New Marine Tank Setup - Need quick advice

[r0cksteady]

Hi Guys,

My brother-in-law has given me his fresh water tropical 4ft fish tank with lights, filter etc etc and I am looking at converting it to salt water.

I went into the local fish shop and he recommended for a 4ft tank (120 gallons) the following equipment for a basic and cost effective setup.

60 Kg of Coral Sand

Protein Skimmer - Reef Octopus BH300

Circulation Pumps - Hailong 1800 (2300L/Hr) x 4

Heater - 300 Watt Jager / Eheim

Lighting - 4" Hight Output Hagen Glo w/bulbs

25kg of Live Rock

TOTAL COST: $1212USD ($1375AUD)

Can you guys let me know if im 1. Being ripped off, 2. Got the right type of gear, 3. Missing anything critical and 4. Do you think I can use the same cycled water that my brother in law has and just add the live rock and salt treatment or should I start from scratch?

Thanks for your time in reading this. Sorry im a n00b when it comes to salt water.

[xenon]

Dont buy crushed coral as your sand bed. Definately get aragonite sand. You need to ask yourself how deep you want your sand bed. Then visit this link http://www.reefcentral.com/calc/SandBed.php

You need at least 120lb of live rock. The bigger skimmer you can afford the better. If this is a "fish only with live rock" setup any light will work fine. If it's a reef you need T5 or metal halides or both

The best powerheads in the hobby are made by Tunze. The best bang for the buck is "Hydor Koralia - 4 (1200 GPH)". Again, the amount of flow depends on the corals you keep.

300w heater sounds about right for a 120g tank.

Start with new water, add in the new LR and let it cycle for 4-6weeks.

DO NOT BUY A SWING-ARM HYDROMETER!

Get a refractometer and pinpoint calibration solution.

[wilsonh]

I'm across the ditch from you in NZ, pricing sounds OK although not totally familiar with Aussie prices.

Also this list of equipment will be good, other than the coral sand, get aragonite instead, preferably with a grain size around 1.7 mm. There are other options of course different skimmer brands etc, but this list will be good.

Couple of things, is the liverock already cured? If not do check out how to do this. The other thing is if the fresh water tank had a cannister or similar for biological filtration, don't use it they are good for fresh water tanks but detrimental to reef tanks. Leave the biological filtration to the bacteria in the liverock. Don't worry about "cycled water", just make sure the rocks are fully cycled "cured".

[Mavrk]

I agree with xenon. One thing to add is to look at prices online. My LFS has good prices on fish and LR, but the equipment is usually marked up way too much.

[BangkokMatt]

This generally seems ok for starting your S/W tank. I think you will need more live rock than 25 kg. You could easily double that. It is important as it acts as filtration for your tank.
Do not use the same water that was in the f/w tank. Empty and give it a thourough clean the refill with RO water and salt mix.
The lights you are getting are fine for fish only tanks. If you want corals you will be limited in what you can get. Eventually you may want to upgrade to keep hard corals etc.
Generally speaking, you don't use a filter on s/w tanks.
Sorry, can't comment on whether the prices are a good deal or not. Anyone!

[xenon]

I forgot to mention.. get an RO/DI system.

You will save LOADS of headaches from algee problems caused by tap water.

[r0cksteady]

WOW THANKS EVERYONE SO FAR.

Yeah I forgot to mention that its going to be a reef setup with just a few qwerky inverterbrates ie. a squid, eel, star fish etc. Basically I am currently in the process on renovating my place to include a 450gallon tank in the wall and want to learn through this 5ft tank so that ive got skills that can be transferred outside of freshwater.

I will definentely look into the ro/di and get more live rock then. Havent heard of aragonite sand will look into it now. Thanks again and if any more stuff I should know please add. Cheers

[r0cksteady]

Hi Again,

Spoke with LFS who said that there is no difference with Aragonite and Coral Sand as Coral Sand is crushed coral. He said that this is a US term for the same thing. Is he full of it?

Also he said the live rock is UNCURED so is that a bad thing? Where should I go to learn about curing?

He also agreed that I should go to 50kg-60kg of live rock.

