How to setup a saltwater aquarium

I have written an article for anyone who wants to start a saltwater tank for the first time. It was written through personal experience and these forums helped me out tremendously.
I would post the whole thing here but it is a long read. I hope it helps anyone trying to start-up and has all the questions I had.
Here is the article

First time setup of a saltwater aquarium
This article was written from personal experience. I have owned a reef tank for almost 3 years now, and have made many errors and fixed many problems, just as any other novice fish keeper would.
Before you begin your journey into saltwater fishkeeping, you should do your research. The most help I had was from the great community at 3reef.com. All questions I had were answered and I could get great advice from the people there.
This article is made to help the first time saltwater hobbyist setup and successfully keep a tank.
First thing's first. What you think you will be spending on a tank, double it. That was my first mistake. I did my research and found out what I needed. I figured I would be spending around $800-$1000 to setup my 60 gallon tank. I have now spent over $2500 on the system, about $1400 of that was in the first 6 months.
You will need your basic saltwater materials. A fish tank (as stated, I started with a 60 gallon), If you can find one, get it with a built in overflow (so you can add a sump later.) I didn’t and had to purchase an overflow box (another $250 I didn't realize I would be spending.)
You will need a stand for your fish tank as well. You will also need a place to put said stand and tank. Once you have it setup, you're not going to be moving the 700lbs tank easily. Also pick up some Styrofoam. Enough to line between the tank and the stand. This will level the tank in case it is not level once everything is put in the tank.
You will want to put your tank on top of some newspaper on a hard surface such as your bathroom floor. Fill the tank with water and let it stand for a day or two and check the tank.
The newspaper should be dry for the two days. If it gets wet, there is a leak. Get it fixed or get another tank.
After putting the stand and tank in place, you will need saltwater. It is so much easier to purchase the pre-made saltwater mix for the first time then trying to figure out how to mix it yourself.
You'll want to start with about 50 gallons of water. If you don't have anything to put it in, most hardware stores will sell 5 gallon empty paint containers that are perfect for transporting your water, and unless you have an RO system in your house, these will come in handy transporting your water from your neighbourhood water store.
You are also going to need about 60lbs of live rock, and 2-3 big bags of live sand. This is where most of the primary expense comes in, live rock is not cheap. My best suggestion, get it already
cured and look in your local classified ads, kijiji, craigslist, etc. for people selling it from their
home tank. You will always find it cheaper from these places.
If you get the live rock already cured, it cycles the tank much faster than having to wait for it to cure.
There are different theories for what to do first, place the live rock, sand or water. I put my sand into the tank, then added my water (very slowly, as the sand is dry and you will cloud up the tank for a day or so by mixing it around in the water) then placed my live rock. Another error of mine, I didn't think about how I wanted to aquascape my tank. Once I had everything setup, and went to the fish store, I couldn't figure out why their tanks looked so much better than mine. Then I realized it was how they setup their rocks.
I came back and re-aquascaped my tank, which made it look 1000 times better. You'll want to make caves and tunnels for your fish and vertebrates to hide and swim through. You may also want a nice sandy part and some overhangs for the fish that like these areas.
They suggest you don't place your rocks against the glass as it restricts water flow. I have followed this rule, but have noticed many fish stores stack their rocks against the back glass.
I also suggest partially burying your rocks, as it will make them more stable when you place more rocks or other things on top of them. As a rule of thumb, the less rock that touches something, the more surface area the rock has to filter your water.
Once you have your water, rocks and sand in place, it’s time to start cycling the tank.
You will need a protein skimmer. Don't cheap out on this. The bigger the better. Get the biggest protein skimmer you can afford. You'll thank yourself in the long run.
For a 60 gallon tank, you are going to need at least 2 powerheads. I have been using 2 hydor koralia powerheads and a marineland powerhead for my overflow box (but I didn't need this until I purchased my sump, which was a year later.)
They have changed the powerheads since I bought mine, but on one side of the tank I have an
800gph and the other I have a 1200gph. I found the hydors are great because they are magnetic
and you can adjust the way they point. I have never had a problem with either of my
powerheads.
Make sure your powerheads are sufficiently underwater and plug your powerheads into a surge
protector (or even better, a battery backup in case the power goes out in your house.)
You also should have a filter system in place as the rocks need help filtering. I had a fluval
canister filter that I filled with some live rock pieces, filtering floss, and occasionally some
carbon to clean the water.
My filter died after about 2 years and I never purchased another. My live rock and protein
skimmer are doing a fine job of filtering now.
Setup your filter and your protein skimmer in the tank and plug into your surge protector.
You will also need a heater for your tank. I used my old heater from my freshwater aquarium. It has been running fine now for over 6 years.
Now it’s time to turn on the surge protector.
