need to be disturbed, by vacuuming or cleaning the sand bed. A good sand bed rarely needs to be touched, by us humans. We have critters to do that work for us, in the form of bristle worms, sand sifting fish, nassarius snails and such.

I'm sorry you were given bad advice, to start with, and hope you don't get too discouraged and quit the hobby. Don't Give Up!! Our hobby is very rewarding, but does require a bit more of a learning curve, than most freshwater aspects. You've found a wonderful place, here, to learn and be part of a great community.

 

[ac7av]

Almost everyone makes the same mistakes when getting started before finding this wonderful site and all its interesting and knowledgeable people.

First I want to say if you want to use the under gravel filter you should talk to Paul B on here. He can definitely help you with that. He has been running one for I think nearly 40 years but its not used in the traditional method. He could tell you how its done if your going to use it. They are definitely not the usual method these days but they do work. As far as the rest of the items you have already purchased I would say see if you can take it back to what ever store you got if from for at minimal, a store credit or refund and make a list of specific things that would want to get based on your research for the type of tank you are considering keeping. Fish only tank, fish only with live rock, fish with coral and live rock or some specialty item you would really like. Each will demand a different approach and the equipment should be chosen to accommodate that choice. A word of caution, if you plan on upgrading from fish only to full blown reef tank you should get the equipment to run the full reef the firs time. Buying the equipment to run the tank is in most cases more expensive then the tank, stand, and live stock so you don’t want to have to buy the same thing more then necessary as you grow and expand your system. This is experience talking. I have purchased nearly every thing twice except the tank because of this in 5 years time.

 

[freetareef]

hi and welcome!! don't forget to look for some used equip in the classifieds and read all the stickys to get a good understanding of some basics!!