Got a tank now what?

Mike
Welcome to the club. I am Troy Avis, one of the CR trustee's. I am willing to help, but what I think you will need to do first is get everything cleaned out good. With a freshwater tank, there are some chemicals that could harm the your saltwater tank, like copper.

With the sump issue, there are easy ways of making your own sump out of a small fish tank, there are good videos on youtube for this. That way you get the space you need for a skimmer.

Now you also need to decide what kind of saltwater tank you want to keep, is this going to be a fish only, or are you planning on adding corals. Reason I ask this is because, the current light you have if its a florescent light you will need to change it. IMO Depending on what kind of tank you want will help determine what kind of light you will need.

I would like to say that right now in the beginning of your saltwater adventure, research is going to be your best friend. The more you learn about what you are doing the better off you will be. The club is always here to help, so don't be afraid to post any questions, and you can always PM me too.

Troy

 

Welcome Mike,

Troy is right. Their are some dangers involved with using a formerly freshwater tank for saltwater. Copper based medicates are very common in the freshwater world and while copper won't have any negative effect on saltwater fish, it's highly toxic to all of the invertebrates that make salt tanks so interesting.

If you want to go salt, the first thing I'd recommend is to fill the tank up with RO/DI (filtered) water and let it set for a few days. After a few days have passed with the tank filled with water, get a copper test kit and test it to see if copper is leaching out of the silicone.

Hope that helps.

-JB

 

This might also help too:
http://www.greateriowareefsociety.o...ochure.pdf

 

Mike,

No problem on the questions, that's club and website exists for this type of thing.

1) For a FOWLR tank, any light will do. It's only when you start to add corals, anemones, clams, etc. that you have to be concerned about light as those organisms depend on the light to live.

2) I'm not sure about the distilled water, but you can get RO/DI water from Pet's Playhouse in Cedar rapids. It's relatively inexpensive. You can use tap water as long as you use water conditioner to remove chlorine, etc, but most reefers will tell you that RO/DI is the way to go. Conditioned tap water can lead to a lot of bad problems with algae, cyanobacteria, etc. because of nasty stuff that it tends to contain.

3) Pet's Playhouse usually has copper test kits as well. I think they are about $10. If they don't have any, I have one that you could borrow. I've only used it once for this exact same thing.

-JB