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Ok. so i've decided.... my next tank is going to be a marine tank.

it's a 35g tank and i think it will house live rock, a pair of clowns and 2 blue damsels, and aneimia for each fairly comfortably.

so heres the question. whats this gunna cost me to set up?

i already have the tank.
what will i need? and how much will it cost me?

i'm thinkin 2x anemia, some live rock, a substrate - undecided. a filtration system - also undecided - only had experiance with HOB and UGF. lighting - again no idea what kind, the water salt, a stand for the tank.. i really need a sorted hit list of things i'll need.

so overwhelming! am i being to nieve with this idea?

Congrats. SW is lots of fun

I would wait on the anemone. They require very clean water and specific lighting to survive. Plus you have to feed them.

The clownfish will be fine without an anemone (most tank raised clownfish have never seen one and often won't cohabitat with one)

Damsels can be nippy and aggressive.

As for set-up read all the online articles you can find. They are a great source of info.

Filtration: no UGF (won't work with sand) for 30 gal without corals a powerhead and a HOB will work well. Remeber SW tanks require more current than FW.

Substrate you can use sand or crushed coral, or if you've got the $$ live sand.

Lighting you can get by with a normal fluor. tube and later upgrade to a SW specific tube (50/50 actinic or 10-20K)Nothing too fancy unless you later wnat to try corals.

As for LR you'll need 30-50 lbs and this will be the most expensive part since LR cost about $5/lb.

for the water use one of the commercially available salt mixes (instant ocean, Kent etc.)

So if you've got the tank, hood and light already, I would guess for a nicely equpped starter tank your looking at $200-250 before you add fish and inverts. You could cut down the cost by going with less LR, but IMO the overall health and appearance of the tank will suffer.

SW is actually easier once you get it going than FW. The tanks are remarkably clean and reqwuire little maintenace other than water changes (~25% monthly) and replacing evaporated water. Plus they are so cool to watch.

thanks for the info!

i'll just get some nice rocks they can hide under instead of the anemia then.

are they any other hardy? yet peacful fish i can add to the tank that wont get aggresive on the clowns?

i;f i'm not using UGF why do i need a powerhead? what would i attach it too ? is it simply to generate current?
and something about 1000L an hour be ok ?

Last edited by stuquarium at 14-Dec-2004 22:55

Yup the power head is just to move water around, create currents.

There's plenty of peaceful fish to add. I would start fisrt with the clowns and let them adjust and the tank adapt to them. You might want to add a goby later. They're really cool and generally hang out near the bottom and LR.

Remember that the tank will need to cycle for quite some time to let the LR cure out, So I wouldn't add fish for at least 4 weeks after adding the LR. Be sure that the tank is done cycling (check your NH4, NO2, NO3).

yeah i think thats what worries me the most

getting the cycle - adding the fish.

i'll be getting everything but the fish 1st.
so i figure i add the liver rock as soon as i add the treated water for the 1st time, then let it cycled for a month. then add the fish..

is that right?

That sounds right. The LR will have some die-off, which cycles the tank. be sure to doo plenty of water changes at first especially if the LR is uncured. There will be lots of dead junk coming off of uncured LR making the water nasty.

thanks webstock.

apreciated