Yeah I did the math on just the rock alone on my local market, and just the LR alone would cost me around 900$. The wife didnt care too much for that idea at all, I have kicked around the idea of pulling a walmart ten gallon out of my attic and maybe giving that a shot first for a few reasons. First I can get my wife to believe that it's cheaper (which it kind of is but I'll still need the refractometer, salts, skimmer etc.) Second of all if I dont like the higher level of labor and testing involved I wont have to scrape the 30 gallon in order to stock if again with fw. I love my FW tanks and their inhabitants but the learning is what keeps me addicted to this hobby and I'm running out of room in the FW department. I'm pretty sure that I'll enjoy marine as much if not more than my fw tanks but I'm not exactly bill gates, so I'll take it slow and start from scratch and let that take me where it shall. We are also looking at moving in september and how much fun would breaking down a 125 gallon reef tank that you just got stocked to have a major die off?
I will probably pull down the 10 gallon that I have from wally world sometime today. Kinda lucky it has compacts in it that wont do for any corals but will work just fine for a fowlr.
My thoughts on what to pick up today to begin the curing process are as follows:
Buy 8-9 gallons of distilled water from wally world
pick up some salt mix,
a hydrometer (I'll get a refractometer when the rock is cured)
a tiny powerhead (ac 30 or smaller)
a bag of dead sand and a small bag of aragonite
a bag of dead rock that i saw at petsmart yesterday for like 6$ that would be plenty for a 10 gallon tank
A decent size piece of LR from my local Reef store
and a cup or two of live sand from either petco or the reef store whichever complains less about it
with my fowlr do I need a mechanical filter? I have an hob that is suitable for the tank, or could I just get by with a powerhead and LR? I intend on doing water changes quite frequently until I have further knowledge of how it all goes down, and a LOT of hands on xperience with mixing the salt and ph control and things of that nature. Also any suggestions for a skimmer for a tank this size?
Just my thoughts so far guy's feel free to chime in any advice.
I've never used a mechanical filter on a SW tank. IMHO it is more beneficial to pull out the media and run the filter full of live rock rubble. Also, this gives you a place to put chemical media if you ever need to run any. If you don't want to use a filter, you don't have to. You can run the tank with just powerheads, or you can use both.
If you'd like to keep corals, the Coralife 96W PC quad tube is on sale right now.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3733+9654+13734&pcatid=13734
This would give you plenty of light over a 10 gallon.
As far as a skimmer, IMO you don't need one on a nano. I've kept 4 nano tanks now and have never had any issues keeping parameters in check without a skimmer. In a larger tank it would be a good idea, but in a nano you can make up for not having a skimmer by doing frequent water changes and sticking to your maintenance schedule.
I've used distilled water in the past, but I'm told that RO/DI is a better choice. Many LFSs will sell you RO/DI water, or even premixed SW. This will get you by until your budget allows for an RO/DI unit.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by dead sand vs. aragonite. Dry aragonite sand is fine for your substrate. You don't need to spend the extra money on live sand. If you're trying to get a scoop of sand from a store, I would definitely not recommend doing so at Petco. I've never really run across one where the marine animals looked healthy.
I'm also confused about the bagged rock at Petsmart. I've never really seen much at Petsmart to put in a SW tank other than salt mix and powerheads. You can use some base rock and some live rock, but you should definitely add live rock.
Have you thought about picking up a test kit? I use the API Sw master kit and it's good for the money. There are much better brands out there, but they can be quite pricey.
