Currently we have a 75 gallon aquarium filled with water from the sink. The pump in the back is an Emperor 400. You can see an image of the tank below.
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First steps Written by Dr DBW on 2006-03-14 08:48:48OK, so far you have the tank, water, a pump / filter to move water around and some lighting over the tank. Off to a good start.
First thing you want to do is decide what sort of life you are going to want to keep in this aquarium. Mainly just fish? Some liverock so can observe the amazing diversity of life that makes up a reef ecosystem? Corals?
You are probably best off limiting it to a couple of fish with some liverock. This makes things much simplier to set up and maintain. And there will definitely not be a shortage of things to check out.
Getting the water right Written by Dr DBW on 2006-03-14 18:58:50If you use water from the tap you have to ensure that it is of good quality (meaning as pure as possible) and any chlorine/chloramine added by the water company to make it "safe" for drinking is removed. Removing these last two is very simple, there is are additives that you can get at any aquarium store that will do that for you.
Getting the salinity right Written by Dr DBW on 2006-03-14 08:51:09Next important thing is making the water more like ocean water, i.e. adding salt to it. Without the salt any marine life that you put into the tank will fairly rapidly die. You have to try and reproduce as well as possible the conditions that they are use to. Plus, you can't just add any salt, there are a lot more dissolved in seawater than that. You need to get some synthetic seasalt either from your local aquarium store or via an online business.
That amount of salt that is added to the water is also very important. The amount required is normally quoted using two different units, specific gravity (1.026) or salinity (35 ppt), with the value for those to aim for in brackets. To measure how much salt is in the water you make up and within the aquarium, you will need to purchase a hydrometer. A glass floating one is likely to be more accurate, but a plastic float arm is much easier to use. If you do get a plastic float arm, see if you can get it calibrated to ensure that it is reading correctly.
our tank Written by
on 2007-04-24 16:20:31we just got two of our "bully fish" out of our main tank and put them in a seprate tank together.
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