Question by rayo725: How to prepare for a salt water aquarium?
I have had several fresh water tanks but have grown bored of the plain fish and now want to start my first salt water 55g aquarium, but have a few questions:

What are the best starter salt water fish?
What should I put in it? (kinds of plants, rocks, etc)
Do i need cleaners such a snails and etc?
What equipment should I get the take care of the tank?

If this is all on some kind of website, Id appreciate it if someone would post it. Thank You.

Best answer:

Answer by Jessica
Get ready to spend some cash

Yellow tangs, damsel fish, many blennies and gobies and some clowns make good SW starter fish. The thing you need to keep in mind, though, is that the stocking levels for saltwater aquaria is going to be significantly less and much more strict than FW. In a 55g, You're probably only going to be able to get away with 4-5 fish.

You can go fish only, which means no live rock, polyps, soft corals, etc. This is usually a good way to start since you only have to worry about the fish's requirements. If you want soft corals like mushrooms, live rock, etc., then you're looking at different types of equipment (ex, lighting) to maintain it.

Turbo snails and cleaner shrimp are beneficial, yes.

You need a ton of circulation and water turn over and depending on who you talk to, a protein skimmer is recommended. If not, regular water changes are a must.

It's been some time since I've worked with marine, so that ends my knowledge Good luck!

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Question by CompleteCreation90: From a normal fish to tank to a salt water aquarium?
Me and my boyfriend currently have a normal tropical tank set up, we put the heater up today. We are planning to buy a pufferfish this friday, we read up that it is essential to keep them in a salt water aquarium? If any of you know if Pufferfish genuinly need to be in salt water please tell me?
Also, how do you set up a salt water aquarium from a normal tropical tank? The tank is 100 litre.

Best answer:

Answer by dabomdotcom30
Although there is freshwater puffer fishes, it's either normally brackish water to saltwater. When you set this up, you need to cycle the tank for 2-4 weeks, meaning you need a hydrometer (Floating is better), you need a good filter, you need circulation of the water, you don't need a protein skimmer, but you can use a surface skimmer instead, you need the ph, ammonia, nitrate test kits, you will need to have hiding places like live rock, or things that these puffers can hide, you will need to understand the meaning of a saltwater aquarium, you can search this through wikipedia or about.com. Search marine aquarium set ups and maintaining marine aquariums. You should use water conditioners. To boost your filtration for faster cycling of the tank, you can use stress zyme. What the good bacteria in the tank does is it reduces nitrates in the water. If you have live rock in there, it also helps reduce nitrates because of the minerals. However, live rock will also produce ammonia.

It is very important that you cycle the tank, you have to understand that there are many diseases for marine fish. Marine fish, including brackish puffer fishes are very fragile and needs to be cared for on a daily basis. Puffer fish are aggressive and should be kept with species that are aggressive like they are, meaning if you put clownfishes in there with them, it's more than likely the clownfish will be eaten.

The salinity for true saltwater fish should be kept at 1.016-1.025. For brackish water you can go to 1.008-1.006, anything below will be considered dangerous for saltwater fishes, brackish water will still survive, however, if you keep it low like that, the fishes can die due to lack of salt and what it does is that the fishes kidneys will go into failure first, then all the other organs will shut down.

You need to do extensive research before buying and setting up an saltwater aquarium. If you don't, it could be very costly.

I've been in the marine aquarium since I quit freshwater fishes for over 7 years ago. I've been in the aquarium hobby for 17+ years.

click on this link to see how my tank is, the video is old, but new ones will be posted shortly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ool0nUvCm8

I hope this helps, thanks for asking...............

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Question by ajdin_bilajac: what type of filter do you use with a salt water aquarium ?
I know you use a protein skimmer is a must have but would you use a power filter with a salt water aquarium ? or do you not use a power filter at all just use a protein skimmer and additionl add ons ?

cuz I just put in a live sand into my aquairum and it still is cloudy after 24 hours i have been told it could take up to a week ! but not sure if a power filter is used with a salt water aquarium

Best answer:

Answer by nosoop4u246
You could use a power filter, but canister filters, sumps, and refugiums are FAR more common. A canister would take up the least amount of space and probably be the easiest, but sumps and refugiums will be FAR more effective at biological filtration (you can fill them with live rock and live sand as well as macro algae to suck up nutrients). If it's just to get rid of the cloudiness, don't bother. It should be gone within a few days.

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