New Salt water set up!

H

hootin10

i was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction. A friend of mine gave me a 55 gallon tank that was used for freshwater some time ago, and i was wondering what the process of converting it into a saltwater tank would intail. I know that it is acrylic tank and I will need alot of new equipment, but i am kinda new to salt water so any help would be GREAT! thank you.

thanks,

Auston
 
Well you first will need some sort of filtration, this CAN be done through external filters but most salt water tanks are usually done with a sump/refugium.

Since your tank is, im assuming not reef ready, you have 2 options, you can either drill it yourself, or buy and overflow box.

Next, depending on how you want to stock you tank, with fish only or a mix of fish and corals you have several options to go with as far as lighting. There is metal halides, predominant light option in most reef tanks in the US, T5 being the second big hitter and the up and coming LED lit tanks are taking a strong rise in reef tanks. You can most certainly do a mixture of all 3 or just 2, as I am currently running a custom LED setup and going to retro fit 4 T5 bulbs into my next build.

Next for filtration, sand, rock, flow, all of this is dependent on what you want to do with the tank.

So really to answer more questions or give you more suggestions more like, we need to know what you want to do with this tank?
 
okay thanks i will do some research and see what exaclty i want and let ya know. thanks for the reply. If you have any suggestions please i am open to them.

thank you,

Auston
 
Easy to start out with but requires a little more attention than just fish, is a "softie" tank. Which include mushrooms, leathers, zoanthids, palythoas, and various other non skeleton producing corals.

If you google ridcordia garden or zoanthid garden, you can tell right off the bat that there is some dedication to it, but amazing results will come with it.

FOWLR, or fish only with live rock, tanks, IMO, require the same amount of care, but a different care. For example, you dont have to worry about a zoanthid jumping out of the tank and carpet/counter surfing. In FOWLR tanks, you have to take into account that any fish can do that and what you are willing to do to prevent it. Granted, very few of my fish have jumped, but the few that did, i was upset about.

Then there is the less popular marine planted tank. Which requires again some different dedications and care but still comes out pretty nice if you ask me.

Some other "types" of tanks.

Species specific, NPS (non-photosynthetic), cold water, sea horse/pipefish, mixed reef, maxi-mini garden, anemone etc. Just google image search those names with the word tank after it and see what appeals to you most and we can help you set something up.

Check out on youtube David Saxby's Reef Tank. IMO, one of the greatest reef tanks that is privately owned.
 
There is a ton of information out there. I spent countless hours over the course of a month reading up on as much as I could before making the jump and I think it helped out a lot. I am still researching and learning more everyday about different things. Reef Keeping Online was and is a great resource for me that helped me understand a lot about water chemistry, maintenance, different types of livestock, and their proper care. I am still working my way through that resource and trying to read every article on there.
 
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