How to start a saltwater tank?

[Holly]

I am curious to know what I would need and about how much money it would cost me to start a saltwater aquarium for a 150 gallon tank? And also what do I have to do to keep it up?

[tski22]

Saltwater aquariums are an excellent way to experience true aquatic beuty. They are not cheap nor are they for novice aquarists. Dont let that discourage you though. For me i started a 72 gallon bowfront saterwater tank just recently, and with all top of the line equiptment and about 60 lbs of live rock i was standing on top of about 1600 dollars. That was top of the line equiptment though. A filter is necessary as well as a heater and protein skimmer. Depending on whether or not you want to have a coral reef tank or not will determine the type of lighting you will need. I reccomend crush coral substrate. Lay it on the bottom and begin to mix buckets accordingly by the amount reccomended of synthetic sea salt. After mixing and addind all the water it will remain cloudy for a few days this is normal. Have the filter and heater running now. You dont really have to start the protein skimmer at this point. I would reccmend bying a hydrometer to measure salinity 1.020 - 1.024 and a test kit for ammonia, pH etc.. Each day check your salinity and see if it is at the right level. Let the tank stand as it is for about a month, and then add a clownfish or damsel, a good starter. Before you know it youll have a beautiful fishtank!
This is what my setup looks like. This shot was taken before the fish and everything went in. It currently houses.
-1 Percula Clown
-1 Regal Tang
-1 Yellow Tang
- An Arrow crab, A Coral Banded shrimp, a Decorator crab.
- and a few other basic inverts, starfish.. etc

REMEMBER PATIENCE IS THE KEY... MY TANK HAS BEEN RUNNING FOR ABOUT 2 MONTHS ONLY AND THIS IS IT! DONT RUSH THINGS!!!




My guess would be that for a 150 gallon with equiptment that is recomended your probably looking at between 2000-2500$ to get started. Could be less if you didnt buy the most efficient equiptment. You dont necessarily have to I jsut didnt want to screw up such an expensive hobby. Good Luck!!! Keep me posted!!

-tl

[Fish Addict]

here is a guide

http://www.xxxxxxxxxxxx/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=32

[grnlemonade]

good information posted im just curious, but what kind of saltwater fish would you be adding?

[Holly]

Whoa..... I knew it was expensive but I didn't know that it was that expensive. Thanks for the information, but I don't think I will be starting my saltwater tank any time soon.

[tski22]

You could buy a 30 gallon saltwater set up with ok to decent stuff included for around 200$. But that severly limits what kind of fish you could get. Remeber they come from the ocean whcih is huge so they need more room then tropicals probably 1 inch per 2-3 gallons. For adult fish that is. But a 30 gallon you could probably get away with a pair of clowns and maybe a cardinal fish, or a goby. A few fish that stay small with some inverts. That way you could get the saltwater tank you wanted and a 30 gallon setup with about 20 pounds of lives rock and ALL the fish you would need to buy would keep you under 500$. Maybe even less. -tl

[Holly]

That isn't bad, I don't have room for a big tank right now anyway, I just asked for future references. So, I am assuming that it isn't that hard to keep up with after you get it going. You just have to make sure it has the right amount of salinity. So what do you do when it is time to clean the tank, what do you do with the fish, you can't just put them in a bowl like freshwater fish. At least I don't think you can.

[Hooben]

You really should never take fishes out of their tank when your only going to clean. The same is true for fresh or salt. It stresses the fish out big time. You can use a siphon to clean out the gravel. In a salt tank you can stir up the substrate a little, then take some water out. Care must be used to make sure the salinity of the new water being added is correct (with a hydrometer). The water has to be drinking water or reverse osmosis water, tap water has too many minerals. Some people mix their salt water in a 55 gallon drum, with a power head and heater inside. That insures that they have plenty of water ready at any time.

[sleeper]

I've also been told by some reliable sources that you may want to add some ammonia to your tank right at the beginning of the filtration cycle -- BEFORE YOU ADD ANY LIFE to the tank, of course. This will speed up the process by which your filters develop the needed bacteria by a factor of 2 or 3 times.

It's supposed to be particularly important to reef life to have proper ammonia filtration levels, so this would be particularly important if that's your plan.

[Fishfirst]

yep its called fishless cycling... cocktail shrimp work for a source of ammonia. Saltwater is a lot different that fresh. A Protien Skimmer and live rock is the best type of filtration... although some people would say reverse osmosis, sumps, or wet dry filters work. Also anything under 75 gallons is considered a "small" tank, and isn't suitable for adult Tangs, Large Angelfish, Triggers, Lionfish, Groupers, and Snappers.
Also DO NOT USE crushed coral, it is a place where nitrates build up, something saltwater fish do not tolerate. A 30 Gallon is a fairly good setup for Gobies, Clowns, Cardinalfish, Damselfish, Chromis, Dwarf Angels, Blennies, and dottybacks. Although you want about 5 gallons per inch of fish.
A good cleanup crew is essential. Also instead of all live rock you can seed base rock with live rock and eventually get all live rock... about a 1-3 ratio for that to work!

[tski22]

Crushed coral is actually the best substarte because it looks natural and it will keep your ph level at 8.0 where it should be for a saltwater tank. A good clean up crew will eliminate the possibility of nitrates building up, althoguh personally Ive never heard of such a thing happening in crushed coral, if anything it helps filter, think about it a good percent of live rock is dead coral pieces. correct me if Im wrong but how could nitrates build up in crushed coral, but dead coral pieces (sold as live rock) help flter the tank? -tl

[Fishfirst]

Crushed Coral is not a good substraight, sand is much better and does the same with pH that Coral does... the thing about Crushed Coral is that it leaves a lot of places for waste to get trapped and then it breaks down crating nitrite, sand doesn't allow this to happen. A good clean up crew does help but sand is also natural, anyone who has gone snorkeling on a coral reef knows that there is reef, then sandy areas, and more reef. The live rock acts as the reef and the sand acts as the sandy areas. I'm currently on 6 fish forums, all that deal with saltwater on a constant basis, unlike this one, a lot of people say no to crushed coral... IME I ended up taking out the crushed coral and replacing it with sand because it is a lot easier to clean, maintain, and keeps the nitrates a lot lower. Live rock acts as a nitrate sink because it has the beneficial bacteria algae and other hitch hikers that use nitrates.