# New to salt water



## Cobra (Sep 25, 2004)

Im a piranha owner thats thinking of making a 33 gal fish only tank. I will use pool filter sand or white gravel as substrate. i will decorate with fake corals and plants and some sea shells. What are the thigs I really need. Will a ac 300 be ok for filtration? I dont want to bother with a skimmer. And I will start by getting 2 clowns.


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## weezplz (Oct 18, 2004)

go to grimreefers.com or ask thePACK, hes amazing sw guy.


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## Cobra (Sep 25, 2004)

But this is the salt water forum......cant anybody give a little info please?


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## 00nothing (Mar 26, 2004)

i am not a big fan of hang on filtration for salt but yes an ac300 will do IF u have a skimmer, in fish only tank a skimmer is the most important piece of equipment u can have


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## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

if your not going to use live sand or live rock you need a skimmer, the ac300 will work great for water circulation but dont use carbon or charcoal, you can use the foam, really the best thing is to put a baffle in the filter to change the water flow in the filter and put alittle live sand and small piece of live rock and algea with a small light on 24/7, this is called a fuge (refuge) it works great for nitrate export and pod growth..

i would highly sugest decorating with live sand and live rock..


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## Cobra (Sep 25, 2004)

so live rock can replace an expensive skimmer? isnt a hob filter nessecary to clean up all the sh*t and uneaten food?


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## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

Cobra said:


> so live rock can replace an expensive skimmer? isnt a hob filter nessecary to clean up all the sh*t and uneaten food?
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the live rock doesnt realy replace a skimmer, the small organisims that live in the rock break down some of the waste, you should also have scarlet and blue tip hermit crabs, nasarius snails, margarita snails, and maybe a turbo snail or two, if you get turbo snails keep an eye on them, if you see onee tha hasnt moved in a few days it may be dead if that happens or if you think it dead just carefull move it out of the tank and smell it, youll know if it dead, they can really screw up you water paramaters.

all of these little critters become part of the natural cycle of filtration, a skimmer is still useful but not necessary if you do regular water changes, a refuge also helps in the nitrate break down.

the whole idea is to recreate a complete eco system and generally for a small tank your not going to have more then two or three very small fish which will not produce a huge bio load and if your clean up crew is set up right then you should have a decent balance. the more intesting things in a reef tank are not the fish but the corals and the inverts and other critter that are always moving around the tank doing there part to complete the cycle..

you should be careful not to over feed but generally anything the fish dont eat the snails, crabs and shrimp will eat right up. the HOB filter is mostly just for water circulation, you could put a foam/sponge filter in there but it could be more of a problem when stuff collects and breaks down in the filter your better off letting it circulate in teh tnak and let the critters eat it.

ultimately you will have to do water changes to help everything along.

reef pakage / clear packages are available all over the marine web sites and a good LFS with reef stuff should have packages..

http://www.etropicals.com/product/prod_Dis...=45&pCatId=1766


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## 00nothing (Mar 26, 2004)

sorry not to disagree nismo but carbon is definetly one of the things u want to run and considering its a fowlr u might want to run both carbon and foam really there is no replacement for live rock but if u must buy yourself some dead rock it will aid in fitration adn over time will become live

one way of bypassing the skimmer is to place live marine plants (macro algae) in your tank they absorb much of what a skimmer is trying to remove and by trimming these plants regularly you are removing all of this instead of adding a fuge u would esentially be making a fuge that u keep your fish in

and oh yeah LIVE ROCKWILL NOT REPLACE A SKIMMER


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## badmatt (Sep 15, 2003)

unfortunaly mr nismo driver.

you have no clue wtf your tlaking about









on any SW tank you need a skimmer PERIOD no if's or but's about it.

the skimmer is on of the most important parts of a salt water tank,buy a skimmer for a 30 gallon i would suggest a prizim or a CPR bacpak skimmer good for a 40 gallon tank. any thing bigger then that you should just buy a Berlin classic HOB skimmer.

the AC300 is good to have for flow and also to use phosban, vcarobn or other resin type media. for aditional flow your going to want to runa power head on the opisite end of the tank so you have no dead spots.

good luck

but dont listen to nismo driver when it comes to salt water.


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## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

badmatt said:


> unfortunaly mr nismo driver.
> 
> you have no clue wtf your tlaking about
> 
> ...


sorry but you are not any more correct than i am, you definately can and many people do run with out skimmers with out problem it is not an absolute necessity most when your running a reef tank.. it will help maintain good water paramaters but you can go with out you just have to do more frequient water changes if your nitrates are a problem or if you over feed.. some people dont use skimmers because they remove alot of benificial elements..

i ran my nano cube with out a skimmer for 6 months and have never had a problem with my water, i have a skimmer on my FOWLR but it doesnt produce much dark nasty skimmate wether i set it up to be wet or dryer skimmate, mostly because i do regular water changes monthly and dont over stock or over feed my tank..

for a fish only with live rock yes a skimmer is much more important because alot of fish that are kept in FOWLR are agresive and will eat most inverts so you cant maintain a good cleaner crew.. so in that case yes you would want to have a skimmer..

and the best hob skimmer is the aquac remora most places online sell them with a magdrive pump.. most people who get the prizim complain that it is hard to maintain a consistan t skimmate and have to adjust it more frequintly then other. ultimately you want a skimmer that works from the sump, like a euro reef, but you can make the same type of skimmer for alot less then buying one. if you do a search for "eap skimmer" on reef central you should be able to find it..

