Please help, thinking about starting a 1st salt water tank!!!!!

if you haven't read through the newbie sticky's that's a great place to start to answer some of your questions. you really don't need a skimmer in that size tank, weekly water changes (10%) would keep things clean enough with just a pair of clowns in there. really the tank is probably more suited for a pair of cardinals (bangaii's maybe) as they don't require as much swimming room as the clowns and the tank is tall and narrow. as far as water goes basically you mix RO water with a salt mix to a specific gravity of about 1.024 in a bucket and run a power head and heater in the bucket for about 24hrs before changing out 10% of the water in the tank. you don't need mechanical filtration for SW like FW, the live rock in the tank will act as your filter. you will need 1-2# of live rock per gallon so about 30 or so pounds for that tank. you also would want a good aragonite sand for substrate, about 20#. you would need a power head or some pump in there for water circulation, you want about 10x turnover so if the tank is 20g you want about 200gph for flow. as far as coral goes you need reef lighting for that... most ppl don't put fake decorations into SW tanks as its kinda tacky looking as far as cost goes, the live rock is the biggest expense usually running about $7 per pound depending on your lfs. hopefully that helps a bit

You'll have trouble if you decide to do coral. The tank is tall and difficult to light. I think only metal halides will be strong enough for your tank. And that should set you back at least $100 for used lights.

LR shouldn't be too expensive. Just look for a decent deal on craigslist. Should be $3 at MOST off craigslist.

If you still want to continue doing a saltwater tank there's plenty more that hasn't been listed yet.

For your first SW tank, I'd really encourage you to go a different route and go with a long versus tall tank.

I def agree with grins on this one. There's nothing wrong with a 20gal but a 20 long would be better. IMO once you put LR in that tank there will not be much room for fish to swim. If that tank were to be shorter and wider that would be better, its just to tall and narrow.

i too certainly agree that this tank is not ideal for SW but figured since that's what sg1 has it could work...

Oh no doubt it could work, but considering that this is their first attempt at SW and that the cost of the actual tank is maybe the lowest priced items one buys for their marine tank it is something for the OP to consider.

My first tank was a 20g tall and I would think as long as you read and llearn as much as you can before setting up the tank so you can come up with a plan that would be the best for your tank AND your commited to doing the required maintence (which it sounds like you would be since you already have another fish tank) you would do fine with that tank...I like the idea of rocks with a plexi-glass rod in the middle of the tank...