African cichlids transition to saltwater

[Dooner248]

Hello everyone. After years of African cichlids, I am making the move to saltwater, of which I have no knowledge. Why?, I started my current African tank when my wife and I retired and downsized our home. We finished our basement off and my wife suggested I start my fish tank hobby once again after many years. Happily I agreed and set up a 210. Over the last five years we built up a fairly nice setup. Then, a couple weeks ago my wife found the fish all floating on the top. Apparently all the air bubblers failed for different reason.

So, now we decided to try something new and different for us and plan on trying salt water. We are working with our LFS to start us off. We hope to use what we can equipment wise, but want to try to minimize expenses. We know it is not cheap, but i think we will enjoy it.

 

[Colin_T]

A marine tank can be simple and run off a small power filter, or extravagant and have a trickle filter. If you want live corals you can use live rock to filter the water. I just ran an external canister filter and rock I collected from the beach in my bigger tanks. In my small marine tanks I used an air operated sponge filter. I collected my water from the beach, cycled the tank in the same way as you do for freshwater. Added fish and shrimp and did a huge (90%) water change each month using natural sea water.

 

[emeraldking]

Welcome to our forum...
If it's your first attempt to keep a marine tank, you should wisely seek for the right info. And what Colin has already stated, you can keep it simple (with lower costs) or run crazy with things (and have more costs). But an lfs is helping you out if I read it correctly. So, I'll hope that you'll have a great set up once it's done.