first day lots of questions.

[seham]

First off, hi everybody, my name is Seham and I live in Kansas City, MO. I am going to make a saltwater tank and I already have some of the equipment. I have a 55 gallon tank and pedistal (used to be freshwater). I was wondering what my startup cost would be and what all else I needed to buy. How high the maintenance is and how difficult it is. For now, I guess that's everything. Thanks in advance.

 

[justinx]

Welcome, welcome, welcome.
That is a lot of questions, and unfortunately, none of them have definite answers. I will give it a shot, but others may have some more to say. A couple things to think about are what type of setup you want. do you want a reef tank, fish only, fish only with live rock? these decisions impcat greatly on the answers to your questions.
As far as difficulty is concerned. Its not. flat out, this is not a difficult hobby, it can be challenging, but I am going to guess that most peoples frustrations result from one of two lacking things. Lack of knowledge, or lack of patience. This is a hobby that requires as much of these as you can muster. So this is not a difficult hobby by any means.
Maintenance also depends on the type of set up you have. It simply requires routine. For example my tank, there is minimal maintenance involved. I add freshwater every night, feed, every other day, and change water once a week. thats it. Others have systems that are far more simplified, but others have some that are far more complex. The maintenance really depends on how you set it up.
I hope this helps a little, and with a little help from you we can get your tank up and running in no time.
this is the best advice i can offer you. right here, this is it.
READ AS MUCH AS YOU CAN, LEARN AS MUCH AS YOU CAN, BEFORE EVEN PUTTING WATER IN.
I waited six months, and all i did was read this board. I promise you 100% that i saved myself hundreds of dollars, and hundreds of headaches. you dont have to wait that long, but i would wait a little bit at least.

 

[timo]

In order:
Lots; Lots; A lot; and lastly, very (if you don't ask questions and read)

Welcome

 

[slick]

Hi Seham
Welcome to SWF.com. you will find that there is a lot of different opinions on how to go about things. First there are a few things you need to understand. This hobby can get expensive very fast. Second you need a lot of patience to wait for things to happen. So if either of these two things might cause you problems you may want to stay with freshwater fish.
With that being said I will try to help you as much as I can. Now if I was going to set up a 55g tank this is what I would do. I'm just going to assume your going to set up a FOWLR (fish only with live rock) You will want to start with a DSB (deep sand bed) which is nothing more than 4-6 inches of sand on the bottom of your tank. Now you are from MO so you won't have acces to southdown sand which many people like to use in there tanks. So you will either have to go buy agronite sand from your lfs (local fish store) or you will have to find a suitable substitute. you don't really want to use a silica based sand. Some people believe this type of sand will cause a algae problem down the road. Ok once you have a dsb in your tank you should add 1-2 lbs or lr per gallon. So 55-110 lbs would be good. Personally I would go with about 70lbs or so. These two things together will take care of a lot of your filtration needs. Now you need to get a good quality protien skimmer. This is a device that removes liquid waste from the water. Under your tank there are many ways to set up additional filtration. You could set up a refuge which is just a smaller tank or rubbermaid container that contains your heater another dsb and some lr rubble. You will need to light the fuge to grow micro algae which basicly absorbs nutrients from the water to prevent algae in your tank. I suggest you use the search feature and do a search on a refuge to better understand how it works.
Water from your sump will have to be returned to your tank via a return pump. This is just a very vague discription on a set up. As far as cost goes that is really hard to determine. There are many ways to go about setting up your tank. My best guess would be at least $1,000 to set up a simple tank.
Hope this helps a little.

 

[javatech]

take a look at this
http://www.simplifiedreefkeeping.com/faq/faq.htm
and this is a kansas city club
www.fishheads.org

 

[goldrush]

Welcome Seham, Read,go slow,listen to the advice of very knowledgeable people here and you will be rewarded. One question for now-Did you ever use copper in your fresh water setup?

 

[cboyfan2020]

welcome seham, you are only like 3 hours from me! Email me your email address and I will send you a great article that will answer most, if not all your questions. Email is in my signature below.

 

[david s]

WELCOME seaham the best advice I can give you is before you start buying stuff decide what kind of tank you want then post questions on what to buy and how to set it up. Dont be like me and get roped by a local fish store to pay 240 bucs for a 2/55 pc setup when you are gona do a reef sell that and then buy a real setup thats just 1 thing there were more lol
ps I have a 90 click the www button it is a reef tank one thing I found out 90"s are a little tight for space under tank click the link to sump If you go reef make sure you did not treat in your tank with copper

 

[david s]

it was a 2/55 pc strip light lol that I am giveing to logan rofl I had a big S on my forehead
OHHHH YEA this prizm will be great for your 90 they are expensive they go for 175 bucs lol
another thing in my shed I am saveings for a qt tank

 

[hvy_dty]

Welcome, Seham! I, like you, am relatively new to this community, but it didn't take me long to realize that the people here are very helpful and intelligent when it comes to swf. They genuinely care about the hobby and want to see us newbies succeed. A little advice I can offer to you is to use the search engine when you have questions. A lot of mine were answered in previous posts. Good luck and enjoy!