First Salt Tank!

Kully3xf

Kully3xf

Reefer Madness
Hey guys, new here and just starting my first salt water tank. I've been doing freshwater tanks for many years now and want to diversify my apartment with a little bit of color and flare more than the rest of my fish! Just picked up a 30 gallon tank yesterday and I'm going to be starting my first nano reef. I'm going to be posting pictures of the tank as it comes along, as well as asking for advice and help along the way I'm sure.
What I have so far,
30 gallon tank
Tetra Whisper 40 air pump
Koralia 550 gph current pump
Still it's super empty
Every pay check I'm going to keep adding on, i plan on getting 40 lbs of fiji live rock (i hear that's a good standby)
30 lbs of live sand. probably white with a little pink
a biowheel filter with no carbon for cross current
and as for the light, i'm not certain. anyone have any good ideas? I've been looking around but can't decide. I don't want to spend tons of money, but i want something that works well. Tank is 30" long and 12" wide.
2hnom55.jpg


Also i will not be keeping the tank there, i just had to set it up to look at it :shock:
 
Welcome to the site. Looks pretty good so far.
I'd try and sell the air pump since you don't need it in salt water.
Also you can't beat a skimmer, so I'd ditch the biowheel as well. It could cause you problems down the road if you aren't religious about cleaning it.

As for lights you've got tons of options. I'd probably go with T5 lighting if you're on a budget. Have fun!
 
Also if you want to save some more money you could get say 20 lbs of live rock and 20 lbs of dry rock which will become live rock.
 
Hey thanks goose! I'll just put the pump back on the freshwater tank. No big deal just out $1.50 for airline tubing xD.

Thanks for the tip on rock! There are not to many LFS in my area so good tips like that are greatly appreciated!!
 
Oh also after doing a lot of reading I've come across many websites saying that for a 30 gallon tank a skimmer is unnecessary. the cost component doesn't way out apparently and i read if you have enough sand and rock in the tank it should take care of it self with weekly top offs and water changes. Is this right? or poor advice. I don't plan on using the HOB filter for filtering, rather just having the biowheel and a little cross current.
 
There's definitely people that don't skim. As long as you don't stock your tank too heavily then you should be okay. I'd limit it to maybe 3 small fish and keep up with the weekly water changes. If you're starting off with just a FOWLR (fish only with live rock) tank then for sure see how it goes and you can always add a skimmer later. As for sand you don't really want more than an inch of sand so 30 lbs may be too much, also don't get suckered into buying live sand just get dry aragonite sand.
 
Great! Thanks again for your input. I'm def going to do some coral, and i was thinking 2 perculas and maybe something else, a few shrimp, a star fish, maybe some other little critters in there.
 
Sounds awesome. Now for the best advice, go SLOW!! Let your tank cycle properly and stabilize before you add 1 fish, then let it stabilize again for a few weeks before you even think of adding another one. As for coral there are some great beginner corals like paly's, mushrooms, leathers, duncans etc. but I'd wait a few months to see how your water quality is holding up. Especially since you can expect a few algae blooms, corals don't really appreciate that.
 
So i just placed an order for some more stuff. couldn't wait two more weeks :mrgreen:

was looking at some skimmers out of curiosity, and found one that was the same price as a bio wheel, so even though i said i was going skimmerless, i broke down.

Octopus hang on back skimmer
Master Test Kit
Hydrometer
150w Heater for 45 gallon
40 lbs of marine white sand dry, more than what i wanted but it was 20 or 40 lbs
and red sea coral pro salt 55 gallon bucket.

Also at my work we have a ro/di system
4rc9ac.jpg

on the right hand side of that picture there is a blue valve, i think that is the out put for water? or is that waste water. I don't know how those things work but a ton of water comes out of that boy and i wanna know if i can use that for my tank or if i should buy my own.

soon :squint:
 
Test it with a TDS Meter, normally the flow you get with a lot of output is the waste water, however since this is at your work area, it may be your output for clean water. You need to check this with a TDS meter to make sure that you are using the right output.
 
Hey guys! Quick update!
I got all my supplies in and now I'm just waiting for my live and dry rock to come in. I called marco rocks and talked to the owner him self. he said they were trying to steer away from selling only live fiji to customers and trying to seed the rock for environmental purposes... made sense. So i bought 25 lbs of dry and 15 of live sounds like a good ratio. should be in early next week and i can start to cycle...

Also, i just brought 30 gallons of water up 3 flights of stairs... i will never do that again lol

All i need now is a light and some stock!
 
Quick question about filling the tank. I'm going to start mixing the salt and water soon, so when i get the rock the tank is nearly filled and ready to start. my question is should i mix the water outside of the tank? or is it ok to mix the water and salt in the tank, before i put the rock in obviously. all that is in there right now is dry sand a heater and a powerhead. I figured i could mix the 30 gallons in there so that i don't have to buy a huge water bucket to mix and another heater for 30 gallons etc. etc.

also should i run my protein skimmer during the salt mix and cycle ? im thinking not too because i figure it will pull some of the things out needed for a cycle? just a thought.
 
You probably could, the only thing that'd worry me would be having undisolved salt crystals in the sand bed. Besides you don't need a huge water bucket, just a 5 gal pail from home depot would do the trick, mix it in there, dump, repeat.
 
Kully3xf said:
Oh also after doing a lot of reading I've come across many websites saying that for a 30 gallon tank a skimmer is unnecessary. the cost component doesn't way out apparently and i read if you have enough sand and rock in the tank it should take care of it self with weekly top offs and water changes. Is this right? or poor advice. I don't plan on using the HOB filter for filtering, rather just having the biowheel and a little cross current.
Click to expand...

I ran my 27g without a skimmer for about 5 months. While my water quality wasn't horrible there always seemed to be 'dust' in the water floating around.

Once I splurged and got my AWESOME hang on the back octopus my water is crystal clear I freakin love it. So you dont have to now but you can always keep an eye out for a good deal and get one down the road.

OH and welcome!!
 
But i would not run your skimmer while your tank is cycling :)

And it might be a bit easier to mix it in buckets and then dump in the tank, but you could mix in the tank if you wish.

But make sure that your rocks are sitting on the glass when you put them in. Putting your rocks on the sand can be dangerous because the sand will shift over time (naturally or with the help of some of your critters) and you could have a devastating rock slide.
 

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