Setting Up First Saltwater Tank

fish-r-fancy

Fish Addict
Joined
Sep 10, 2006
Messages
713
Reaction score
0
Location
Coventry, Rhode Island
Ok, I have a 72 gallon bow front tank that I want to set up as a saltwater tank. This will be my 1st saltwater tank. I have a fluval 403 canister,an aquaclear 70,a rena cal 300 watt heater,and a red and a blue bulb for lighting(will find out the watts). I am aware that I will need a protein skimmer and a power head. I know somebody that is giving away 100 lbs of live sand,80 pounds of live rock,2 candy cane corals,1 toadstool leather,2 spaghetti leather and assorted polyps and mushrooms. Do I need anything else for my setup? How do you cycle a saltwater tank? What are some good recomended fish for a newbie like myself? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
 
I would highly recommend you think of adding a sump to the tank that you want to make. A fluval 403 wont be enough I think.
 
For starters, read all the pinned topics in the marine section of the board, they are the most helpful links i've found.
 
fish fish. well first fish should always be hardy fish. ones that can withstand and tolerate numorous water qualities. one of the hardiest fish for marine are damsels. 3 striped, 4 striped, domino there are so many types of them. damsels are the hardiest fish around and what makes them even more better is there relitively cheep prices. you can get one around now for i think about £3.50.
however the bad thing about these fish is that they are territorial and so pleanty of rocks should be provided. you should have no probs with them in your 72 gal though. the damsels are a recomendation for begginers.
another great little hardy fish is a clown fish. i have one my self and they are as hard as nails. also very inteligent. even though damsels are recomended above clown fish i still think that clown fish are also a great begginer fish
hope this helps
 
To be fair, not at all to undermine black molly you should always add the most peacefull fish first and only when the water chemistry is stable and all ok. When you add an agressive and territorial fish first the fish will make a large portion of the tank theres and defen it from all new additions, which could stress the new fishes or kill them.
With your lighting a red and white bulb shouldnt really be used unless you are looking at a fish only system. I do not know how much lighitng your tank has but to support the corals you said about youd need probably 2- 4 T5 tubes in the marine spectrum. This means you have marine white (can be anywhere from 7k to 10k) and actinic tubes (theese are blue to recreate the water colours that corals use to photosynthesise, as all other colours are pretty much filterdc out of the water in coral reefs because of the depth)

Now a saltwater aquarium cycles by the addition of live rock (we dont do fish cycles as there is no need to in marine) The live rock has some die off when it is taken out of water and transported to a different tank, this will cause ammonia, nitrite and nitrate to spike. After a while when your stats start falling to practically zero you can think about adding thinks like snails, crabs andshrimps (this is your clean up crew adn they will eat all of your algae or scraps of food so they dont pollute your tank) Also it should be noted that these should be added when you start getting brown algae everywhere , that is know as diatom algae and that these can all be aded at once. IMO though shrimp should be added when you add fish because they tend to scavenge bits of left over fish food, and not so much crap of the floor. Anyway after youve added your clean up crew you should wait a week or two before adding fish. This is when you add your most peacefull fish or fish's. You should be careful to feed lightly and with flake food, supplimented with a frozen marine food like mysis shrimp.
For your first fish i would recomend eitehr occelaris clownfish or percula clownfish, any type of chromis ; like green chromis or blue reef ones. Also gobies are very good as second fish.

Some advice also erm use only RO water for a saltwater tank, when buyinga skimmer stay away from makes such as sea clone or red sea and most improtantly Do not under any circumstances rush.

hope i helped bit ;)
 
a good skimmer = tmc v2 skim 400

power head s =i have 5 maxijeet power heads a totoal of 3000 roughley and 1 sray bar and 2 outlets

a good c.u.c consists of snails , hermits and shrimp

1st fish i am going for are 3 green chromis and then u can take it from there :good:


Look in my 90 gallon reef tank journal for rough ideas :good: :hyper:
 

Most reactions

Back
Top