I heard that theres a RO/DI unit that doesnt waste as much water, have you guys heard of this?

[BurntOutReefer]

pass on the lights.....get MH...because with that size tank...its not going to be long before you decide to get coral....
IMO....you dont need RO/DI unit unless there is no source for said water....does the LFS not sell it?..as far as the "sand"....as long as its smaller then .5mm (does it look like sand?) then you are ok...also...CC (crushed Coral) is not a bad thing as long as you have lots of water-flow.....(heck....my 55G is full of it)...

Uncured is not a bad thing....buy it, throw in tank, and buy lots of air freshners and call back in3~4 weeks....
just IMO

[BurntOutReefer]

"Generally speaking, you don't use a filter on s/w tanks.".....
wow...thats a pretty bold statement....

[BangkokMatt]

Originally posted by BurntOutReefer
"Generally speaking, you don't use a filter on s/w tanks.".....
wow...thats a pretty bold statement....

The guy is a newbie and I am trying to keep it simple for him and not begin a debate on filtration techniques, methods in s/w tanks.
I am assuming that the filter he has got was used for the freshwater tank and therefor is a wet/dry or cannister. Therefore he shouldn't be using it.

[wilsonh]

Originally posted by r0cksteady
Spoke with LFS who said that there is no difference with Aragonite and Coral Sand as Coral Sand is crushed coral. He said that this is a US term for the same thing. Is he full of it?

Wouldn't say he is full of it, more not giving the full story. Coral skeleton is built of calcium carbonate, and aragonite is calcium carbonate, so you "could" say they are the same thing. Where the difference is that coral sand, (crushed coral skeleton), each grain is porous, so in time will absorb crud. Over time and over the whole sand bed, this can be quite a bit of crud in all the little grains, it cannot be syphoned obviously, and can become a source of pollution to the tank, and evenyually cause major problems. Aragonite is solid calcium carbonate, has no pores to absorb anything, and a grain size of 1.7 mm is easily vacuumed should you decide / need to do this.
I would NEVER use coral sand in a reef tank, and beside that it is way more expensive. Sounds to me like the real situation is he doesn't have any aragonite & is forced to plug coral sand. You could ring around & see if anyone else has it. If you cannot get any suitable sand straight away, no worries, just start without sand and add it down the track sometime. If you are going to cure the rock it is actually a good thing to have no sand during this process because a lot of crud comes out of the rock that is best syphoned out of the tank, and having no sand means it is a lot easier to do this.

Originally posted by r0cksteady
Also he said the live rock is UNCURED so is that a bad thing? Where should I go to learn about curing?

No it's not a bad thing, it just means you will have to cure it. Curing rock just means leaving it in water long enough to get all the needed bacteria established to do the filtration in your tank. It normally takes 6 - 8 weeks. While it is quite simple, there is a fair bit you should know about it, too much to say in one post, I'd suggest doing a google with something like "curing rock marine aquarium", or similar.

Originally posted by r0cksteady
I heard that theres a RO/DI unit that doesnt waste as much water, have you guys heard of this?

The RO part is a membrane that seperates pure water and rejects some impure. It is inevitable there is waste water, however the waste water just has a higher tds than before but is still good to drink, it can be used for other things such as put into a tank for doing the laundry or similar. The DI part wastes no water, it just makes the nearly pure water from the RO unit, completely pure.
Any RO unit can be made to waste less water by adjusting the pressure valve, but this is bad for both the RO membrane plus bad for the water quality. However with a bit of planning it is possible to direct the waste water somewhere it can be used and thereby end up with no net wastage.

[r0cksteady]

Fantastic advice thanks guys.

In regards to the lights did you say that im getting the incorrect ones and should get better ones? What do you recommend if not the ones the LFS guy recommended. CHeers

[BangkokMatt]

For a 120 tank I would go for 2x 250w Metal Halides. You are properly set up then and can keep anything you want (ie corals, fish don't rely on strong lighting). Corals may not be what you want at the moment but I can assure you, you soon will. The hobby is very addictive!!
Unfortunately, MH lamps are not cheap, but very important to a healthy reef system. T5s are popular, I've never used them but I think I am right in saying that they are not as good as MH.