Hello, im a new user here and wanted to introduce myself. my name is katherine and i bought my first aquarium yesterday(my only prior knoweledge of tanks is watching my dad take care of a 95 gallon freshwater tank for most of my life). Its a 55 gallon with all used but working/competent equiptment. im going to clean it out tomorrow and buy a bag of live sand and maybe a teeny chunk of live rock for it. after that i plan to establish a mainly reef tank with a few signiture fishes and would love to have access to a bunch of people with lots of info on tanks, which is why im here.
so, first question. how do you recommend i clean the tank out? its a bit salty from the last owner. also, we live in city limits so the water is chlorinated, how can i avoid getting that in my tank?
any other advice for a noob?
Hi and welcome! The first step to cleaning the tank would be to use tap water and bleach. Yup, I said bleach. Scrub the tank real good and rinse, rinse, rinse. As an added precaution, after rinsing a few times you can fill it and add a water conditioner to remove the chlorine any residual chlorine. As far as the water for the tank when it comes time to fill it, I would recommend getting a RO/DI (reverse osmosis/deionized) unit. This will make the water safe for the saltwater tank. There are some great recommended threads in the new hobbyist section that I suggest you read before getting started.
