Just Out Of Curiosity

[markandhisfish]

i have a 4x2x2 which is curently fw stocked with sa cichlids. i would like at some point in the future to try my hand at going marine. . how much realisticly do you think it would cost to convert over to the salty side and just HOW much harder is sw to set up an maintain than fw?

 

[skimmy290]

4x2x2 sounds like a 55 US gal to me if i'm not mistaken or a 75?
it really depends on whether you're going to do live corals or not. if you are you need to consider lighting for the tank...a T5 HO unit for that size of a tank can easily run over $150. Then the live rock costs, usually 6 bucks a pound where i'm from and you would need about 1 to 2 pounds per gallon. Then you may wish to consider a decent protein skimmer, at least another $150, and substrate...another $60 ? and then of course live stock. But if you used lace rock or base rock in your current cichlid tank, you can just use that for your salt water. that stuff eventually becomes live rock if left in the system long enough.

if you don't want to do corals, it's def cheaper. the lighting doesn't matter, live rock is just a preference but you might want to still consider a good skimmer or even a UV sterilizer, which can be pricey.

then of course the cost of the livestock ...

maintenance wise it's about the same. weekly if not bi weekly water changes. 10-30%
it's just price
and of course if you are doing salt i would highly recommend RO (reverse osmosis) water
for this you would have to buy a unit (once again pricey)
or purchase the water from the store

despite contrary belief
a live coral system after 6-8 months is actually one of the easiest tanks to do
it becomes very self sustaining

it's just the start up costs.....

hope this helps

 

[TigerIssey]

4x2x2 sounds like a 55 US gal to me if i'm not mistaken or a 75?

No it works out to 453 litres, 100 UK gallon or 120 US gallon. Therefore if going for reef will need more than 150w. Someone will be along that is better than me as I have only just started. Big C or Ben will prob be good to point you in right direction, I could give you a list but would not know amounts.

May be good if you could give an idea of what you want Mark whether, Fish Only (FO) Fish Only With Live Rock FOWLR (you would need 50kg Live rock for filtration) or a full blown Reef, which most people even if going for FOWLR will end up wanting. One thing I can tell you about this side Mark is that it is highly addictive.

One thing alot of people will tell you is that you can cut costs by buying some second hand equipment and looking for a tank breakdown for getting Live Rock, not sure about by you but its £13.00 a kilo by me, no way I was paying that it is extortionate.

You will need

Large bin for mixing saltwater
Salt
Hydrometer or refractometer
Test kits
Heater/s
Powerheads
spare heater and powerhead for mixing water.
RO water (in your case would be best to invest in RO unit) due to tank size
Protein Skimmer
Consider a sump / refugium set up (not as daunting as sounds)
Coral sand or fine gravel
Activated carbon
Phosphate remover
Lighting (with 2 ft deep if wanting corals Metal halide)
Live rock 50kg filtration (used aquarium calculator at top of page)

May have forgotten something but as I say many others more experienced, I only have clean up crw at the moment, but my New fire shrimp is amazing, just watched him eat some prawn, brilliant.

Another byline, does this mean Vinnie will be evicted or are you planning an upgrade for him??

 

[markandhisfish]

yes its 100 uk gallons . thats a lot of stuff lol. no vinny isnt going anywhere this would be after he has passed on so could be in 10 years!! i wouldnt even attempt a marine tank yet anyway as ive only been keeping freshwater for about 11 months just was curious and wanted to know how expensive/difficult it would be.

when i eventually do it i wouldnt want to do it by half id want the whole 9 yards living corals etc a lovely live reef.

also what exactly is ro? i know its reverse osmosis but thats it im lost after that .

 

[TigerIssey]

I don't think its difficult (she says meaning something will go wrong) however you do need to do alot of reading. I have been contemplating marine for 2 years now and spent the last 12 months reading here and there. I then spent a couple of months solid (off work due to accident) reading before I started.

Folks on this here salty side are amazingly helpful, particularly if they see you have done some reading beforehand. My spare heater and powerhead for mixing were lying around anyway. I set up a 20g after thinnning out my cichlids in the 4ft (had to have somewhere for emergancies then before swapping them) I also swapped my spare angels and rams at the lfs for salt. Got the rest from ultimate aquatics or ebay. If your thinking about it, watch out for second hand stuff coming up that you could make use of.

The first time I mixed the salt I found it quite daunting, but when mixing for my w/c following the cycle it seemed to come so much easier. I even seemed to do ok drip acclimating my snails, lots of airline flying around and had to suck on it to start syphon (not done that since I was a kid, avoided the mouthful of saltwater though!).

