help NOW! starting up a 58G

lucy10203

lucy10203

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Oct 14, 2006
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Surfer's paradise-FLorida
I currently havea 20g saltwater tank, and i now have the chance to upgrade to a 58 gallon tank at a extremly reasonable price that comes with the hood, lights, and stand. The only thing is taht it is slighty used, wiht jsut a few minor scracthes. it comes with a Fluval 304 water filter, and a Visitherm water heater. the dimensions of the tank are: tank is 36" wide, 18" deep, 20" tall
and cabinet 32" tall

My question is, what should i get to set this tank up? around how many pounds of sand, should i get another filter? and what about a protein skimmer? also how many pounds of live rock, and what else is nessecary to maintain this aquarium?

I am on a tight budget, the tank setup is being sold at around 80 dollars.
Around how much (estimate) will all these things i need to setup the tank cost?

Great thanks for those who respond
need suggestions ASAP
 
Ok, we can help you save a little cash. First, as to your sand bed it depends on your tastes. I'd go to home depot etc. and get white play sand you'll probably need a couple of bags to get it an inch or two deep. The rest depends on if you are going reef or not. I'd get a little live rock and mostly base rock ,"dry coral rocks" and throw in a cocktail shrimp or two and let it cycle just like you would a fresh water tank. After the end of the cycle add some premium live rock so that you can introduce some critters that didn't make it through the cycle.
 
well, they say 1lb of LR for gallon is sufficent, but that can get expensive, especially with 58 gallons of water.... i think a good way to safe money is to set up some limestone as base rock and maybe a few cheap pieces of figi? You shouldnt need great lighting if you are going FOWLR so probably not to steep of a price there and as for the filter, it sounds decent enough... probably want to get a few power heads to help increase the circulation (i would probably reccomend 3). Depending on how much money you exactly have you may also want to purchase another heater, due to the fact if the one you have fails you are in a lot of trouble and the last thing you need is dead fish 8). I am no expert but i imagine some sort of fuge or refugium would be nice to have, but thats not really my area to talk about hopefully someone else will help you out there. The main thing i think you will need more of is circulation... so those powerheads would be really nice to have imho.

-Jay
 
well you dont need lots of lr. i have seen tanks that have been running for a couple years with no lr and a hob for a filter.:)
 
you dont need lots of live rock is only part true. live rock is very important to the long term health of the fish and thats on a biological point of view. just the other day a guy came to my work and showed me an amazing tank with no live rock.....but it had tons of coral skeletons and barnacle tubes that provided the same surface area for the bacteria. so a healthy aquarium really just depends on surface area. so to make that all simple...you need places for the fish to hide and enough surface area for the bacteria regardless of what it is. also you need some sort of "seed" for the bacteria so live sand with no live rock would be great, or some live sand and some live rock with dead rock would be perfect because the dead rock would grow and seed.
check out Natural reef Aquarium by John Tullock hes got a cheep natural way to set up awsome tanks.
 
I'm on a tight budget as well in my setup for my 65g.

For the rock, I'm planning on purchasing a 50lb box of CaribSea Base Rock and then maybe 10-20 lbs of Live Fiji.

You can find the 50 lb boxes of CaribSea Base rock online for about $50.. hopefully shipping costs don't rape me though :)
 
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