Changing From Freshwater To Marine

[PrettyDiscus]

I have kept freshwater fish for over 2 years and want to try marine fish. I have lots of questions and sorry if they seem really obvious and stupid!

1). When using RO water (I will be buying it from LFS) how long should i leave the salt to dissolve and do i have to use a heater in the bucket to warm the water before adding to tank. Will i need to add tapsafe? ( I dont have much space for buckets of water to be lying around).

2.) I want a built in sump when i order my tank but not sure if i need a plumber or someone to install all the pipes for it

3.) I want a reef tank but would an arcadia luminaire on wall brackets be suitable? Also, will this lighting overheat? If so, Where to put a fan or cooler on the tank?

4.) The tank will be 6ftx2ftx2ft. I wanted cured live rock, how manys KG's would i need?

Here is a list of fish i would like to keep. Please tell me what would be ok and what wouldnt etc.

Powder blue tang
Yellow tang
regal tang
clownfish
emporer angel
banghai cardinal
bannerfish
sailfin tang
naso tang

I understand some of these fish need more mature tanks but which could i add straight after cycling the tank and how long should i wait before adding the ones that require a mature tank.

Thanks!

 

[shibby]

1 when first setting up the tank mix all the water in the tank, for a tank that size i would seriously consider an ro unit though more cost effective in long run, then just get something like a waterbutt, heater powerhead and you have a good place to mix salt.

2 shouldnt be too hard to plumb a sump, tank going to be drilled, or use of an overflow box?

3 arcadia luminaires are they t5s, with 2 foot depth i would go for powerful t5's good for softies and lps or look into metal halides, 150 watt should be sufficent for most easy corals.

4 i would estimate about 100kg


fish in order


clowns - good starter

bangai - probably next

tangs are difficult to judge, yellow and sailfin would be better being added together, as with the poweder bleu and regal, which should be last in tank. nasos are fairly peaceful tanks but get masssive!

bannerfish before the tangs i would say.

emperor angel i would avoid if you want a reef, im not saying it cant be done there pretty good when there juvis, but they do like to munch corals.

 

[PrettyDiscus]

Thanks. What would i need to pump the water from the water barrel to the tank?

 

[shibby]

a pump inside the barrel with piping going out into the tank, most water butts come with a tap at the bottom though so the cheaper way will just be to raise it up so you can fit a bucket underneath the tap and then you have fully mixed salt, means you wont have to mix up salt as much if you do it in a big water butt


o and i forgot to say you wont need tapsafe with ro water.

 

[PrettyDiscus]

a pump inside the barrel with piping going out into the tank, most water butts come with a tap at the bottom though so the cheaper way will just be to raise it up so you can fit a bucket underneath the tap and then you have fully mixed salt, means you wont have to mix up salt as much if you do it in a big water butt


o and i forgot to say you wont need tapsafe with ro water.

Can you recommend a one of these pumps for me?