Equipment needed to set up proper salt tank?

[spit.fire]

Ive been thinking about setting up a salt water tank for quite a while now and i was wondering if i have enough equipment to go at it or am i going to need to purchase more equipment


for starters i have a 29 gallon marineland eclipse tank and hood (build in filter into the hood with dual t8's

i also have 2 powerheads (from what ive read i need alot of circulation?)

150watt heater

and ill be buying a Hydrometer

[spit.fire]

as far as stocking i plan to only have a pair of clownfish, gobies, and a couple shrimp and possibly 2 or 3 other smaller fish

[Rajan]

u gotta figure out what you want to do. is it going to be a reef tank? you will need about 30lbs of live rock, a skimmer, t5 lights, salt, hydrometer,live sand. in future depending on what you wanna do you will need calcium, iodide, stuff like that. very expensive to do saltwater but i can definetly help you out.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

If you're willing to do regular water changes, then you can skip a skimmer at this size of tank.

Live rock at 1 lb/gallon is standard.

[upster]

IMO a refractometer is a must. Don't waste your money on a hydrometer, you'll end up buying a refractometer eventually, trust me.

If you don't have easy access to RO/DI from a water shop think about investing 100-200 in at least an RO unit. If you are going to run skimmerless, you'll need to make sure that you aren't adding in excess nutrients.

Also, to make your life easier think about DIY'ing an ATO (or purchasing) this can be done for under 30 dollars including a floatswitch and a Tom's Aqualifter pump. In the short term you'll likely have lots of energy to work on the tank daily. But as the months go by, daily maintenance can lead to burn out.

[spit.fire]

now the ultimate question, what is the proper way to cycle a tank using aragonite sand and live rock?

and i have access to an ro (under my sink)

also i will probably be drilling my tank tomorrow for an overflow style sump and i plan to use a 10gallon tank for my sump

where can you buy a floatswitch? ive got lots of pumps that would be the perfect size to get the flow i need

[fkshiu]

Saltwater for Beginners (PART 1 – Getting Started)

[spit.fire]

so what im thinking is im going to be using about 2-3 inches of aragonite sand for the substrate (i have enough at home already) and picking up 25ish lbs of live rock from work or seeing if i can find some used live rock