Necessary Equipments Need

[ivo]

Hi all marine fans,

I am thinking to start a marine tank eventhough i failed once big time. What are the necessary equipments i need apart from good filter? Is protein skimmer and UV light a must? Thank you.

[nicholas76]

oooh essentials for marine apart from the obvious are as follows,,, ill start the list,, ,others can add on


1. hydrometer
2. ph tester for marine, calcium, ammonia etc etc
3. a couple of small power heads ( internal filters ) are always handy
4. Live rock / coral supplements calcium,, iodine etc etc
5 metal halides , i wont use anything else
6. protein skimmer ...yes,, i know you can run it without but i would.
7. U/V non essential but yes i would .
8. bio zorb nitrate and phospate resin/charcoal pouch,, not essential but i would

hmm what else ive probably missed some ... guys ???

[Robdog]

What are the necessary equipments i need apart from good filter?

I think the only reason you need a filter of any sort, whether it be internal or external is to remove crap from the water column.
Heaps of live rock and some powerheads would take care of your biological filtration.

[chrissyoscar]

1. hydrometer
2. ph tester for marine, calcium, ammonia etc etc
3. a couple of small power heads ( internal filters ) are always handy
4. Live rock / coral supplements calcium,, iodine etc etc
5 metal halides , i wont use anything else
6. protein skimmer ...yes,, i know you can run it without but i would.
7. U/V non essential but yes i would .
8. bio zorb nitrate and phospate resin/charcoal pouch,, not essential but i would

hmm what else ive probably missed some ... guys ???
_________________

I agree with what Nick said but it depends on what you are going to keep in your tank.
If you are going to have corals then I wouldn't use a UV as this will kill all the micro organisms etc that the corals feed on.
As for lights I would probably buy a MH from the start as this will allow you to have what ever you want fish, corals clams etc etc. Having said that if all you want is live rock and fish then good quality t8's ot t5's would be fine. With fluros you can even have some corals but you will be restricted.
If you can, get a sump as this will allow you to hide the heaters and skimmer. A lot of people only use the sump for that purpose now and don't add wool or bio balls as they find it contributes to high nitrates.
Marines sound hard but if you do your research and get the right equipement from the start and follow a few basic rules then you'll enjoy it as much as we are all starting to.
You've probably heard and been to http://www.masa.asn.au/phpBB2/ but if you haven't have a look.

[lachlan]

i know this is going to be anoying to hear but there isn't really an equiptment list until you decide on what you want to put in the tank

once you decide that we can work on the equiptment you'll need to maintain it!

[Dee]

i know this is going to be anoying to hear but there isn't really an equiptment list until you decide on what you want to put in the tank

once you decide that we can work on the equiptment you'll need to maintain it!

Very true ! I guess you need to establish what you want to keep live stock wise, that will then dictate what kind of gear your after.

ie:

Fish only with bio filteration (canister etc)
Fish only with live rock for filtration
Low scale reef (lowish light)
Reef (intense lighting)

are some of the choices. From there, equipment can be advised.

Cheers,

Dee :D

[Ben]

One thing that seems to be overlooked with salt water fish/coral keeping is water temperature!

As there is more equipment such as pumps and high light levels this increases the water temp. You do NOT want the water to go above 28.c!

I have seen so many systems crash when water goes above 29.c.

Salty tanks are very easy to look after in the long term, easier than FW in my opinion. Getting a new tank up and running is the hard part as it takes many months to get a system settled.

You mention that you have failed before IVO, why did you fail?

Ben

[ivo]

Thanks guys. I don't want to keep live rocks or corals and will only keep fish. I had salt water tank for about two months one night i noticed that they kept rubbing themselves against objects, then in the morning they all looked dying and by evening all died one at a time. I only had six fish but i love the ashur and flame angel i had. After that i switched to discus and i have had no death yet. Now i m thinking to start again. Perhaps i rushed into buying fish before the tank was fully cycled.

Ben, how long should i wait before adding fish into the saltwater tank? Do you know which aquairum stocks fish from caribean? i.e. if i start again i want to get french angel and rock beauty, but it seems a lot of aquarium i spoke to they don't ship from there cos too expensive.

[lachlan]

if you only want to have fish your'e going to have to supply all the biological filtration. i would recomend something like a canister filter or a fliuzid bed to cater for that.

can i also ask why you don't want LR and how big your tank is?

[nicholas76]

ivo

Im converting a 4 x 2 x 2 to salt and im having to use somthing like 60 kg of live rock to set up the biological filtration needed for the fish and reef setup I desire ( and thats small fish ) thats somthing like $600 in just live rock

A tank with just fish IMO would need constant management with substaintial daily w/c. Hardly stable hardly worth the effort too. Get a nice big sump with a refuge to eat the nitrates and your laughing.

