hey guys after reading craig.steele"S post it has inspired me to create a marine tank

i have a small 40L jebo tank with trickle filter on it it also has silica sand in it and thats pretty much my tank i have a heater and a pond pump for water flow can anybody give me some info of what stuff i should get and how much will it cost im looking at keeping a clown fish and a blue tang any recomendations on were to get my live rock at what not thanks all input is truly apreciated maby in the future could look at getting some frog spawn?

A blue tang will need alot more room that that tank will ever be able to provide but a clownfish will probably be ok as for the rest of it i am not entirely sure. my recommendation would be to type into Google nano-reef there is a website with a similar url and there will be a lot of information there about keeping a marine tank of similar size although it is all American the practices are the same.

cheers will look at that :happy1:

No probs dude

a tank that small you can get away weith out using a skimmer just use purigen and other chemical filtration as well as regular water changes id ditch the silica sand as excess silicates will cause major algae issues . perhaps buy some dead rock now as you wont need heaps and get that started cycling in a bucket while you sort out the rest of everything once its cycled and ready to go and your tank is set up then ask on here for a small piece of live rock from an established tank to seed your now "live" rock with benefical creatures but perhaps leave the sand out for the first 6 months or so as it can be really hyard to keep clean when going through the cycling stages. a pair of clowns and a cleaner shrimp would go all right in that tank or perhaps a banggai or pjama cardinal and a firefin goby t5s or a power compact light should enable you to keep a range of corals except perhaps some of the really high light requiremant ones

thanks spoon will i need to use salt water and a heater to cylce the dead rock?

i am definitly gonna get some fire/lava shrimp thanks heaps for all the info

Yep you will need salt water, a heater will also help to speed up the process.

Yep you will need salt water, a heater will also help to speed up the process.

ok cool as i might be getting a 2 kg bag of coral sand could i cycle that aswell?

im not sure on the coral sand my guess is if you cycle it now in a container in the same bucket as the live rock it will still go thru a mini cycle when you add it to the tank later on as its been disturbed

Don't forget to have a read here as well.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=23675

haha i have read that many times i may have some salt coming my way and a refractometrer so can i cycle it all in the tank?

Don't put sand in there, while the rock is cycling it will shed lots of dirt you don't want this in your sand. It's also why I recommend leaving sand out of your display for at least the first few months

great thanks any more info on when i should keep corals? also what sorts of fish would i be looking at keeping in their?

in 40l maybe a clown and a blenny or small damsel

just been reading up on some posts and some say they have been using nsw i am thinking this is salt water from the beach? or is this just for local marine not tropical marine as this will save me heaps of money buying salt during water changes

the search function at the top of the page brought up many bits of info

following on from Candys post in the Takapuna water subject, it would be interesting to see the overall cost of going ASW. Of the two (ASW and NSW) it would be the cleaner - less unknown variables compared to getting NSW from the boat ramp/beach/harbour/side of the boat. But then you would have to look at the cost/benefit of it especially if you live within a minute or two of the sea.

From what I understand there are a number of steps and requirements involved to do it correctly

You need:

Artificial salt mix - Redsea, Instant ocean

Good quality water - RODI unit

Big container - drum for mixing salt/storing salt

Heater - to aid in mixing

How long would the filters on the RODI unit last when using it for both top-up and ASW mixing?

Do people buy the salt in bulk to reduce costs or group buy?

I've gone NSW but I still have some ASW squirrelled away "just in case"

Thoughts? Views?

using NSW is alright, collecting and storage are mportant

you will need filtered water to adjust salinity with though

just been reading up on some posts and some say they have been using nsw i am thinking this is salt water from the beach? or is this just for local marine not tropical marine as this will save me heaps of money buying salt during water changes

For a small tank like your's you are better off making up water, a large bucket of salt will cost you round $170 and makes up 600+ liters of water which should keep you going for more than a year. You would spend far more in petrol collecting NSW and there are risks to collecting it. Collecting can also be a pain because you have to wait for clear weather, right tides, etc.