7 replies to this topic

[joey]

hey guys,
im thinking of making my 4x2x2 into a marine tank.
its going to be my first so i want to try and keep it easier to look after, but i am still willing to put it the hard yards
can somebody please outline the things i would need to start a basic marine?

thanks guys
Joe

[Neakit]

The biggest thing you need to think about is what your trying to achieve, are you wanting fish only, do you want the full blown reef.

With salt water aquariums live rock and water flow is your filtration, lighting is subject to what you want to keep.

If your thinking about a reef the big 3 for success is water conditions, water movement and light. They are generally about equal in importance of need.

[joey]

oh ok, so, i should start with simply fish and live rock?
then once i get the hang of things maybe move onto corals aswell?

[Neakit]

The best advice i can say is go and have a look at the masa forums, read peoples tank journals. There is no reason you cant start with corals, but what im saying is go and have a look and see what you want. I myself prefer a tank with nearly no fish. What you want to keep will depict the equipment you will need. For example if you want to get into soft corals and Long polyp-ed stoney coral or Lps you will need low to moderate water flow (10 - 20 times tank volume an hour) and reasonable lighting (about 4 t5's). If you want small polyp-ed stoney corals or sps you need strong lighting (6+ t5 tubes) and strong water flow (40+ times tank volume an hour).

Now with lighting there are a lot of options, the only viable ones are power compact fluros, t5HO fluros, metal halides, plasma and led.

Now each has its good and bad points, plasma is still in its infancy and cost the earth but they are an option.
Leds, now with these the only options are to have the ones that are the high output ones. The most comon ones used are the 3w and 1w leds. Now the 3w are the most efficient for power use to usable light output but there are successful tanks that use the 1w leds too.

Halides are good but have the drawback of needing a globe replaced once a year and produce a lot of heat and chew a large amount of power.

Now onto the fluros, Power compacts have been around for years and do work, people have kept sps under them successfully for extended periods of time but the globes tend to only last about 6 months and produce about the same amount of heat as a halide.
T5HO are great and have the greatest par output of any lighting, BUT that is all so cause of the quality light fitting. With t5s you can get a cheap fitting and get reasonable results. With t5HO globe brand depicts how much par is put out. A big downer with t5's is you need to change all the globes every 9 - 12 months. I can go into more about the t5s if you want cause there is a whole plethora of information on them.


Now that was just the lighting.

As for water flow what most people aim for is no dead spots.

There is more but ill leave you with this, also Par stands for Photosynthetically available radiation

[joey]

alright thankyou so much, i will take a look at the Masa forums aswell and hopefully get a better understanding.

cheers,
Joe

[Riggers]

Good Luck mate you'll love marine its so amazing what a tank can do when its full of living things you'll be sitting in front of it for hours!! If you want to drop in and have a look at the marine tanks i have running for a few ideas your more than welcome anytime

Nick

[joey]

yeh id love to come around man,
im so keen to get one running now

[Riggers]

Flick me a pm buddy, you can pop in anytime