Reverse Osmosis takes everything out of the water (chlorine, copper, toxins etc) which is needed for inverts and corals as they are very sensitive to copper. Keep activated carbon to rid of any toxins missed, take out all phosphates with phosphate remover.

Best thing to do probably is to go to the library and read a few books, filtration with live rock very different to freshwater and seems to me to actually be easier.
The lure of corals has definately got to me, I could not see the point in anything less, and I do mean it really is very addictive, I sat watching rock for just over a week, folks have been banged up for less!!

One thing I found very useful was to read through the journals, some people give more info than others some are in journal section some in nano reef section, one I can highly recommed for both information and great amusement is "Our journey to the salty side" by Seffie and Trod, can be found in Nano tank section.

Hope that gives you some idea anyway

 

[markandhisfish]

very helpful thankyou. i couldnt just do a live rock tank . if i was going to invest all that time and considerable money into it id want to come out with something that was nothing short of breath-takingly beautiful. live soft corals those little worms that emerge from their tubes etc

1 thing im not too keen on tho is using a sump. is it really absolutely nessecary? cant you just use big externals? i dont want to modify either my tank or my cabinet.

im going to deffinately continue reading asking questions and preparing for it as its deffinately something im going to do just no idea when.

as i said at the moment it is vinnies tank and until nature decides otherwise thats how i intend it to stay. which as he is only young gives me plenty of time to learn learn and learn some more .

 

[Truck]

very helpful thankyou. i couldnt just do a live rock tank . if i was going to invest all that time and considerable money into it id want to come out with something that was nothing short of breath-takingly beautiful. live soft corals those little worms that emerge from their tubes etc

1 thing im not too keen on tho is using a sump. is it really absolutely nessecary? cant you just use big externals? i dont want to modify either my tank or my cabinet.

im going to deffinately continue reading asking questions and preparing for it as its deffinately something im going to do just no idea when.

as i said at the moment it is vinnies tank and until nature decides otherwise thats how i intend it to stay. which as he is only young gives me plenty of time to learn learn and learn some more .

mark, i heard you mention in another tank you used to keep goldfish in a 3 footer? i think a trip to the shed is in order if you know what i mean

we dont use externals as they are nitrate factories, unless you want it to run Live rock rubble and rowaphos in, but otherwise filtration is provided via live rock and good flow

 

[TigerIssey]

The sump is not essential but it gives extra water capacity, a place for all the equipment, a place for a refugium with a deep sand bed and chaetomorpha which is a macroalgae that removes nitrates. I am sure there are other advantages aswell I remember the refugium will allow copepods to proliferate which some fish eat. Basically it is full of good stuff.

 

[ben1987]

no more difficult imo. if you can keep a nice fresh water tank with regular maintainance, eg water changes and testing then you can keep a basic marine tank.
It only get harder when you decide you want a reef, and you will. So buy equipment for a reef tank straight off rather than buy stuff more than once.

You going to want two metal halides on that tank or a decent T5 set up if you want corals.

Buy decent powerheads, they are one of the most important things there is, aim for a minimum of 30X turnover.

 

[TigerIssey]

I knew Ben would be along and would know exactly what lighting you needed.

He really helped me out before I started. Ben has a sump as well so he is the man to ask about that!!

 

[markandhisfish]

errm ive never kept goldfish in anything lol . i did have a 3 foot community tank before i upgraded but it had to be sold when i didnt have much work.

the reason id rather not use a sump is my cabinet was made bespoke to order and even tho it has a nice big cupboard either end neither are big enough to hide a large enough sump

 

[Truck]

errm ive never kept goldfish in anything lol . i did have a 3 foot community tank before i upgraded but it had to be sold when i didnt have much work.

the reason id rather not use a sump is my cabinet was made bespoke to order and even tho it has a nice big cupboard either end neither are big enough to hide a large enough sump

most people run sumps at 1/5 to 1/4 of their tank size but theyre not mandatory

 

[stang1]

I'm surprised about an external being a "nitrate" factory as I ran one on my marine tank with no problems. We never used live rock rubble but nitrates were minimal?!

 

[ben1987]

only a nitrate factory if you let them get clogged up. Need more maintainance than in FW tanks as there is more gunk in marine.
If you use live rock as your main source of filteration then theres nothing wrong with scrubbing or replacing the media weekly or how often you need to

 

[Truck]

I'm surprised about an external being a "nitrate" factory as I ran one on my marine tank with no problems. We never used live rock rubble but nitrates were minimal?!

the thing is the bacteria on live rock are capable of converting nitrates to nitrogen, but in an external the ceramic media or what ever you use (excluding rubble) will not do this and will leave nitrates as the waste product, and the number 1 cause of algae is nitrates and in high concentrations can harm inverts especilly when not regularly maintained