Can Use My Freshwater Filter For Saltwater?

[GrassHopper]

Hi All! This is my first post here. May I ask if someone could help me with this question?

I am a saltwater newbie but have successfully maintained freshwater tropical fish for four years. I have chosen to now tackle saltwater.

My question is this: Can I use my EHEIM PRO2 2026 for my saltwater tank? What precautionary steps should I take before converting my freshwater setup into a saltwater? I had planned to clean the tank out with ammonia and water, rinse, then dry. I had also planned to do the same with my EHEIM filter. Should I chuck out the old mech media or just rinse it? Do I need to use a different type of filter media because of the saltwater environent?

Here's my current setup:

42 Gallon Oceanic Freshwater Tropical Hex on Oak Stand. (currently empty)
Large majestic castle ornament in middle of tank.
Eheim Pro 2 2026 Canister
130 Watt Coral Life Lunar light w/ 2 LED's.
Inline, out of tank heater


I may consider live rock or coral but for now I am thinking about maxing out with 5 3" fish in my current tank with live plants. I'll be doing plenty or research before I take this on and I do realize that this is a new and more difficult enviroment then freshwater. Currently I trying to figure out what I will need to BUY that I don't have. i.e. Protein Skimmer, Live Sand, Salt, Instrument for measuring Salt Content (I forget the name of it), etc...

Thanks in advance!

 

[Revision17]

Well, I'm a saltwater newbie, so please take my advice with 1.002 SG.

First of all, live rock IS your primary source of biological filtration. While I've read about tank setups where they don't use live rock for FO, live rock adds lots of diversity, looks cool, and if you buy cured, effectively cycles your tank instantly. In addition to the typical aerobic biological filtration, LR usually is able to preform a certain degree of anarobic nitrification stuff.

Now, you can use your canister filter for your secondary filtration. It provides useful mechanical filtration at the very least. Because nitrates are considered a Bad Thing (tm) in anything other than FO setups (many inverts are effected adversely by levels fish shrug off), some people load up a tray of their canister filter with live rock for it's denitrifying ability, rather than bioballs or ceramic tubes. However, if it is an FO setup, I'm sure whatever biological media in the filter is fine.

I wouldn't bother with anything other than rinsing the filter media in RO or dechlorinated water, if it's particularly dirty.

Whether or not you need live sand varies from person to person. Some advise just buying dry aragonite and live rock, and let the sand gain critters from the LR over time. Others say to get a little bit of live sand so jumpstart the process, but mainly use dry aragonite. And yet others still say to use 100% live sand (which costs mucho $$$ for an entire tank).

For measuring salt content (usually people in the hobby use specific gravity, SG, when communicating the amount of dissolved salt), I highly recommend a refractometer over a hydrometer. So much more accurate, doesn't need to be cleaned, accounts for temperature, larger range of SGs, etc. I'm not sure where you're from, but many online stores now sell them for about US$40.

Lots of marine enthusiasts are starting to use RO filters now to start off with water free from nitrates, phosphates, and metals like copper. This will probably reduce algae, and make sure your tap water doesn't kill your inverts.

As far as protein skimmers, some people run them, some people don't. It seems generally agreed upon that they reduce the amount of water you have to change. To me it seems like weighing the amount of time and money (since marine salt is $$$) water changes cost vs the one time price of the skimmer, in general. There are other specifics I'm sure others will chime in on, or that you can find on the internet.

If you haven't already, please spend the time to read the stickies in the general marine forum.

EDIT: This is my first post where I sound somewhat authoritative, wewt. Hopefully I didn't get too much wrong.

 

[chrissaysyes]

Whenever I switch over a tank from FW to marine I usually just scrub it really well to remove algae, then spray it down with hot water, same thing with filters and other hardware. As far as media for the filter, he's right, live rock rubble is the best thing you can use for biological filtration, while a lot of people (myself included) use no other filtration in there aside from the foam filter that most can filters have, just rinse it weekly.

 

[-Nemo-]

I used to use a similar filter in my saltwater when I first got it set up, but found it didn't really do much. Live rock does most of the work. When I took that filter out, it was to add my sump/Skimmer system, which does a MUCH better job.

 

[Brichardi]

I used to use a similar filter in my saltwater when I first got it set up, but found it didn't really do much. Live rock does most of the work. When I took that filter out, it was to add my sump/Skimmer system, which does a MUCH better job.

SG levels need to be around 1.024 and not 1.002 as previously mentioned . I wouldnt bother with the filter as live rock is by far better .

 

[Revision17]

I used to use a similar filter in my saltwater when I first got it set up, but found it didn't really do much. Live rock does most of the work. When I took that filter out, it was to add my sump/Skimmer system, which does a MUCH better job.

SG levels need to be around 1.024 and not 1.002 as previously mentioned . I wouldnt bother with the filter as live rock is by far better .

The 1.002 SG was a cute way of saying with 2 grains of salt

 

[chrissaysyes]

I used to use a similar filter in my saltwater when I first got it set up, but found it didn't really do much. Live rock does most of the work. When I took that filter out, it was to add my sump/Skimmer system, which does a MUCH better job.

SG levels need to be around 1.024 and not 1.002 as previously mentioned . I wouldnt bother with the filter as live rock is by far better .

The 1.002 SG was a cute way of saying with 2 grains of salt

Nice

 

[giant19000]

I used to use a similar filter in my saltwater when I first got it set up, but found it didn't really do much. Live rock does most of the work. When I took that filter out, it was to add my sump/Skimmer system, which does a MUCH better job.

wow i love your tank what if i switch my freshwater filter because i also want a saltwater tank wich will only be housing a snowflake eel?i have been caring for freshwater for the past 12yrs?
im also planning on getting live rock such as live sand

 

[seffieuk]

OLD THREAD WARNING

Giant, we would love you to start a thread of your thoughts for your new tank, how about it?

Seffie x