"(macro algae) in your tank they absorb much of what a skimmer is trying to remove and by trimming these plants regularly "

this is partially true, you really want to have the macro algea in a seperate place like a in sump refuge or hob refuge because some fish will eat all your algea and some type of algea should be kept under light 24/7 for it to be as effective as possible and some of them will go sexual if they are given a dark period and that can mess up your tank..

im not claiming to be the end all expert but i do have more than just a clue of what im talking about, there are differnt ways of running a reef tank some people will tell you not to use any sand because they had a bad experiance with it messing up there tank. others will tell you to use a deep live sand bed to get maximum efectiveness from the sand bed..

you will always be able to find differnt people to support difernt methods.. so before you go around talking sh*t about people be more open minded or do more research..badmatt







go f*ck your self


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## 00nothing (Mar 26, 2004)

i dont even want to reply in here but i feel compelled to i think theres a lot of misinformation in this thread

nismo yes a fuge is the best place to place macro but at the same time if u have nowhere else to put it why not in the main tank i have been growing cheato im my mantis tank and its doing quite well

as far as the skimmer goes lets look to the top of this thread he is talking about a 33 gallon tank unless he has a fairly large fuge a skimmer is going to be needed imho u should have one on anything over 10 gallons 20 gallons at the max and thats assuming ua re doing very regular water changes and also have a good werking fuge

my biggest concern in this thread is where u got the idea that live rock can be used as a supplement to a protein skimmer on that one i require some proof show me one other person on the internet who claims that has worked for them along with complete water parameters

Cobra my recommendation is to completely ignore this thread there is to much of cross info on here to get anything useful out of it do a search and check out other forums one of my favorites is 3reef.com it has a very good how to on setting up a tank it is focused on reef but the requirements for a fish only tank can be extracted from it


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## Cobra (Sep 25, 2004)

alright.........so screw the ac filter.........33gal tank with a skimmer, heater, pool filter sand filled with 33 gal of salt water and fake decorations. Is that good for a fish only tank? By the way thanks for all the advice guys. Really appreciated, just remember im a newbie so I really dont want live rock or anything complicated, just fish. thanks again.....any other opinions are still welcome.


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## 00nothing (Mar 26, 2004)

Cobra said:


> alright.........so screw the ac filter.........33gal tank with a skimmer, heater, pool filter sand filled with 33 gal of salt water and fake decorations. Is that good for a fish only tank? By the way thanks for all the advice guys. Really appreciated, just remember im a newbie so I really dont want live rock or anything complicated, just fish. thanks again.....any other opinions are still welcome.
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that is off to a good start if u dont plan on having live rock run the ac300 and the skimmer and instead of pool filter sand which is silica based and results in diatom blooms which are very unsightly try and find something that is calcium based such as southdown or bomix they can usually be found in like home depot's and rona and is actually cheaper than pool filter sand found this one out first hand as i had pool filter sand in my nano

sorry for any confusion i may have taken part in hope we havn't given u any negative opinions


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## diddye (Feb 22, 2004)

i second nismo...a skimmer is not mandatory...it is just highly recommended...for example, many nano reefers dont use skimmers. Instead, frequent water changes are done....ie weekly. A skimmer is basically to remove proteins from the water. Water changes also replace trace elements and keep the water balanced.


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## 00nothing (Mar 26, 2004)

diddye said:


> i second nismo...a skimmer is not mandatory...it is just highly recommended...for example, many nano reefers dont use skimmers. Instead, frequent water changes are done....ie weekly. A skimmer is basically to remove proteins from the water. Water changes also replace trace elements and keep the water balanced.
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were not talking about a nano here this tank is 33 gallons but meh whatever go to reef central and say that sh*t and seee how fast u get flamed on a nano its completely acceptable but ona 33 its to large to run without one and in the long run not even close to cost efficietn u would be making up salt way to often


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## diddye (Feb 22, 2004)

00nothing said:


> were not talking about a nano here this tank is 33 gallons but meh whatever go to reef central and say that sh*t and seee how fast u get flamed on a nano its completely acceptable but ona 33 its to large to run without one and in the long run not even close to cost efficietn u would be making up salt way to often
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My response was to badmatts "on any SW tank you need a skimmer PERIOD no if's or but's about it."....I wasn't referring to a 33 gallon. A SW can be a pico....does that need a skimmer? Not to get technical, but isn't anything below a 40-50 gallon considered a nano? But I do agree a 33 does need a skimmer...im just saying not all do as stated by badmatt


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## tigerjace (Jan 1, 2005)

Cobra, 
Theres alot to understand about Saltwater Aquariums, more so in a reef tank then a fish only tank. It's not as complicated as it seems. The rule of thumb is the bigger the tank the better, more room for error due to the increase water volume mass.

