Beginner Marine Set Up

[markinwooduk]

Hi Guys

Being new to the forum ill firstly say hello !

for the last year of so i have been keeping freshwater tropical fish such as discus, angels, clown loach, knife fish etc and am thinking of going down the marine aquarium route !

My current set up is a 300l tank with 2 external Eheim filters with a flow rate of 440lph each with volcanic rock inside for filtration and a foam filter above, and heater and 2 tube lights one power-glo whitish blue and a blue light both switchable.

As a beginner at marine i figure my best start is to get a FO tank with some live rock ? im not sure if fish only measn no live rock either ? but i guess keeping in mind any equipment i buy to have a 'reef compatibility' incase in the future i want to upgrade to reef also, im thinking of keeping the more popular fish such as clowns etc, i have read i shall need a protein skimmer and that the water requires much more care than normal freshwater.

Most places seem to scare me off of the idea because of the cost i wondered given the equipment i have and need to by should i venture into it ?

Any info would be helpful as i cant seem to find much on Fish only ones.

Thanks

Mark

 

[youngfisher]

Dont let cost put you off, you can get some right bargains.

 

[markinwooduk]

Ok thats a good start

Does the equipment i have sound ok and ill just need the skimmer ?

 

[Buddyboy67]

First off..welcome into tff and the salty side...

many bargains out there on flea bay ,etc and second hand equipment regularly pops up on forums..

For fish only you have most of what you need already..simply empty your filters and replace the medias with live rock rubble , activated carbon, phosphate absorber and a layer of filter floss....
your lights are fine for this set up, only needing upgraded when you feel the urge to add corals to reef it up...

Most of the filtration, if not all but chemical filtration, will be carried out by your rock so all that is required will be a couple of power heads to bring the flow rate in the tank up to 20x per hour...work out the flow return from your externals and bring the flow rate up with use of these powerheads..

your tank is 300l so you are looking at a flow rate of....

300x 20 =6000lt/hour

Only concern with a conversion ,if corals will eventually be added, is if any copper based meds have been used in the tank....running poly filter in the system for a few weeks should remove any traces of this copper leaving it fully capable of then sustaining these...

Hope this helps and feel welcome to ask any questions you want...we are alll only too happy to help

 

[markinwooduk]

Thank you for that info its great, so i dont need a skimmer now ? is that only for corals etc ?

i have a spray bar attached to the output of one of my filters.. i assume this isnt enough really and just go get powerhead ?

how long given that my tank is established atleast as freshwater will it take before i can add fish once its running ? 2-3 weeks ?

Thanks

 

[Buddyboy67]

A skimmer is a useful addition mate, removing dissolved nutrients directly from the water before being broken down into the component elements by the bacteria...adding one will help keep nitrates ,etc lower..well worth adding from day one...buy one that is rated for twice the volume of your system and you'll be fine.

Tanks all take different amounts of time to cycle and there is no hard and fast rule here...the f/w bacteria will be wiped out when salt hits them so in theory it's back to day one again....add all your live rock at once once tank temp and sg of 1.026 is reached, and then sit back for a spot of "rock watching"..a hobby in it's own rite,lol...
Once ammonia, nitrite and then nitrates have spiked ..wait for the nitrates to drop to around 10 ppm and do a 25% water change and you're rady to pop in the first fish

 

[seffieuk]

on board

Seffie x