[RipSlider]

I have slightly different thoughts here:

essentials:

1) Read every single thing that Bob Fenner has ever written. Then everything that Jaulbert has written. And then everything by Steve Pro.

2) read it all again. and again and again.

3) Repeat Step 2 until you can recite the entire lot by heart.

4) Only then even consider keeping marine fish.

<<Bob Fenner will become your marine fish keeping god. with the added bonus that he's real and you can send him e-mails and he actually answers them! becuase of Bob Fenner, about 1/2 of all marine fish in captivity today are alive and not flushed down the toilet. Trust me when I say this chap is important and should be listened to>>

Equipment list that you need depends totally on what sort of tank you want:

basics that you will always need:

1) Hydrogemeter - get a digital one
2) Good source of marine salt
3) dustbin + heater + powerhead to keep a big batch of water mixed up for water changes
4) RO unit - ROMan units seem to be the preference in the UK, mine is great.


Then, make the choice between fish only, fish only with live rock ( often seen as FOWLR) or a full blown coral tank.

If your going fish only or FOWLR, then you've no need for the metal halides, just use t5's. ( Which is good, becuase they're a pain in the backside as they generate so much heat and also blind anyonee who walking into the room).

(would *strongly* reccommend that you start with FOWLR as it's a good place to begin, you can always adapt the set up for corals afterwards )

I use Fenner's modified berlin method, which is essentially:

Lots of live rock
Live sand bed
lots of skimming
lots of ozone ( ozone is optional, but is great )

I've played with Jaubert method (phelums ) and think they're great, but only if you have a big enough tank.

When it comes to deciding where to put your money, allocate the vast majority of what you spend on the setup to the skimmer and the live rock.

it's not possible to skim too much, and live rock is like buying jewlery. You pay poor money, you get poor quality.

(to save yourself a divorce, get cured live rock. Curing live rock in your own tank leaves a smell that stays in the carpets and curtains for WEEKS, and will not make your better hapf a happy person)

You'll see there is no other filtration in this list. and that's becuase you don't need it. All you'll do by adding extra filtration is making extra nitrates.

The live rock is your main filter. The skimmer picks up all the stuff that the LR can't deal with.

Then think about water turn over. Live rock needs a constant, highly oxygenated water stream. Reccommended minimum is to turn the tank over 10x an hour. I'm running 14x an hour and it seems to be fine. To do this, your looking at a few very good powerheads. It's critical that every bit of your live rock is always getting flow over it, so don't think about positioning the powerheads before you've got the live rock placed in the tank and covered with water. The cracks and crevicies in the rock will decide for you where to place the powerheads.

So: big skimmer, normal lighting, lots of good quality live rock and lots of reading.

Most people use a sump for marine stuff. They are very practical, but difficult to plan and noisy if they are in the living room. Personally, I don't use a sum. It's cheaper and it's silent, but it's kind of a heresy to suggest this.

marine fish keeping CAN be pretty tricky, but for different reasons than fresh water. water quality needs to be next to perfect, and there are a lot more things that can go wrong in a marine system compared to a FW system, specifically stuff dying where you can't see it.

You do have to be prepared for the water changes, you do need to plan ahead when thinking about feeding regimes, and, in general, marine fish are much more terrirotal than FW fish, so this needs a bit of planning.

However, i think it's really rewarding to keep a marine tank.

I have a couple, the first is a large FOWLR tank and the second a shrimp tank with a huge 'fuge underneath it ( I like shrimp more than fish if I'm being honest). It's effort, but I reckon it's worth it.

I would also say that, as a long term project, marine is more expensive than FW. you'll need to plan for buying salt, Ro membranes etc etc for the life of the tank, and food is more expensive as well, so make sure you do your sums first.

Hope this helps.

Steve

[nicholas76]

Ivo

how did you go?

im mid stream in relation to my setup,, i have everything but the sump organised. had the tank drilled ages ago.!

currently deciding on the setup of the refugiam and waiting on a calcium reactor which i need for my acros and clams

[ivo]

hi nick, sorry i haven't checked the marine column in months since i didn't go ahead. it all seems too much work so i got lazy.

[nicholas76]

hehe dont give up!!


its really rewarding trust me on that ,

in a few months time ill have one hell of a thread to share ! it would be great to share the experience with ya slacker! hehehe

[boost.puppy]

Honestly.. I Would reccomend a second hand tank for someone starting off

about 4 years ago we got our first 6 foot tank from a guy off MASA, he was moving interstate so we got a really good deal & because the tank was already established it was much easier to learn off...

now 5 tanks later (including a reef tank dedicated to exotic & rare corals) I find that the marine tanks are easier to maintain than my tropicals! and the fish seem to get along better too!

Also MASA has luncheons for members to get together & plot future tank set-ups (and other geeky stuff :P )
and they have a section dedicated to beginners too, I would DEFINATELY reccomend joining up.. and don't forget to send us pics when you get the tank up & running!!!