excited but apprehensive

[Asteroid]

Hello All - I have been reading on this forum for awhile now. The expertise here is awesome. No doubt I am learning everytime I read. I am new to the saltwater arena and have a host of questions which I expect you-all have answered many times. Thanks in advance for indulging me as a new person on the saltwater block. My school has allowed me to purchase a Marineland Instant Ocean setup which comes with a 55gallon glass tank, an emperor 400 biowheel filtration unit, a light strip with 40watt bulb, and a 200watt heater, along with test kit and hydrometer. I also bought to begin with - 15lbs of carib sea - aragonite -reef sand and 40lbs of live aragonite - reef sand. I will also get about 75-100lbs of live rock. So, is it "ok" with you-all to start with the newbie questions? Thanks....

[Bifferwine]

Hi and welcome!

Sounds like you are on track, but keep in mind with the lights the tank comes with, you will not be able to keep any kind of corals, anemones or clams. You will have to upgrade to lights specifically for reef tanks if you want to keep a reef tank. The lights you have will be just fine for a fish-only (FO) tank though.

The filter it comes with will work okay if you have a light bioload -- only stocking a few fish. You will probably need to upgrade to a good protein skimmer if you want to keep more fish or start keeping inverts.

Any specific questions you have, feel free to ask.

[RyanG]

Welcome to the Reef! Its a great site. Please remember that the only dumb question is one that is not asked.

[fatman]

Originally Posted by Asteroid

Hello All - I have been reading on this forum for awhile now. The expertise here is awesome. No doubt I am learning everytime I read. I am new to the saltwater arena and have a host of questions which I expect you-all have answered many times. Thanks in advance for indulging me as a new person on the saltwater block. My school has allowed me to purchase a Marineland Instant Ocean setup which comes with a 55gallon glass tank, an emperor 400 biowheel filtration unit, a light strip with 40watt bulb, and a 200watt heater, along with test kit and hydrometer. I also bought to begin with - 15lbs of carib sea - aragonite -reef sand and 40lbs of live aragonite - reef sand. I will also get about 75-100lbs of live rock. So, is it "ok" with you-all to start with the newbie questions? Thanks....

This will be for a class room? What grade? I like class room tanks!

[daugherty]

What are your plans for the tank going to be? fish only, any coral?

[Asteroid]

Hello you-all,

I am going to move over to the "lighting, filtration, and other equipment" area to ask my questions. For now I would like to have a combination of fish, corals, and inverts. I expect I will have to have different lighting and a protein skimmer. I am a college prof. I would like to have this tank to supplement my general zoology class which has a very strong invert. component. I sure would appreciate it if you-all would educate me. I am hoping to minimize my saltwater mistakes. I will post over there tomorrow (Sunday morning sometime) - have to make supper for now. Later....

[NewbReefer]

sounds like a blast! you cant go wrong with the people that comprise this forum, the info you'll learn from everyones common reef keeping knowledge to peoples experiences is priceless...and yet far cheaper than buying book after book. right fatman?

[RyanG]

Way to get your institution to finance an awesome hobby!

[dustin_P74]

just be aware if you have not already figured out, we have a lot of sarcastic people on here that will make a joke at any material you give them to work with

[fatman]

They all have there advantages and weaknesses. It takes a long time to write a book, get it published, printed and distributed. This can some times make some information expensive and worthless both if the area in which the book is about is advancing with any speed. Usually this not the case with reefing though. Lots of reefers will hold on to old ways with every tooth and nail they have slowing down general progress quite a lot. It is surprising how much fairly old material is considered new to most reefers. Some information I hear shared makes me cringe as to its obvious flaws, yet it gets repeated as if it was gospel. There is a lot of good information available now due to the Internet, but it does take time to find it, study it and try to find corroborating studies or data that support it. There are some top professionals including people with doctorate degrees who release studies that can not be verified or repeated or that do not meet peer review by fellow scientists/researchers. A lot of work is paid for my manufacturers of aquarium products which make for some obviously tilted results at times. In general though, I have always bought research publications, reference books, text books and manuals and probably always will. I have many, many text books for courses I have not taken as it is usually not considered acceptable to go to a professor in a department totally out side of your field to get permission to take their graduate level classes without the supposedly needed prerequisite classes. I in general do not have much faith in statistics that are based on opinion surveys or general public opinions as I have taken classes in statistics. There is a huge difference between statistics based on empirical data and statistics based on surveys (opinions).