Your tank will need to cycle for a couple weeks. And I really didn't want to watch water flow around in my tank, so after a few days I talked to my local fish retailer and picked up 6 blue/green chromis. They are very hearty fish, they helped cycle the tank (the fish poo helping the cycle) and I didn't have 1 fatality.
Little did I know that I would be noticing many many things growing on the rocks and sand during these couple weeks. There are things that live in your live rock that you won't be aware of. I now have 2 three-year-old crabs that have lived in my rocks since I got them, and a bunch of small starfish.
If you are planning on setting up a reef tank, you are going to need a good light for your tank. This was the second big expense I wasn't expecting.
You have a choice between Metal Halide, Fluorescent, and LED lights. Metal Halide lights produce more heat and more energy use. They don't have the same white colour as fluorescents, but they do make coral grow faster. Fluorescent lights have a much nicer white light, the actinic lights are in the same housing as the white, and usually have moon lights built in. Fluorescent lights make your tank look nicer than metal halides, but coral grow slower under these lights.
LED lights are the cream of the crop. The best of both previous lights, and don't cost much to run, but expect to pay at least double for LEDs.
My 4 foot light came with 2 whites, 2 actinic, and 4 moon lights. It cost almost $500.
After a couple days your protein skimmer will start picking up dirty particles in your water. Remember to always dump this, you don't want the bad stuff overflowing back into your tank or all over the floor.
After a few days, you will notice cyanobacteria (red slime) and green hair algae growing in the tank. This is part of the cycling process. It will go away after a few weeks, and I helped it out whenever I could by scooping up the cyano or picking off the hair algae.
It was a little scary at first, I thought the cyano would never go away. But it eventually does, and when it does, the fun begins.
It is now time to start adding to your tank. You should decide approximately what kind of tank you want now. If you are going to have peaceful community fish, you don't want to put them with a predator fish.
You want to add fish slowly. If you add too many at a time, the tank will not be able to handle the added strain from the fish waste, and fish will start dying. My next fish was a yellow tang and an orange spotted goby.
The goby is fantastic because it eats all the waste that builds up on the sand. I definitely recommend one if it will get along with the other fish you plan on getting.
As long as you have your lights up, you can start adding coral. Coral gets pretty expensive pretty fast, but if you are willing to wait a bit, you can get coral frags much cheaper.
I was not willing to pay $100 for a fully grown coral and then it die a month later when I could spend the same on 20 frags.
I picked up a bunch of coral frags, mushrooms, etc. and put them in the tank. It still looked bare but the fish swimming around and watching things grow in the sand and on the rocks made up for it.
It took almost 6 months before I really noticed the frags growing, and 3 years later, I have a tank full of coral. Some of my coral are actually fragging themselves now, and I have the same coral growing in different parts of my tank.
You will need to pick up some additives for your tank. I have used the same mixture for 3 years now and it seems to be doing just fine. You should pick up a bottle of essential elements, the tank NEEDS this. I also use coral accel and purple up. The purple up really makes a difference. When I don't use it, my coralline algae grows much slower.
You will need to feed your fish and coral as well. You can choose what fish food you prefer, there’s a tonne of varieties. Just make sure you get what your fish will eat. Herbivores are not going to eat food made for carnivores. I like to give my fish some frozen Mysis shrimp a few times a week. They all gobble it up. It appears to be their favourite food. The coral will need food too, concentrated phytoplankton works well, fresh works better, but doesn't last as long, and is much more expensive.
Time to add more to the tank. You are going to need some cleaners. Hermit crabs, snails, shrimp etc. They are going to clean your rocks, sand, glass etc. Your tank will thank you for it.
You will have to clean your tank, so you will need some type of syphon. I would recommend one that attaches to your faucet. It makes cleaning the tank much easier. All the bad water goes down the drain instead of having to fill buckets and dump them yourself.
You will also have to top off your tank about once a day. You'll need RO water to top off the tank. You only need more salt water when doing a water change. When your water evaporates, the salt does not and gets more concentrated in your tank. You need just water to dilute the salt.
A hydrometer is a great device to check how much salt is in your tank. Make sure you don't go too high or too low or your fish and coral will die.
I hope this article helps anyone trying to start up their own saltwater tank, and if you have any other questions, I urge you to check out 3reef.com.

 

That is a long article. Full of good info.

 

Very good job

 

It is a long article, over 2000 words, I tried to jam in everything I asked when first starting up. Hopefully it answers the main questions.

 

great article H - Rad

I have removed link and just cut and pasted article onto your post

Steve

 

very helpful...n gives some relief that you may not be the only one to make mistakes....Read read and read...and then get your tank

 

thanks for posting this it helped alot.....would anyone recommend starting out with a sump from the get go?

 

Yes! I went to a sump/fuge 2 years ago and will NEVER run a tank without one ever again.

 

+1 heck I would even try adding a sump to my QT tank but thats just overkill, I'll never have a main tank without one again though

 

Nice article, but I can't finish reading it. Just one word though.... Paragraphs!!! Oh, boy that's tough to read.. ;D