Newbie Recomendations

[fish-r-fancy]

Hi I thought I would start a thread that would be useful for many people getting into the marine hobby, such as myself were more advanced and experienced people can recommend things for a beginner. Such as tank size,equitment,if they should go with Fo FOWLR or a reef tank, lighting, substrate and fish of course exc. I just think that this will help out a lot of people such as myself. So what do you recommend?

I just thought of another good idea. I'm sure it will also help newbies if people could post pictures of them setting up there marine tank, sort of like a marine tank diary!

 

[Mr.September15]

tank size,equitment,if they should go with Fo FOWLR or a reef tank, lighting, substrate and fish of course exc.

-Tank Size: A good size to start off with is a 40gal or a 55gal. some may take it lower but it is easier to keep stable with more volume.
-Equipment: Powerhead (20x turnover), L.R, Substrate(Not needed if your going with BB), Heater,Filter (some people use L.R as there main filter but its always good to have a helping hand), R/O water, Protein Skimmer (Not needed for smaller tanks such as 10gallon tanks), SW master test kit.
-For begginers it would be easier to start of with FOWLR and of course once your tank matures you can promote your tank to a higher degree of difficulty by starting a reef tank.
-Substrate: Sand is preferable but you can also go with BB, some marine fish do need a DSB in order to thrive in a tank so it would be better to get sand (Live sand or Aragonite Sand *spelling?*)
-Fish: A few people who choose to do cycling with fish end up using Damsels since there cheap and hardy. But I always urge people to do Fishless cycling with L.R. Some good ideas for begginers are Gobies,Wrasses (6-line), and of course the good ole' Nemo (Clownfish).
-Lighting: MH is highly reccomended if your going to start a reef tank but if your only going to keep FOWLR then a small 20watt light is acceptable. MH are also very expensive and will drain your budget quickly. There is an alternative but it isnt as good as MH. PC lighting is a good choice to start off with. It really depends on what type of corals your going to keep. Softies,LPS,SPS. Usually most softies do well under PC'S

 

[fish-r-fancy]

What brands of equitment do you reccomend?

 

[SkiFletch]

US or UK?

 

[fish-r-fancy]

I'm in the US

 

[SkiFletch]

For US buyers, I like:

Lighting:
hellolights.com
currentusa
coralife
PFO
XM
IceCap

Skimming:
ASM and/or EuroReef (same skimmers rebadged)
Coralife Superskimmer
AquaC

Powerheads:
Seio
Tunze (hard to find less than the cost of your first born son)
Maxijet (modded for larger tanks www.mjmods.com)

LR:
local club sales
premiumaquatics.com

Heaters:
pick something middle of the road for price. Cant go wrong with Jager

My other hardware tip. If using a sump, drill whenever possible, overflow boxes are a PITA


What NOT to buy:
Cheapest thing you can find
Live Sand (marketing gimmick IMO)
Seaclone skimmer
Anything by Jebo
Red Sea Prism skimmers

 

[Mr.September15]

I was planning to get this one:

http/www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsUS/ctl36...lewheel65gallon

Since you reccomended Coralife Super Skimmer Is this a good model for my 30gallon?