Newbie Equipment Questions

[chris331]

Hey everyone,

I've kept freshwater fish for a couple years now and I've finally decided to make the switch over to salt water. Yeah, go me!!

Soooo... I was wondering what I will need or if my current equipment will work for a marine setup. I currently have a 29 gallon glass tank with glass hood and standard florescent light fixture. I am running an aqua clear 70 and an old fluval 403. My heater is a submersible Neptune heater.

I'm thinking I'd LIKE to have a FOWLR setup and I will be looking into get new lighting, and i plan on getting a protein skimmer, but could i run the tank with just the fluval 403? What kind of media should I use? I currently have it full with bio-max and a sponge...

Your responses are appreciated... Thanks.

[missc4]

Hi..I had a 28 gallon that I changed over to marine and I used the oringial equipment that I had on the tank when it was freshwater.Filter media that I used on freshwater I used on the marine..I didn't change anything.You can always upgrade alittle along..My 28 gallon bowfront had a whisper 30/60 hang on filter and the marine tank is doing very nicley..I used the lighting that came with the tank,,glass hood and all

[chris331]

Cool. What are you keeping in the tank? Were the waste levels and so on affected in any way?

[missc4]

I have two clowns a goby ,,snails and crabs in the tank..I am setting up a 135 now and they will be moved over..But I have had no problems with the 28,,the crabs ,snails and goby keep it nice and clean

[Germanman]

unless u want to grow algae u wont need better lighting since ur not doing coral. as for th fluval u should be fine with u but i would use just a carbon and no sponges or bioballs or similar products they tend to not work well for saltwater...replace that with live rock and you should be great. also maybe look into a phosphate resin and chemipure.

[chris331]

would i be able to start a reef tank w/ my current set up (plus the lights of course)?

i'm still in my planning stages, so i'm not sure what i want and can do.

[Germanman]

add a skimmer and yes u should be ok for a reef

[chris331]

awesome!! and thanks for the responses.

i have access to the seaclones where i work, so i was looking into those. are the seaclone skimmers good?

what's a good salt mixture to use?

[Reefscape]

Seaclones are not a brilliant skimmer out the of the box...with a few modifications, you can get them running better...

A very good salt to use is Reef Crystals.

Niko

[Germanman]

yea i agree on the sea clone, but like Niko said i have seen them work much better when fixed up a bit. and ill 2nd for the use of reef crystals IMO the best salt out there right now.

[chris331]

I got SeaClone 150 today on clearance plus my discount for about 50 bucks... It's rated up to 150 gallons. Is there such thing as too much skimming? And as I was buying it, one of my fellow managers told me that he had a sea clone and it wasn't that great. Then i got online and saw your responses and I was like uh-oh. Lol. And what kind of Mod's would I need to make?

[Reefscape]

you can strip the seaclone down, and remove the centre tube, cut about an inch of the end of it...the lower tube length makes a really good difference..

here is a few mod links for you...

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/seacloneskimfaqs.htm

http://www.marineaquariums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=47755

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=497630&highlight=seaclone+mod

Niko

[chris331]

aww man... so there's very little good reviews about the seaclones except that the 150 MAY work on a 30g if modified... lol. well i think i'll give it a try and if it doesn't work i can return it.

now my next question is regarding live rock / sand. i was at a LFS today and was checking out prices on bagged aragonite, live sand, and live rock. they had some really nice looking fiji live rock but it was 6.85 per pound and the live sand was 30 lbs for $29 and the aragonite was also $29 for 30 lbs... Is that too expensive? how much live rock / live sand will i need for a 29 gallon tank?

[chris331]

ok my next question is regarding lighting.

will these coralife cf's work for a 30 gallon reef tank?
http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=ES53103

My co-workers got me worried about lighting telling me that i'd have better luck with metal halides... problem is price.

[Germanman]

that lamp should work well enough for soft corals and some LPS corals but thats it really.