One thing is for sure, A PROTEIN SKIMMER IS A MUST, SO IS LIVE ROCK. One thing everybody failed to mention on this post is a R.O. (Reverse Osmosis) Unit. That is by far the most important thing if not skimmers and live rock. If you dont know what a R.O. Unit is, it's a filtering unit that you hook up to your water pipes or sink that will remove up to 99% of everything in water leaving it virtually pure. This benefits you in a way that it reduces phospurs, nitrates, chemicals, nutrients and etc. already in our water systems that will cause algae bloom problems, plus it will remove chlorine and no need to add water conditioners. AN R.O. UNIT IS ONE OF THE BEST THINGS YOU CAN DO IN A SW SETUP!

As for the refugium, theres alot of maintenance required in a refugium, because it's basically a housing for algae and or plants to feed on the nutrients to lower the nitrates in the water but if you've had experience with algae or caluerpa, they can grow quite fast. I've never used one but my understanding is that it works well, but incorporates additional maintanence and know how. As a beginner I wouldn't recommend it. R.O. Unit, Protein Skimmer, Live Rock will help in elliminate your nutrients in the water. Oh and hang in the back filters don't work too well, best filtration is to have a wet/dry sump, plus you can put your protein skimmer in the sump.

Also have 1 to 2lbs of live rock per gallon. Sand bed is not a bad idea either, if you decide on a sand bed, have atleast 2 inches of sand. The theory behind having sand bed is that live rock will house aerobic batteria that consumes nitrite to nitrate and sand bed will house anaerobic batteria that will furthur consume your nitrate to very low levels of nitrate. Normal levels of nitrate is harmless to fish but can be damaging to corals. Don't use sand from the beach or anywhere else, make sure its purchased from the fishstore where its clean and free of bacteria. Live sand is best but it can be expensive, buy sand from the bag and buy a few lbs of live sand to seed it, in time it will become live.

Tangs are hardy fish, plus they graze on any algae you may have so they're good starter fish, particularly the yellow tang. Don't do damsels, they're cute at first but get big and ugly not to mention mean. Snails are good for the tank so are cleaner shrimps. Cleaner shrimps will actually clean the ich off fish. Stay away from crabs (especially larger ones, they will eat your snails) and shrimps with big snapping claws.

If your thinking about CORALS, well thats another story, when you have success with fish then consider coral. That involves more proper lighting (corals being photosynthetic),water chemistry:calcium, iodide, trace elements, strontium, etc. Plus type of corals HARD or SOFT will determine the best type of lighting, Metal Halide, Power Compact, or Flourescents.

All that is mention here is the basis for a saltwater tank. I might of missed a few details but trust me, I know what I'm talking about, heres the proof.


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## rchan11 (May 6, 2004)

WOW...tigerjace


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## Cobra (Sep 25, 2004)

Thanks tigerjace but i saw on many sites that u can do a fish only tank so that means live rock isnt a must, right? But a skimmer now sounds like a neccessity.


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## diddye (Feb 22, 2004)

its all about bioload


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## diddye (Feb 22, 2004)

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...threadid=496482

Heres an example of some skimmerless reefers. These are also non-nanos.


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## tigerjace (Jan 1, 2005)

Cobra,

You don't need live rocks for a fish only tank but you have to understand that it aids in your filtration big time. It acts as a housing for your biological bacteria, like how bioballs do but is more porous thus more housing for beneficial bacteria. So in otherwords, you should have some.

Also people need to understand that for those who don't use protein skimmers in a reef setup either has a refugium or of some sort that will consume the protein and or nutrients in the water. In addition some reef system have minimal, little or no fish in the reef, thus the system stays cleaner and does not require a protein skimmer. There are some people that dont even do water changes for years in there reef setup that has little or no fish and just corals.

Again, everybody has their own methods and experiences. Some works for some and not for others. Reef system in a sense has it's own uniqueness pertaining to different individuals. You have to find yours through trial and error, but always follow the fundamentals.

The fundamentals for Fish only setup is LIVE ROCK(IF NOT THEN BIOBALLS OR SOME SORT OF MEDIA THAT WILL HOUSE BIOLOGICAL BACTERIA), THE RIGHT SALINITY LEVEL, PROTEIN SKIMMER(IF NOT THEN A REFUGIUM), ATLEAST 10% WATER CHANGE TWICE A WEEK (PREFERABLY WITH R.O. WATER), FOOD, AND ALOT OF LOVE. ALSO U.V. STERILIZER IS GREAT FOR FISH ONLY TANKS BUT IS NOT A MUST.

I dont think i missed anything but if i did, feel free to elaborate people.


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