Need info on saltwater tanks

First you need to have your salinity at 1.025ish. Your puffer will eat the corals no matter how much you feed him.

All that being said you will need T5 or Metal Halide lighting, a high quality protein skimmer, live rock, live sand. You'll also at the very least need calcium, magnesium, and strontium additives.

 

Good luck. If you think of any other questions please feel free to ask.

 

The Seaclone Protein Skimmer from Aquarium Systems would work but not the other two.

 

Similar, yes.

 

Yes, myself and many others run open top tanks.

 

You will likely need one and yes that one will work. I have one myself and like it.

 

The seaclone gets some pretty ugly reviews. For a tank this size, you may also want to look up skimmers for nano tanks - equipment marketed for nano tanks (<30gal) tend to be much more affordable then gear for their larger cousins.

Craigslist is great for finding some gear (pumps, powerheads, heaters, skimmers, etc)... but make sure you price out the cost of bulbs if you want to buy a light fixture online, because PC/T5/MH bulbs normally shift out of their calibrated spectrum and wont grow coral after 7-18 months of normal use, despite still lighting the tank brightly... it would be worth starting with fresh bulbs instead of just trusting someone telling you that the bulbs "are only a month old!" or the like.

If you do frequent water changes and dont go buck-wild with stuffing the tank full of hard corals, calc/alk/mag additives may not be necessary. If your planning on keeping lots of corals, or some of the faster ones you'll almost definitely need additives. Dont add anything to your water that you aren't testing because it's not hard to overdose given enough time and will cause you alot of grief!

 

i myself run a corlife super skimmer. it's not the best but do as good as a $300 skimmer. i did do a few mod on the pump. for lighting, depending on wat u want to keep. soft coral and zoa will do fine under PC lighting, but if u want to go for the sps such and such than u will want to invest into MH or T5. running a sump is another good way to keep your water level. red mangrove tree or algae plant can be a plus to help lower nitr and pho. in order to really help u on your project is the tell us wat your looking to raise in your tank(coral,fish,inver). clean up crew is a must have for any tank(hermit crab, snail, etc...), but dont overstock on them because if u do than they will run out of food and tear each other apart for food. let us know wat your plan r that way we can help so u dont end up spending lots of money on unnecessary equipment.

 

It's funny you should mention that... I'm running a coralife (needlewheel) super skimmer as well. Within the first 8 months the pump went out and started dumping electricity in the tank. Currently we're running a much stronger pump and a kent 1/2" turbo venturi pipe on the intake side, along with cutting the pressure regulator off the outlet and we slipped a 1.5" pipe over it to do a riser outlet (it produces much more and much darker skimmate now) I digress though.

Mangroves are awesome. Right now we're growing the macro-algae "chaeto" in our refugium to consume nitrates, along with a deep sand bed (5+) for anaerobic bacteria to convert nitrate to nitrogen gas, and under stocking. Nitrates can really be a battle - since it causes ugly algae growth AND stresses the fish. There are alot of great saltwater options to lower and maintain nitrates more aggressively then freshwater tanks can, but saltwater inhabitants (particularly certain corals) demand lower levels then most freshwater critters.

 

so it's not just. thought my pump was not working right so i change it into a different pump(forgot wat the brand are). i took out the both the clear tub and the grey pipe in the mid and use some pvc pipe for it. the air go in before the pump so it work better. these skimmer are crap but with a little mod it's a whole different stroy.
i found that mangrove do a way better job and look so much cleaner and nicer. chaeto sometime release waste back into the water it u dont trim it down, but for mangrove, they just grow taller and trim as u need them which ever height u want. but nothing wrong with chaeto or other algae. i use them when i first found out about them and they do there job, but i just like a more of a cleaner sump/refugium.