First Foray Into The World Of Saltwater

[Griz]

After 35 years keeping freshwater fish and dreaming of moving into saltwater (and lots of reading), I have an opportunity to make the move. One of the first rules (I know) is don't try to do it on the cheap and don't try to go too small. Well, that's why I'm running this by you guys.

Here's the situation: I have an empty 20 gal tank and a chance to pick up a very nice lighting system (2x65 Watt Compact flourescent / 1 65W 10K daylight and 1 65W actinic w/ fans and LED) for cheap. I have a friend with 2 large reef tanks who is willing to part with some live rock and sand for me. My plans are quite modest really. I simply want to get into it slowly and keep some hitchhikers and donations from his tank and later, a few invertebrates. Further down the road, perhaps one or two few small fish after I'm sure all is going well. I'm planning a large tank when I get my basement finished but in the meantime I'd really like to get some hands-on experience with saltwater.

The question is filtration. I have 2 HOB Aquaclear filters on hand which would give me 200gal/hr or 10x the tank volume. I could use one or both. I could a add a power head - what sort of volume would I require? I have seen skimmer attachments for aquaclears - will these work for a small salt water tank or do I need a proper one? http/www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsUS/ctl36...rsurfaceskimmer

Is this workable? Any recommendations on a filtration setup for me?

 

[andywg]

If you want to keep the HOB go for it, you can always convert one into a fuge and keep the other for chemical media (such as rowaphos).

A tank that small will not require huge water changes to deal with dissolved organics, so don't consider a skimmer necessary, certainly not for a while if you aren't going to have fish for some time. It is more once the water changes cost a lot of money that you start using skimmers.

10x is a little slow for most people, but is a good baseline. If you can squeeze in another powerhead and hide it it would be great.

Taking it slow and reading a lot is the most important thing to keep in mind when doing marine. Stay on that path and you are almost guaranteed success.

 

[Griz]

Thanks andywg. Very encouraging!

Definitely will be going slowly with this.

 

[madbison]

IMO live rock & sand,a skimmer, power head(s) and water changes(i change 10% a week). this combination is all you realy need.

External filters need to be cleaned as they can cause nitrate build up - a leason i learned in my early stages.

The lighting should be o.k. for some soft and lps corals - and between 15 to 30 times turnover from power heads.

Somthing else to think about is drilling the tank for a sump, this will give you extra water volume, somewhere to hide a heater and an auto top up and a DSB and skim the surface.