Starting A Salt Water Aquarium?

[simplewhitelilly]

I want to start a small 10 gallon salt water aquarium, i dont know anything about starting a salt water aquarium. does any one have any tips or advice on this?

 

[StandbySetting]

10 Gallons ins't a great starting point for someone new to marines (I presume you're new?) Keeping water parameters stable will be difficult, is there any chance you can start with a bigger tank? It's not that it's not doable, it's just that you will have to be scrupulous with maintenance.

 

[simplewhitelilly]

10 Gallons ins't a great starting point for someone new to marines (I presume you're new?) Keeping water parameters stable will be difficult, is there any chance you can start with a bigger tank? It's not that it's not doable, it's just that you will have to be scrupulous with maintenance.

i do have a larger aquarium but its in use rite now. im not all new to the aquarium scene. but iv never had a salt water. its always been fresh water

 

[StandbySetting]

OK, it's definitely doable, but you'll have to be careful and spot on with maintenance.

You'll want some live rock, a refractometer, a set of test kits, salt, circulation pumps, coral sand for substrate, phosphate remover. There's probably a few things I've missed but the important ones are there.

The live rock acts as your filtration, the circulation pumps constantly move water around the rock to keep it well filtered, you wont need a regular filter. However, you could fill the regular filter with Phosphate remover.

What sort of fish are you looking to keep?

 

[ALW]

Jack pretty much covered it all. With marine tanks larger is best so always go for the largest size tank you can.

A Basic list of equiptment:

1. Tank and Stand
2. Lights (either T5 or Halide depending on how much money you have to start with)
3. Powerheads (for Reef tanks we aim for 20x the turn of of the tanks total volume per hour, eg for a 200l tank that would be 4000lph. You would want this coming from at least 2 2000lph powerheads)
4. Heater and Thermometer (depends on tank size)
5. Live Rock (depends on tank size)
6. Argonite Sand (depends on how deep you want it)
7. Protein Skimmer
8. RO or Ready mixed Salt Water
9. Refractometer
10. Basic test kits

Aditional equpitment:

1. Refugium/Sump
2. External Filter (striped of the filter media, and filled with phosphate remover, nitrate remover and carbon)
3. UV Sterilizers (debateable matter)
4. Reef test kits
5. RO unit, if you plan on making your own water
6. Salt mix as above

Off the top of my head thats about it, but i may have missed something out.