bought a marine aquarium!

[logan_yomtov]

i've been wanting a saltwater tank for a while and finally decided tonite just to man up and buy it... i picked up a Newport 60 gallon bow front acrylic round edge tank with stand, florecent lamp lid, lid/filte/pumpr for 400 bucks... i also got a bunch of live sand, coral sand, another self contained bio filter, quick disolving salt, and 12lbs of live rock for an extra 200 bucks.

the place i got it from hooked me up pretty good i think since the retail of teh tank including the stand was 450 and the retail of the second pump was 150...

now i just have to wait a couple weeks before i can buy some fish.....

i'd share pics but right now its just an emty tank with some sand and live rock...

anyone else into marine aquariums???

 

[whiplash306]

I have ALWAYS wanted a nice tank....seems when done properly, they are more like beautiful pieces of "furniture" that can REALLY accentuate a house's appearance. Unfortunately though, I have absolutely NO idea how to set one up, care for it, etc...So this may be a dream that I never realize.....

 

[F8LBITEva]

badass dude, I worked at a saltwater fish aquarium shop for 4 years. Always wanted a sw tank but its alot of loot. 60 gal bowfront is the perfect size, get your bacteria going and you'll have fish in there in no time. One thing I recommend if you havent put water in there already is to start the tank with spring water, itll cut down on set up time so your not fighting ammonia levels.

 

[Mr. Mach-ete]

My buddy has a salt water tank and it's beautiful, the fish and coral are extremely expensive but none the less.

 

[Burn'nRubber]

From the looks of things you are planning a FOWLR? If so I would make sure to get some more live rock, which is rough as its almost $7 a lb. I am sure you know they recommend a pound per gallon, but with a good biological filter(wet/dry filter) you can get a way with a little less. What species do you plan on keeping? Good luck!

 

[txyaloo]

Depending on how dense the rock is, you're going to need around 2lbs of liverock per gallon. So, get ready to pony up. You can get 50lbs online shipped for $150 or so. I'd suggest adding it now so the rock cures and the tank cycles at the same time. The last rock I ordered was from reefermadness.us. Nice quality rock and their customer service is good.

Other online stores to check out:

saltwaterfish.com
liveaquaria.com
marinedepotlive.com

Once you get the live rock, you can ditch all the other filter stuff you bought as the rock will be your filter. If you want to keep corals, expect to pony up for a nice protein skimmer and some more powerful lights somwhere down the line.

I suggest reading a whole lot before diving in and adding fish, corals, etc. reefcentral.com is a good resource.

You're lucky, a lot of the wholesellers are in your area so costs should be lower and the livestock should be nicer.

 

[Common]

This thread fails without pictures.

 

[logan_yomtov]

thanks for the advice guys!

I'm actually planning on picking up some more live rock today cuz 12lbs is really a lot less than i thought it would be in that tank. I filled it up last night and set everything up, its kind of nice now that the water is clear, but yeah, needs more rock...

as for it being a fowlr, i do plan on adding live coral but it will probably months down the line since that everything in the tank can stabilize and i'm sure the conditions are good for it.


But yeah, i like it..we've had an empty "dining" area in the living room since we've moved in and its kind of small for a decent dining table and we never really knew what to put there, so the tank seems to do a lot and it doesn't look like a big empty area anymore..

I'll try to take/post some pictures later today.