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

[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.