# Tips for fish only saltwater tank



## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

I have kept/keep many freshwater aquariums And have decided to setup a saltwater tank. It will be a fish only tank as I currently don't want to have any corals. I may add a few pieces of live rock if I need to.

The tank itself is a 60 litre that I had spare with a internal heater and filter. I'm hoping to have a pair of clown fish and maybe some shrimp.

Just looking for some tips really as there's
So much conflicting information about.

There's currently nothing in the tank apart from heater, filter, white gravel substrate and obviously the salt water


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## AshMashMash (Oct 28, 2007)

Most "fish only" marines are pretty much as easy to keep as tropicals, as long as you keep the salinity correct. There's really nothing more to it. I say that in a way that, if all your previous tropical fish lived a few weeks/months and died, your marines will too - only it'll cost you £££'s a go, rather than pennies. 

If your previous tropical experience was that you had fish living their full lives of many years, your marines will too, as long as you get salinity roughly near abouts what they like. 

Again most hardy marine fish are very forgiving with salinity, get it vaguely nearly 1.023-25 or so and you'll be fine.


Your plans sound fine so far, except ditch the internal filter and get live rock and a circulation pump or two  "FOWLR" - fish only with live rock. 

Get the rock in, cycle it like a freshwater tank, add stock when nitrites are 0.


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## gaz2374 (Aug 29, 2005)

Live sand too rather than gravel


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

I'm hoping to not have much live rock if I can help it due to the huge price of it, I thought about filling the filter with smashed up pieces of live rock this could work right?


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## AshMashMash (Oct 28, 2007)

JasonR said:


> I'm hoping to not have much live rock if I can help it due to the huge price of it, I thought about filling the filter with smashed up pieces of live rock this could work right?


In terms of biological filtration live rock really is the way to go... it completes a further step in the nitrogen cycle, thus keeping nitrates a bit lower, plus it has alsorts of interesting goodies on, and the shrimps will love it. 

It's by far the easiest way - for a 60L tank you won't need much, on the grand scheme of things marine, live rock for that is not very costly. 

Without stating the obvious, couple hundred grams of live rock in a filter obviously won't be as good as a few 10's of kg's of live rock in the tank...


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## gaz2374 (Aug 29, 2005)

Get some dead rock or reef bones then buy a couple prices of live rock to start to populate the other stuff . Cheaper that way


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## wilkinss77 (Sep 23, 2008)

JasonR said:


> I have kept/keep many freshwater aquariums And have decided to setup a saltwater tank. It will be a fish only tank as I currently don't want to have any corals. I may add a few pieces of live rock if I need to.
> 
> The tank itself is a 60 litre that I had spare with a internal heater and filter. I'm hoping to have a pair of clown fish and maybe some shrimp.
> 
> ...





AshMashMash said:


> Most "fish only" marines are pretty much as easy to keep as tropicals, as long as you keep the salinity correct. There's really nothing more to it. I say that in a way that, if all your previous tropical fish lived a few weeks/months and died, your marines will too - only it'll cost you £££'s a go, rather than pennies.
> 
> If your previous tropical experience was that you had fish living their full lives of many years, your marines will too, as long as you get salinity roughly near abouts what they like.
> 
> ...


what ash said.



gaz2374 said:


> Live sand too rather than gravel


yep.



JasonR said:


> I'm hoping to not have much live rock if I can help it due to the huge price of it, I thought about filling the filter with smashed up pieces of live rock this could work right?


you can build it up a few pieces at a time- that's how i did it in my 45l nano reef. also, in a tank the size of yours, smaller pieces aren't that expensive.


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

Ill have to see what rock I can get hold of then, I think it's like £10 per kilo at the stores
Near me, also is there any plants that will do well in saltwater that would be easy to get hold of?


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## gaz2374 (Aug 29, 2005)

JasonR said:


> Ill have to see what rock I can get hold of then, I think it's like £10 per kilo at the stores
> Near me, also is there any plants that will do well in saltwater that would be easy to get hold of?


Do you see many plants in the ocean ,But seriously join ultimate reef or something as most guys on here are there too but you will find more help and lots of topics on what you want


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

The ocean being such a large and varied place yes I'd imagine there are plants in some parts of it


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

Well iv been and got 1 piece of live rock to get me started its a large 2 kilo piece with all sorts of bits and bobs growing on it. Iv also added some small pieces of alfagrog as iv been reading this can be good to put in there and I have a whole load of it spare in the shed so worth a try.

Iv also seen some seaweed looking plants attached to small pieces of rock that I'd quite like


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## Daniel White91 (Jun 7, 2012)

Use Pre mixed salted RO, don't skip on equipment it will save you problems in the long run, use live sand add protein skimmer and with the live rock is generally 1kg per 10ltr but more is better with a couple of circulation pumps as it will help speed up the biological filtration

Good luck


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## Jasberfloob (Dec 20, 2011)

Unless your specifically after a nano you'll probably find bigger is easier to keep as it allows for slight vairiations in water when doing changes etc

Were running a 300l tank atm :whistling2:


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## AshMashMash (Oct 28, 2007)

Daniel White91 said:


> Use Pre mixed salted RO,


I disagree here! Unless you don't care what salinity you have... could be anything from 1.020 to 1.029 (heard of both...). In which case you'd need RO _and_ salt to make it correct anyways. Just mix your own.


