Starting My First Saltwater Tank..need Help

[brigette17]

so i have a few questions..ok so im gonna get a 55 gallon tank,Is this a good tank size to start with??
And do i really need to have live rock?i heard things about worms and i really dont wanna deal with that..i'm a girl so ekkk
the type of fishes that i wanna keep are clown fish,3 stripe damsels,yellow tang,cardinal fish...can all those coexiest together in peace or no?
do i really need a skimmer?its sooo damn expensive..

 

[Musho3210]

three things you need

Money: around 2000 spent on my 20 gallon reef tank
Patience
Research: took my 7 months of research before i was confident enough.

How much money are you willing to spend, if you think skimmers are expensive..... then you may need to rethink a few things. I wouldnt get the tang nor the damsels.

Live rock's pros are much higher than its cons, live rock is the MAIN filtration, and it is all natural filtration.

 

[brigette17]

i acually willing to spend the money i need to,to have a saltwater tank. i have 2 fresh water tanks and my fish are still alive so i'm doing a good job..so i feel pretty confident to start a saltwater tank now. but i still think a skimmer is too expensive,the man in my lfs is selling them around 300$ but if i really need it i will buy it. but my daddy who has keep lots of saltwater fishes never used or heard of skimmers and thats why i was asking if i really needed it.

 

[Musho3210]

skimmers work very well, they help a lot.

Ok then you should get 1-1.5 pounds of live rock per gallon, RO or RO/DI or DI or Distilled water, or purchase your own RO or RO/DI unit. Get special synthetic sea salt, get powerheads, get skimmer, it would help to drill the tank and put a sump in, heater, lights (you may need very very strong light if you want certain corals) and those are just the basics. Not in that order though.

 

[brigette17]

ok thank you! but what do u mean drilled the tank?

 

[Musho3210]

drill the tank so the water can come out into a pipe which leads to a second tank under the main tank, then it goes through the second tank in a series of baffles, where you can include a refugium if you want, and then a pump pumps the water back to the main tank.

 

[SkiFletch]

Well lets back the truck up here a little bit . Brigette, are you planning on stocking this tank only with fish, or are you considering corals and invertebrates either now or in the future? That'll really help us determine the best hardware setup for you.

Furthermore, are you dead-set on the 55g tank? A standard 55g is very difficult to aquascape Live Rock in because it is very thin front to back. If you have a 4 foot space, I'd highly reccomend a 75g tank instead as it is MUCH easier to aquascape and will be much more rewarding in the long-term

 

[Musho3210]

if your getting a 75 gallon why not get a 90 gallon, its the same as a 75 gallon just higher, you could argue that the 75 gallon is too short lol.


Hey, lets stop this arguing and make it easy, get the 180 gallon.

 

[n3ont3tra]

You could argue that a 90 gallon is too tall

And I agree with SkiFletch, decide what type of setup you want first.