Is there a guide somewhere?

#1
I'm looking all over this site, is there a guide anywhere to keeping a salt water aquarium. Such as start up, maintaining the tank, what you need, adding salt, adding fish, adding rock, adding corals. I'm talking like a how to guide for us noobs :)
 

Cherub

Hey you
M.A.S.C Club Member
#4
rockys_pride;170026 said:
That's a great idea. There's no official guide, but you can ask whatever you'd like. There's only one stupid question, the one unasked.

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Do you need to put water in the tank?

A question I was asked...
 
#5
I did do a google search and found a few things but you know they say you have to believe it if its on the internet lol

The good thing is I can harass Evan (ShelbyJK500) because I work with him hahaha.

It's just I took the dive I got a tank, its a surprise right now I'll share here in a few weeks :)

But I just wanted to see if there was a fish keeping guild to help me out

Cherub;170029 said:
Do you need to put water in the tank?

A question I was asked...
Thats pretty much epic lol and I do like the guild you posted
 

Wicked Color

Tiger Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#6
There is no guide as every system is different, there are only different approaches and methods.
Getting started is daunting, but you will get tuned in with whats happening, and pretty soon it will all click.
Some things to start looking at are; chemistry, livestock interaction and selection, filtration, lighting, bacterial decomposition/ nitrogen chain.
It is important to know most if not all of these aspects effect each other in varying ways.
I used to have a blog for beginners, I will have to see if its still up.......
 

Haulin Oates

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#7
Patience. Lesson 1 done. Lesson 2 ask questions here!! We're not here to steer you wrong! We want to share and trade frags with you, so we wanna see em grow:)
 

Haulin Oates

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#8
Also Tony Vargas was a speaker at reef stock and wrote a great book that answers a lot of beginner questions and gets you going... A great read for anybody. Someone tell him the name of the book... It's slipped my mind right now.
 

Cake_Boss

Blue Whale
M.A.S.C Club Member
#11
I read books for the basics (everything except plumbing). I personally think Michael Paletta's book, I think its "The New Marine Aquarium" is written more for beginners with just a spark of interest. I don't really like reading Bobs book, simply because of his dry writing style and some of his views.

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#12
I like that blog you posted thanks! I have been reading about the tanks and trust me when the time comes the questions will start FLYING i promise :D
 

Wicked Color

Tiger Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#13
MSwift;170048 said:
I like that blog you posted thanks! I have been reading about the tanks and trust me when the time comes the questions will start FLYING i promise :D
Thank you., Jaime, (Rockys pride) used to give me a hard time, but when I started my journey there wasnt a forum, and I couldnt find any blogs, so I started my own,\ through a family member who has a crazy sporadic life style, so I got a kinda blog since we have limited communication, guess I should re-visit and see if we can update and organize.
 

fiji4118

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
#14
I will say to ask tons of questions on the forum. This is a hobby that can get discouraging very quickly and for as much as it can cost you want to make sure you do things right up front. Also, strive to make things easy for yourself. Things like your own RO for top off and making fresh saltwater are very helpful. I'm not sure I would still be doing this if I hadn't come up with an easy way to do 25% water changes on my 150 and 110 in 20 minutes without having to leave my house.
 

fiji4118

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
#16
Lots of them out there. Mine is a spectrapure but I think there are a couple of sponsors of this site that can hook you up. Mine is 90G per day and is fine for my 260+ gallons. The only time I need to pay attention is when I deplete my entire salt water barrel and have to refill it. My system fills it before it will top off my tanks so I make sure that they have about 12 hours of extra top off water for evaporation so that the pumps don't run dry.
 
#17
A 100 gallon per day RO/DI system should do you good.
Also, despite the internet making it easy to access people with answers to your questions, one of the quickest ways to get an answer or at least a good theory is from the books you keep in your library/stack. Build a collection of marine aquarium books as others have suggested and you can find tons of information. Even though the hobby has changed drastically in the last 10 years people have been successfully keeping marine life in aquariums for a very long time. Even the old and outdated books can be interesting to read through if for nothing else than to compare how our way of thinking has changed so much since then.
I personally love The Reef Aquarium Vol. 1-3 by Julian Sprung and Charles Delbeek
 

Zooid

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#19
Memorize the nitrogen cycle...it is your friend if you know it :)
Also, be frugal but don't buy something on the cheap. I've probably spent over $1000 in just skimmers
until I found one that works good.

Ask for everyone's opinions and then use that information to decide for yourself which way to go. If there are
a million reefers asked the same question you'll probably get a million different answers, most of which is good information.

And as others have stated, be patient. Don't overreact to a problem because you may make it worse than it would have
been.

Good luck and welcome to the addiction. :D
 

fiji4118

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
#20
No electricity for RO unless you have a booster pump. I have mine pushing up from the basement. Maybe 2' vertical and 40' horizontal and don't need a booster pump. Maybe someone that has one can give some insight but just your regular water pressure should be enough to get water where you want it to go. Happy to show you my set up if you ever make it down to Highlands Ranch from Northglenn
 
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