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

Well it's now in the 2nd week of cycling ammonia is still up at 0.25, to fill the tank up I mixed my own salt water but will probably use premixed from my local store. The stuff they mix comes out at 1.021 which is what it currently is anyway, not sure if I need to raise this? It's just going to be a fowlr.

I have just made some small structures out of alfagrog so just gota wait until the sealant is cured and then I can see how it looks. One thing I'm still waiting to get is a small powerhead as atm the filter is providing the flow


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

Jasberfloob said:


> Unless your specifically after a nano you'll probably find bigger is easier to keep as it allows for slight vairiations in water when doing changes etc
> 
> Were running a 300l tank atm :whistling2:




Bigger also means much more expense which isn't a possibility for me atm, I already had this tank sat spare so thought I may aswell put it to use, currently running 5 aquariums ( 4ft turtle tank, corner freshwater comunity, 2 freshwater nanos and this latest saltwater tank ) so most of my money goes on the freshwater tanks lol


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## Jasberfloob (Dec 20, 2011)

JasonR said:


> Well it's now in the 2nd week of cycling ammonia is still up at 0.25, to fill the tank up I mixed my own salt water but will probably use premixed from my local store. The stuff they mix comes out at 1.021 which is what it currently is anyway, not sure if I need to raise this? It's just going to be a fowlr.
> 
> I have just made some small structures out of alfagrog so just gota wait until the sealant is cured and then I can see how it looks. One thing I'm still waiting to get is a small powerhead as atm the filter is providing the flow


you want to be checking Nitrates not just Ammonia btw 

If you have a tank which has 0 Ammonia but it still has high Nitrates from the liverock you've put in (rock contains beasties and massive changes - ie into a new tank can cause these to grow, esp if the rock was second hand the crap may leech out into the nice clean water) it can kill fish

Most can hack a Nitrate level of 20 but this really isnt good - you need this as close to 0 as possible

Atm my tank is running at about 5 of Nitrates (using Salifert test kit) and am due a water change tonight


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

I am testing all of the basics ph, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate currently nitrite and nitrate are both at zero which is why I didn't mention them


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## Jasberfloob (Dec 20, 2011)

Thats cool - just wanted to check you hadnt over looked nitrates 

Looking forwards to seeing some photos


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

I have just finished putting the rock structures in so ill get some photos later tonight as its slightly cloudy atm due to having disturbed the sand. Also got myself a powerhead, it's the smallest they had but still seems very powerfull


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

Okay so not the greatest pictures but here's a few










I was expecting the arch to be abit taller but I didn't allow for how much I'd have to sink it in the substrate 








Live rock surround by alfagrog


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

Back of the arch also made a rock pile behind it
















Powerhead 








Archway again








Side view


















It's not the greatest but its a work in progress on a very low budget


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## AshMashMash (Oct 28, 2007)

I like it, nice scape 

Did you build it on the base and then add sand, or vica versa? If the latter, be careful with shifting sand (inverts etc moving it) and everything collapsing...


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

The rocks was put in after but i did make sure I pushed them down as far through the sand as possible, also the structures themselves are actually siliconed together so hopefully there shouldn't be any problems of it collapsing(touch wood lol) there's basically 4 separate structures and then its just the 2kilo piece of live rock in the middle surrounded with lots of small loose rocks.


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## Jasberfloob (Dec 20, 2011)

Looks good

I tend to direct the powerhead more across the top instead of directing it directly onto the rocks and have a powerhead either side

Whats your water change over rate?


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

By change over rate do you mean the powerhead or the filter aswell? On box of powerhead it say 800-1600l/h and I have it's on lowest setting so 800 l/h I guess, it's abit too powerful to be honest so I was advised to point it at the rock as best I can to slow it down abit. It's a newave near 1.6adj.

I woke up this morning to a very cloudy tank so I knew something was changing and just done a test, ammonia has dropped and nitrite has started to climb finally not sure if addin the powerhead has help speed it up or it was just the right time anyway


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## Daniel White91 (Jun 7, 2012)

AshMashMash said:


> I disagree here! Unless you don't care what salinity you have... could be anything from 1.020 to 1.029 (heard of both...). In which case you'd need RO _and_ salt to make it correct anyways. Just mix your own.


But if you get it from the shop ask them to get the premixed salted RO and get them to test it infront of you if it's 1.025-1.026 then happy days also if your on a water metre it would be cheaper as 90% of RO water is waste.


