This can be a challenging aquarium for beginners. Reef tanks are expensive too, as they often need extra equipment. The corals themselves can also be expensive. Setting up a saltwater aquarium is similar to setting up a freshwater tank and is simple if you know what you are doing. The first thing to do is plan — planning out your ideal setup thoroughly will help the whole process go smoothly. Your aquarium should be designed around your animals. What size tank do they need? What are their preferred water conditions?
Do they need any specialist equipment? Once you know what you need you can start to buy everything and get it ready. Even if your tank is brand new, it will need to be cleaned. Just use a wet cloth to wipe away any dust or particles.
The same goes for the rest of your equipment. A used tank is a little harder to clean. Remove debris and use vinegar to clean the inside and outside. Acrylic tanks can scratch easily so you will need to use a specific type of cloth. Now you need to check for leaks. Add a couple of inches of water and leave it for an hour — then look for signs of escaping water. Any leaks can be fixed with aquarium sealant. Before filling your tank, you need to position it. The surface you place the tank on needs to be strong enough to hold the weight of your filled aquarium.
It also needs to be level this can be checked with a spirit-level. When you buy a new tank, you might get the option to buy a cabinet designed especially for the model you are getting. This is an easy, but more expensive way to ensure you have a suitable surface. The time has come to start filling your tank, starting with the substrate. There are lots of different types — your fish might prefer some soft sands or maybe crushed corals, this should have come up in the planning stage. Most people aim for between inches of substrate at the bottom of the tank.
Obviously, you will need to buy more substrate for a bigger tank. As a guideline, you will need lb of substrate in a gallon tank.
Substrate comes from the shop covered in dust particles. It will need to be rinsed before being added to help keep your water clear.
Add small amounts to a bucket and run water through it. Mix everything with your hand until the water runs clear. Arrange it how you like, you might want it consistently level or perhaps you would prefer some raised areas.
Different water hardness and trace elements will react with different salts in different ways. You can always switch salt brands at a later date if you discover you are missing something or have too much of something. Some people will tell you this is not an essential. I am going to tell you it is. Heaters are usually the first thing to break in an aquarium. They either get stuck on or get stuck off, the latter of the two is the more preferred, but less common, outcome. Heaters are essential for helping to provide stability in your marine aquarium.
There are many different lighting options available to the marine aquarist. Basic lights to suit a fish only or FOWLR system are not very expensive, but reef standard lighting can carry a heft price-tag. Lighting becomes far more important when you decide you want to keep corals than if you are just keeping fish.
If you are looking at a reef tank, speak to other reefers who have tanks of a similar size to your own and ask them what success they have seen with their particular lighting set up. This is all about the cycle within your aquarium.
The bacteria that converts these toxic substances lives on hard surfaces such as rock. Live rock is highly porous rock that has a large surface area even within the rock to house the bacteria required for the nitrogen cycle. If you are running a FOWLR or reef system, live rock is an essential part of this system to remove the ammonia and nitrites from your system. This was a tough one to add to the non-essentials list.
Protein skimmers help maintain low nitrate levels by reducing nitrate buildup. All-in-one aquariums are a quick and easy way to get started in reef keeping. Build your own requires you purchase each piece of equipment separately and then learn to put it all together.
For beginners, the all-in-one is a straightforward way to go. All-in-one aquariums come in desktop sizes up to larger G L full-blown reef ready systems.
Building your aquarium piece by piece is more time consuming, however, this option may save you a few bucks. If you have patience you can start building your aquarium with minimal equipment to get the saltwater flowing.
Start by buying a tank and powerhead to create flow and build up your equipment from there. There are two ways you can get salt water. Either you buy it from a local fish store, or make your own at home. You will have to decide which method is best for you. For new aquarist or people with small tanks, purchasing water is a quick and easy way. Local fish stores will sell refillable jugs around 5 gallons of water. Water is heavy so calculate how much water you need.
Bringing home 50 gallons of water if you have to walk up stairs or make trips in an elevator may not be feasible. Mixing saltwater at home is pretty straight forward. You make saltwater by mixing reverse osmosis de-ionized water RODI , and aquarium salt, which you can purchase at a local fish store or online. Most aquarists keep large plastic drums in their homes for mixing saltwater. There is no one size fits all solution here and any large Rubbermaid or similar storage container will do.
Make sure you have a dedicated spot for your saltwater, and if you can make double or quadruple the amount of saltwater you need for a water change. It also good to have extra saltwater on hand in case of emergencies. Read More: Water Changes. Every time you test your water is a chance to correct any imbalances in water chemistry and improve the overall water quality of your system.
You should be testing your water at least once a week. From the day you set up your aquarium until years down the road, testing your aquarium water should become an important aquarium ritual.
Proper lighting is important to the success of your reef tank. Corals are photosynthetic animals and need light to survive.
When purchasing a light for your saltwater aquarium it is important to buy a light which is built specifically for this purpose. When you first set up your aquarium, lights should be switched on for 6 — 8 hours per day. If you have a controllable LED light you can also reduce the light intensity. If you start noticing algae blooms decrease the intensity or length of daylight time. Depending on the size of your tank and rockscape you will create light zones in the aquarium with high and low lights.
As in nature, different corals need different amounts of light. Different light intensity zones are produced by the depth of the water and shadows created by the rocks. Based on the size of tank and the kind of tank you have in mind, you will need to consider lighting. Now for reef tanks, there are countless possibilities, and of those possibilities there are different ranges of qualities, and also price.
There three basic kinds of lights available in the market. You will notice there is metal halide lighting , fluorescent lighting , and the newer L. In my opinion, from my experience, metal halide lighting works wonders on all kinds of corals.
However, most reefers tend to stay away because metal halide lighting can be costly, and most find a slight rise on their electric bill. Metal halides also will raise temperature in the aquarium and you will most likely need to provide a chiller to keep aquarium temperature stable. Fluorescent lighting , more specifically t-5 lighting, is another option that grows great, and covers more shadows in the tank providing greater light coverage and growing corals very well.
The downside to t-5 lighting is that for more effectiveness, the bulbs must be changed every 8 months. Depending on placement and distance to the water, t-5s can also generate heat and may cause need to provide a chiller. Last but not least, recently many companies have begun developing L. These L. Benefits of L. Not to mention, most L. One downside to L. This is where combinations come in. The L. As I mentioned before, L. There are many corals available to us in this hobby, even more now that technology for diving to deeper waters is being developed.
However, the number of corals available in the market is still quite overwhelming. There are numerous kinds, all with different care requirements, that were collected at a wide range of depths, and a wide range of lighting spectrums. These are things one must consider when purchasing a coral and when setting up a tank, so the environment can be created to house a certain type of corals. Soft corals , can adapt to a variety of lights.
They are very easy to care for and can adapt to a wide range of parameters. This can be achieved with a standard watt L. These corals depend a little more on stable parameters.
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