grneyez808

Hello,
I Currently Have An 80 Tall Fresh Water Tank And Just Got A 120 Gallon Tank On Craigslist. I'm Wanting To Make The New Tank Salt Water. If You Could Would You Please Tell Me What I Would Need. I'm Pretty Well Educated On Fresh But Clueless When It Comes To Salt. Aloha, Cam

Fullofit343

Well there is a lot to know. You should really do some research. Let's see. You're gonna need a heater, lighting, some time of filtration such as a wet/dry overflow filter, preferably a protein skimmer (especially if you plan on going with a reef tank), a uv steralizer if you have the money, and i would definitely reccomend an RO unit for water changes and the inital filling of the tank. I would reccomend going with live sand as substrate. You should also look into live rock. (i'm assuming you have a wide budget) Make sure you do some research before buying anything just like with freshwater. it adds up to be a lot of money, especially if you buy everything new. Keep checking craigslist for some good deals on equipment. I got my entire set up for 400 (it's a 75 gallon tank)

Shawnie

congrats on the new tank!!! salty especially!!!!!

heres a link to help you out if you havent seen it yet ...

Top 10 for Newbies

some great info from many members...goodluck and dont forget pics along the way

http://www.fishlore.com/fishforum/sa...ank-equipment/

Matt

Congrats On The New Salty Tank

-Matt

cerianthus

Decide what you want first. FO (fish Only) or FOWLR (fish Only with Live Rock) or Reef (COrals w/ fish and critters). Do some research and decide.

Consider temp of tank water thru out the year. If too hot in Summer (above 82F tank temp), consider chiller for Reef set up. Of course a Heater is must if tank temp falls below 72F in any set up. Lighting is another important issue with Reef.
Do research on what type of corals you want to handle before deciding on types of lighting, either mainly soft corals or large polyp stony corals (LPS), or small polyp stony corals (SPS) or all of above.

Protein Skimmer is must for any s/w set up, imo.
UV Sterilizer for FO, FOWLR is optional but beneficial when properly used but would not run on Reef personally.

If you tank is not RR (Reef Ready; built in overflow boxes) then would consider 2 x Overflow Box for maximum flow for 120G.
Rather than W/D, consider sump/refugium for Fowlr and Reef. No need to spend/waste money on W/D when LR will do better job at no charge once acquired and maintenace free.. Can do DIY Sump/Refugium. Check online for info and designs.
For FO, May want to consider some sort of bio-Filtration since Sump/Refugium may not sufficient enough depending on animal loads.

LR: would go with premium quality (more porous thus more surface area for bio activities (beneficial bacteria and lighter) than base LR. This will be long term investment unless can find most if not all from Craigs List.

For Reef, will need more additives, test kits, possible calcium reactor and phosphate reactor.

Get a book (aquarium corals by ERIC BOUREMAN is not that expensive and pretty thorough with info on Reef Set Up).

RO/DI: optional. Check with your local Water Supplier for complete analysis of tap before buying RO/DI, which is pretty expensive to buy but also not that cheap to run and maintained depending on your tap water, IMO.

LS: Dont believe in such as I have confidence in LR. Add other beautiful substrates avail with aragonite and will become live sand in time. I personally dont think it's worth the money spent, especially one that come bagged with expiration date on it.
Only Live sand I believe in is one I collect from Sea shores myself. Straight from ocean to Tank with no loss of bio-activities.

Hope this helped a bit!

grneyez808

Wow, it's like a whole different world in saltwater tanks!!! I'm from Hawaii and wanted to bring the ocean to my home here now that I live in Vegas, but not sure if I'll be able to. Thanks for all of the info!!! Time for me to hit the books and learn all about this.
aloha, cam