Wanting to start a marine setup

[craig395]

Hello i have had a tropical setup now for nearly two yrs and am really into it, wouldn't say i was bored but maybe after more of a challange, a little change (maybe a big one). Will be moving to brighton in a few weeks so will have all the troubles of moving the fish 130 miles, so have been thinking (no definates) of changing to a marine setup, i love all my fish dearly now and have a very good home for them to go to and probably wouldn't be thinking of this otherwise, but just the thought of having big coral reefs and bold coloured fish is just something i really feel is needed to be done. So anyway, wanting to find out anything about starting a marine setup from prices to water levels, weblinks. Any info will be much appreciated and I will let you know what I decide to do. Once again many thanks,

Craig Moore :~)

 

[Navarre]

Ok, well you dont mention wehterh you are keeping your exsisting tank or wanting tostart a new system.

How many gallons (uk) do you intend to have?
I would say that Live rock is a must for marine systems these days as its the best filtration you can buy. This can vary in price of course but on average its about £11 per kg You will need a minimum of 1kg per 2 gallons of water in the tank so you can see that this part can be quite expensive. However, when you copare it with other type of filter you will see that its well worth th emoney as it can finish the nitrogen cycle and turn waste to harmless nitrogen rather than other filters that stop at Nitrates.

Will you be running a sump? if so then you might want to consider mineral mud or even a Deep sand bed (though DSB i would recomend for more experienced users)

Lights... As you mentions you wanted corals then i strongly suggest you buy the best you can afford, these usually mean HAlides but T5s can be used if you want to keep soft corals instead. (i know of a place you can get very cheap halied if you want to know more then PM me( 1x400w halide for under£130))

Protien skimmers, wel lthis depends on the type of filtration you use, on a mineral mud system you dont need one but on most other filtration its highly recomended.

Flow and circulation. In a reef tank you need asmuch flow as possible, usually 10x the volume of the tank in litres but you can stat with less and work up I know some people with flows as high as 30x as much in their tanks!

Hope this helps to give you a start anyway. Im sure this will pose more questions that hopefully can be answered more fully.

 

[heyimeugene]

1.) Marine costs alot, know you will spend alot of money all the time... I found out the hard way.. its just too addicting... lol

2.) I can't stress the amount of reading should be done! A good place to start would be, http/www.nano-reef.com, check out there beginner articles. The articles are short and get to the point! Even if you aren't going to setup a 10-20 gal reef its a great read!

I'm currently keeping a diary of my nano 10-gallon-US reef for my friends and some people online, if you want to read it, cool!

http/home.comcast.net/~kimyoojin/fish/diary/

GOOD LUCK!