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

Bit of an update, I changed the background to black not totally sure if ill keep it black but it helps hide the black heater and filter


















Also changed the stand to a much stronger one (it was previously sat on an old set of Chester draws) 

















As you can see my spare 10 gallon square tank fits inside the stand nicely which made me start thinking, maybe I could turn the 10 gallon into a sump? I just don't quite know how's best to do it as I don't fancy drilling the tank and how to make it so the sump or tank won't overflow in a powercut or blockage


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## AshMashMash (Oct 28, 2007)

JasonR said:


> As you can see my spare 10 gallon square tank fits inside the stand nicely which made me start thinking, maybe I could turn the 10 gallon into a sump? I just don't quite know how's best to do it as I don't fancy drilling the tank and how to make it so the sump or tank won't overflow in a powercut or blockage


Awesome, I'd do it, or bigger if you can afford the space - tanks are cheap 

Google "tunze overflow", I had one, works well for non-drilled tanks. Then you can chuck your heater and other equipment in there :2thumb:

As for not overflowing - calculate how much of the display tank will flow into it (ie to bottom of syphon), and leave that much space... ie 50cm X 60cm X 2cm deep from display tank = xxx litres, so in the sump you'd need 20cm X 30cm X xxcm etc etc... depending on exact measurements


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

The thing I carnt quite work out is if the flow from tank into sump was to stop (i.e a blockage) then how would you stop the pump from pumping all the water
Out of the sump into the main tank causing it to overflow. Maybe you could sit the pump at top of the water line so it can only pump a small amount but wouldn't it be dangerous if it were to run dry?


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

AshMashMash said:


> Awesome, I'd do it, or bigger if you can afford the space - tanks are cheap
> 
> Google "tunze overflow", I had one, works well for non-drilled tanks. Then you can chuck your heater and other equipment in there :2thumb:
> 
> As for not overflowing - calculate how much of the display tank will flow into it (ie to bottom of syphon), and leave that much space... ie 50cm X 60cm X 2cm deep from display tank = xxx litres, so in the sump you'd need 20cm X 30cm X xxcm etc etc... depending on exact measurements


They look pretty good but far too expensive for what they are, I would rather spend that kind of money on a large external canister filter and fill it with rock etc

Maybe if one pops up cheap from somewhere ill consider it. I might try a DIY one, I thought about using same sort of piping that comes with an external filter only flipping the inlet upside down and having it high up so should the pump stop working only a small amount of water would be able to flow out to the sump


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## AshMashMash (Oct 28, 2007)

JasonR said:


> The thing I carnt quite work out is if the flow from tank into sump was to stop (i.e a blockage) then how would you stop the pump from pumping all the water
> Out of the sump into the main tank causing it to overflow. Maybe you could sit the pump at top of the water line so it can only pump a small amount but wouldn't it be dangerous if it were to run dry?


You are right - it would indeed pump the entire of that sump section into the main tank, run dry, heat up, catch on fire, and burn your house down. 

Don't let the return get blocked - use a durso / two-pipe system or a wide bore return (the tunze uses 40mm piping, wide)



JasonR said:


> They look pretty good but far too expensive for what they are, I would rather spend that kind of money on a large external canister filter and fill it with rock etc
> 
> Maybe if one pops up cheap from somewhere ill consider it. I might try a DIY one, I thought about using same sort of piping that comes with an external filter only flipping the inlet upside down and having it high up so should the pump stop working only a small amount of water would be able to flow out to the sump


For what they do... they're pretty good. No drilling needed, no priming needed, just set up once, and every time the pump goes off and comes back on it carries on running. If it's too costly look for second hand (sold mine for £60) or try Clear Tides' version. 

The thing with home made is that it won't start running again after a power shortage, you'd need to prime it... at least from what you're saying.


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

That clear tides one seems a much better price lol used one of these or the company before? 

I must say I've never had a blockage on any of the pipes feeding my external canisters that's including the one in the turtle tank and they create more mess than anything but its just something that would be in the back of my head.


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## AshMashMash (Oct 28, 2007)

JasonR said:


> That clear tides one seems a much better price lol used one of these or the company before?
> 
> I must say I've never had a blockage on any of the pipes feeding my external canisters that's including the one in the turtle tank and they create more mess than anything but its just something that would be in the back of my head.


I sold my Tunze for £60 second hand, working order. I hear the clear tides' ones are noisier though...

Yes... but in a turtle tank there's not algae and snails and small fish and shrimps and calcifying algae... keep on top of maintainence, mine never blocked up. But yes, it's not as good as a proper overflow of course.


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## JasonR (Mar 27, 2011)

The cycle seems to have pretty much finished ammonia 0 , nitrite just slightly up between 0-0.25 looking on the scale( I'm guessing about 0.10 judging by the colour) nitrate at about 1.0ppm so ill test it again over the weekend and probably do a water change then I can look at putting a hermit crab or 2 in there.

Also picked up a really nice piece of coral rock today which has all sorts growing on it, I think there's a few different types of algae which I'm hoping may grow over some of the alfagrog eventually

Maybe someone can help identify these? Not sure what the bubbles are either?
















































Ill probably Change it all about at some point this will do for now


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