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I have read some of the articles on here and i found that saltwater is quite a bit more complex than freshwater. I was trying to find what the setup process for a SW tank involves, and i was wondering what some of you marine tank owners do to maintain your tank.

Also, i read that you should use a process called reverse osmosis to purify the water. Is this a necessity, and what other info on this is there that would help me to understand how this works?

Thanks!

†Aquapickle†

Using tapwater in a saltwater tank generally leads to a bunch of headaches, an algae filled tank, and not uncommonly dead corals and inverts. That's why most use pure water of some type and why all salt mixes contain all the buffer and minerals needed along with salt. RO water is the easiest and cheapest to obtain. You can setup your own RO system without too much effort and around $100. The aquasafe systems off ebay are the most popular. For small tanks you can buy ro refills from grocery stores or gallon jugs of distilled water but when you have a tank over about 30gallons that's not really a good option. Water is quite heavy to haul around.

Exact setup of a tank depends what your putting in it. Usually you will need at minimum sand, liverock, and something to create lots of water movement. You can run a simple tank with just those things but it gets more complicated depending what you want to do with it and how frequently your willing to do maintenance.

Thanks Sham! That helped answer my questions.

†Aquapickle†

Yep, I have the same RO unit sham described, and it's been working well for me. I also agree that any SW setup should include live rock, but it isn't always a necessity. A Fish Only tank can get by with a good wet dry filterand minimal live rock. Maybe use base rock instead, or something else for hiding spots. I'd use a good substrate that will help buffer the water, like aragonite. A protein skimmer rated for the correct size tank or larger, will help in any setup.

I personally have a reef setup which includes a lot of live rock, a good skimmer, a sump with a refugium for extra water volume and macro algae for removing nutrients. Also like sham said I have a few powerheads to increase the flow a bit.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients