Newbie to marine

[David Moses Heng]

Hi all,

I have been playing around with freshwater for quite a while and have enjoyed my fair share of success. I thought why not try marine even though I lost quite a bit of money years back when try to start one.

Hence, I would have to take on the role of a student here and ask for advice. What is going to happen is that i am intending to start a 422 without sump as i have very very limited budget. Roughly about $4K to play around only. I don't think i can and want to venture into very fanciful stuff here as I am still learning.

Will the kind souls please guide me as to where should i source for my supplies and what flora and fauna is suitable. i am using a donated Juwel Rio 240 for my set up.

Thanks a lot folks!!

[samhon]

Hi Altum,

I would like to be your classmate, I am also in the midst of preparing for marine tank after 9 years in freshwater. I have tried from breeding fighting fishes to breeding goldfishes when I first started to apisto biotopes setup to breeding simple shrimps like cherries, to high tech planted to low maintanence planted, just to name a few, it has been a fruitful journey with many mistakes made and many fruits reaped.

As I am moving to my new place, I had the opportunity to have a big tank, and I was seriously deliberating between a vivarium (after looking at eddy's tank) or a marine, but growing up next to the sea and my memories of dad bringing me out to the sea and kelongs to catch prawns made me stick to my roots.

From what I remember of the threads and posts started by you, you come across as a pretty dedicated and serious hobbyist, and I am sure you had do quite a bit of reading before taking this leap. I am like you a novice who has also wet to get my hands salty, I learnt quite a bit through forums and various books. Some guys here in AQ are pretty seasoned and helpful too, like BFG and gondoo etc.

I don't think I can give u seasoned suggestions but maybe as a fellow classmate, I would like to share some of the things I picked up from the books and seniors here.

1) You mentioned that you are using a Juwel Rio 240, I remember that it would come with a pump/lighting/filter system?

If that is the case, I am not sure if the lighting is suitable to marine, of course that depends on what you would be keeping.

2) Might be good to add a sump, as it increases the volume of water and it's a place where we could put essential and bulky equipment like skimmer/reactors depending again on what type of marine aquarium you are gunning for. But I think due to Juwel Rio 240 which already comes with cabinet which is sump unfriendly, you might be disadvantaged.

3) 4k budget is doable, I have been doing some price comparisons around.
Will try to break it down for you as much as possible but please take my figures with a pinch of salt as I only seen a few shops/LFS


a) Assuming you are going for FOWLR (relatively easier, assuming easier fishes are kept)

Essentials:

• light (might not need to buy, can use existing lights from your tank)
• good skimmer (good to invest here), really a wide range here from 300 SGD to 1000SGD

optional but good to have

• wavemaker base on Tunze 6045 nanostream X 2 = 140 SGD X 2 = 280 SGD
• chiller base on Hailea Chiller - HC 300A (1/4hp = 500 SGD

b) assuming you go for LPS and light on fishes (medium difficulty)

Essentials:

• Light (T5 should be good enough for LPS) good set of t5 can hit 1000 SGD
• Good Skimmer
• Some form of calcium dosing, could be reactor which cost more but savings in the long run; or could be dosing from bottles. Reactors with CO2 tank and all related stuff would set you back by around 400 SGD
• Wavemaker

Optional:

• Chiller (really bordering on whether this is essential, but LPS are more forgiving)

c) SPS dominated tank or mix reefs

Essentials:

• MH light/ LED lights (LED lights suitable for SPS are extremely expensive! ard 3900SGD?)
• Chiller
• Wavemaker
• Super Skimmer
• Calcium dosing equipment

Optional:

• Other reactors eg nitrate reactors

4K might really be too tight to go for SPS as the above are only equipment, again I stressed I might be rather inaccurate on the figures, any gurus can help us here?

5) I think for new converts like us, its good to take things slowly, I intend to go for LRs with cleaner crew for the first 6 months, many seasoned fellows shared with me their experience of waking up to something new on their LR everyday!

Then slowly go for easy LPS and finally some easy SPS, in between some easy fishes.

This also allow us to acquire the essential equipment first and not have to burn a big hole purchasing all items at one go.





I look forward to learning from you Mr Altum!!!!! It's great to know that I am not in this new journey alone.


God bless

[Goondoo]

Hi David,
Welcome to marine.... lol....
3 foot is OK actually if you do not mind a IOS. Maybe need to DIY a lil though.
Just share with you my set up which I spent less than $2k (I think ). Mostly 2nd handed though.
3 ft Tank + sump + Teco TW4 chiller $450
250w MH (Reeflux 12000K) $150
Tunze Nano Wavebox 6206, Tunze 6045, Tunze 6025 $350
Aquabee 3000L, $150 (IIRC)
Rio HF20, Rio HF17, about $150 (IIRC)
SM100 Algae Turf Scrubber acrylic box $150 (including accessories)
(4x24w T5 2700K) $90
First NSW fill up by Iwarna $80
TDS meter + Hygrometer about $100
Calcium and kH tester about $30
I don't use NPK test kits.
Rocks and sand..... if you are patient, there are people giving it out free or for a token occasionally at SRC.
Most of my fishes are $5 range. Corals are not that expensive if you are not going after exotic species. I discourage anemone though. If you need to host clown fish, get a hammer coral or something.

Best to start with Fish only with Live Rocks tank. Get familiarize with fishes and their habits before moving on to corals.

PS: I do not use FR, skimmer, reactors.
Hope this helps.

[David Moses Heng]

Hi Samhon, thanks for your kind words and welcome to the "classroom". I hope that other than learning together, we can foster a meaningful friendship by exploring the marine school together.

Hi Billy, thanks for dropping in to share your experience. I am very happy that you are so selfless in sharing your journey and i am hoping that we can meet up one day where we can discuss more. But even though I am having the tank, I now must seek approval from my better half as finances for me now is very very tight due to massive losses in business.

BUT I will try my very best to bring to fulfillment this little desire of mine.

Meanwhile, may I invite all experienced marine hobbyist to come and share their knowledge here so that many more may benefit?

For this project, I did some very very basic reading and from my previous very very brief encounter with marine fish keeping(sparked by the show "Finding Nemo"), I realised that it is not an affordable hobby at all. Also the demands and rigors of this discipline is much much more than fresh water fish rearing. There are also terms that I need to find out more and understand the technology available before I were to move on to even more complicated stuff.

Terms like FOWLR, SPS, LPS and many many others are very alien at this moment to me.

While I have very limited experience with clown fish, doctor shrimp, rock shrimp(?) and batfish, I must confess that they are not at all conclusive or even constructive. Therefore, I believe that i will have to invest resources(reading time) to learn, discover and understand before I can truly understand the mechanics behind a beautiful functioning marine tank. While I have enjoyed the freshwater hobby(i am still very much in love with it), i too remember fondly the kelong and jurong fishery port experience that I have with my father(my father is a fish monger)

Let us all; in the spirit of learrning and developing each other; share the thrills and pains of our journey here to make this little community a better place.

Thank you all.

[dkk08]

Wow David, $4k!!! I think I spent about $4k in fishes and equipments upgrade in my 2-3 years of marine fish keeping... if you don't mind 2nd hand stuff, I'm sure you do not even need $1k for a start up since I'm not sure if you want to dive into softies plus fishes or just the simple FOWLR...

And what Billy suggested is quite good, a 3ft is a good startup size for a Marine tank, considering I started with a 3ft then to a 4ft den to 3 4ft and 2 2ft tanks... anyway the more important thing is to have fun and of cause the whole family learn together...

PS. Say hi to your little ones for me

[Goondoo]

Hi Billy, thanks for dropping in to share your experience. I am very happy that you are so selfless in sharing your journey and i am hoping that we can meet up one day where we can discuss more. But even though I am having the tank, I now must seek approval from my better half as finances for me now is very very tight due to massive losses in business.

BUT I will try my very best to bring to fulfillment this little desire of mine.

Meanwhile, may I invite all experienced marine hobbyist to come and share their knowledge here so that many more may benefit?

For this project, I did some very very basic reading and from my previous very very brief encounter with marine fish keeping(sparked by the show "Finding Nemo"), I realised that it is not an affordable hobby at all. Also the demands and rigors of this discipline is much much more than fresh water fish rearing. There are also terms that I need to find out more and understand the technology available before I were to move on to even more complicated stuff.

Terms like FOWLR, SPS, LPS and many many others are very alien at this moment to me.

While I have very limited experience with clown fish, doctor shrimp, rock shrimp(?) and batfish, I must confess that they are not at all conclusive or even constructive. Therefore, I believe that i will have to invest resources(reading time) to learn, discover and understand before I can truly understand the mechanics behind a beautiful functioning marine tank. While I have enjoyed the freshwater hobby(i am still very much in love with it), i too remember fondly the kelong and jurong fishery port experience that I have with my father(my father is a fish monger)

Let us all; in the spirit of learrning and developing each other; share the thrills and pains of our journey here to make this little community a better place.

Thank you all.

I would strongly urge you NOT to start at all. Marine are less tolerant to errors and faults. There was once my chiller pump failed and it cost me a few corals. Thank goodness I lost 5 heads of the pink torch coral but the only surviving (extremely tiny then) head sprouted into 20+ heads. They are still small but I hope they all survive. The road to marine is indeed more tough that planted, as there are (and will) be many wonderful fish that will, peck on corals (especially soft corals). There are many more pest that will appear out of no where. No amount of reading and research will be sufficient. You need to get your fingers salty to learn the hard way.

I believe many will join me welcome you again when you have more time, and more money to burn........ reading excessively will only tempt you further....

[David Moses Heng]

Hi Dez, thanks for dropping by!! Firstly, do you mind explaining to me what is FOWLR? I am really clueless... BUT i am going to bury myself into the pile of books at the library tomorrow with my kids and read up.

PS. BTW, you still owe my son an ang bow

[David Moses Heng]

Thanks Billy. I hear you and I believe I will heed your advice. Thanks once again.

[samhon]

Hi Dez, thanks for dropping by!! Firstly, do you mind explaining to me what is FOWLR? I am really clueless... BUT i am going to bury myself into the pile of books at the library tomorrow with my kids and read up.

PS. BTW, you still owe my son an ang bow

Greetings to my fellow classmate!

FOWLR = fish only with live rocks

Yeah i usually go to kino to read the books and i also invested in some of these books from overseas. Took me 2 years of reading and surfing related forums to finally decide on taking this journey.

I agree with goondoo that marine setup is very unforgiving when it comes to making mistakes. (so many stories and records that i have heard both first hand and online)

But, it really is through these mistakes we really learn and appreciate the hobby better, especially when you have kids, i used various failures in the aquarium to share with my nephew and nieces, teaching them about finding out the source of the problem, telling them that what is fruits of labour, telling them that it is easy to give up but is the easiest way the best way, really a lot of teaching moments for the young ones.

I am sure your dad would have shared some values of people in the fishing trade to you either deliberately or through your observations on them.

These are a few good books which you could begin with

• The Conscientious Marine Aquarist: A Commonsense Handbook for Successful Saltwater Hobbyists (Microcosm/T.F.H. Professional)
  
• The New Marine Aquarium: Step-By-Step Setup & Stocking Guide
  
• Aquarium Corals : Selection, Husbandry, and Natural History

Some more intermediate books:

• The Reef Aquarium: A Comprehensive Guide to the Identification and Care of Tropical Marine Invertebrates (Volume 1)
• The Reef Aquarium, Vol. 2: A Comprehensive Guide to the Identification and Care of Tropical Marine Invertebrates
• The Reef Aquarium, Vol. 3: Science, Art, and Technology

God bless

[BFG]

Sorry for not hanging around so much due to the fasting month. Let me input my 2cts. I have the same size tank as you have but I have a longer cabinet, a 6ft.

I would stress that you get a 4x2x2ft tank TOGETHER with a sump setup and cabinet. Reason being is that all your equipment can be placed away from your viewing that it might cause a distraction to your display tank. You might end up with a nice aquascaping for your marine tank but your equipment placed around the display tank might make it an eyesore. The sump and cabinet will hide all the unsightly equipment away from prying eyes and also helps to secure your equipment from itchy fingers who might want to tamper with your equipment setting, which you do not want it to happen at all.

Get your setup right the 1st time. Take the cabinet for example, try to make it blend together with the surrounding furniture, to appease your COO ( Chief Operating Officer ). Pass this hurdle and 70 percent of this new hobby already has an acceptance in the house. Do a 'chapalang' set up and this tank won't go beyond the 2nd year existance in your home. This is an already proven subject, no women wants to have something large in the house sticking out like a sore thumb.

Equipment wise-
What I have seen nowadays is that you do not need to depend on GERMAN made equipment. Equipment produced from Chinese company are already up to par with their German producing counterpart BUT you need to know which equipment company to place your money in. Get this wrong and you'll have problems with your set up. Having a brand new china made equipment is better than a 2nd hand ones.

It is possible to have a lower wattage set up for your tank size. You could have less than a 100w worth of protein skimmer and return pump for your set up. With the new led technology currently in refinement mode, you wouldn't need to have a higher wattage lighting. The only energy consuming equipment would be the chiller but with modification, the run time can be lowered. All in all, personally speaking, your total monthly electrical consumption for the tank shouldn't exceed $100 agaration.

What you need to do now is to pen down how your tank set up would look like. Always use the KISS methodology, ( Keep It Simple Stupid ). If you are unsure, you are welcome to view my current tank, which is under going a major aquascaping. I could point out to you what alternative is better compared to my set up. I am always thinking of creating a better set up. My mind never rest in this subject.

[David Moses Heng]

Thanks Rohaizal.

I intend to shelve this project for a short while till i can more or less work out what do I actually want and what is the main motivation behind this venture. I do not want to start something just for the sake of pleasing my kids and wife then regret later due to unsuccessful attempts. BUT I will continue to read up and ask questions.

To all who have posted in this "classroom" here, thank you very much and continue to keep the post with regards to this subject coming.

Meanwhile, i managed to borrow a few publication from the library for me to start reading.

Cheers and God bless all!!

[BFG]

Take your time. This is not a race and there's no finishing line on the horizon. You must be sure enough in order to begin your journey into the DARK SIDE of the hobby. You will never be able to recoup what you've invested should you give up halfway, 3/4, 7/8, 9/10. Success of maintaining a marine tank is not measured in months but years. You will realize that in this hobby, stable parameter is paramount above everything else. There's a hundred ways to skin a cat, same applies to this hobby. Don't be shy to ask any question.

[David Moses Heng]

Thanks Rohaizal.

I was reading briefly and I came across this "Jaubert system". The writeup from www.fishnfriends.com are as follows:

=========================================================================================================================

This method is revised by Dr Jaubert of the Monaco aquarium. This system utilizes only a natural approach, which is to introduce Plenum to the bottom of the tank.

A layer of large size coral chips for two inches are place above a layer of tiny size coral chips for four inches. A plenum is a gap or void space underneath the five to eight inches of live sand at the bottom of the tank below all the coral sand. This area is around 1 inch deep and is anoxic, in other words, low in oxygen. Due to this fact, components that run through it will be ‘robbed’ of their Nitrate(NO3) compounds in the water in the form of a process call de-nitrification.

The 1st layer - The area from the larger coral chips aid the growth of aerobic bacteria which needs a lot of oxygen to break down extremely harmful Ammonias (NH4) to Nitrites (NO2) to Nitrate (NO3). Thus, that is why larger coral chips are place on the top as the movement of water between the coral chips is higher. This helps to give the water at the top layer a higher oxygen.

The 2nd layer - The layer with smaller size coral chips are for the growth of the anaerobic bacteria an environment which has no oxygen at all to thrive. As this bacteria grows, it will break down Nitrate (NO3) to Nitrogen Gas (N2).

The 3rd layer - Plenum (a layer of water which has no oxygen in it), is needed in this process because at this layer it contain a higher volume of water, which means it has more Nitrate (NO3) to breaks down into Nitrogen Gas (N2) for it's anaerobic bacteria.

This natural process also dissolution compounds like calcium, magnesium, and strontium to natural levels within the aquarium.

• Carbon is produce in the mids of all this processes.
• Carbon hydrates and Carbonic acid is produce.
• Carbonic acid dissolves sand grains around it.
• Produces Calcium, Bicarbonate and Trace element.
• Alkaline reserve stabilize the DKH and the PH of the water.
• Stabilizing the DKH, stabilize the PH of the water.

The Jaubert system does not utilize a protein skimmer to remove the organics (food for the whole cycle), as it may lessen the ability of the plenu


========================================================================================================================


The reason why i brought this up was because when i received the tank which Billy so graciously gave to me earlier, i chance upon this practice. At that time, I had no idea what it was but i thought that it was similar to what we do when we build our vivariums.

Questions: let say I were to utilise this for a 422, do I still need to cater for a sump with fluidized bed filter and calcium reactor?

Also, can we modify this for the planted tank system where we allow a gap of nothing but just water to flow and we place our filter intake at this body of water ? Would it cause any harm to the plant roots as the under gravel filter will?

In what way is this different from the under gravel filter system that is available commerically?

thank you all and please pardon the silly questions.

[cdckjn]

Hi Altum_lover76,

why not buy over my set, I started with this marine tank about 4 National Day ago. But now got the poison to convert back to shrimps tank so neglecting the marine. I am sellign it cheap cheap with all the equipment for only $50. You can have a go at it and if it works out then you can start a proper system.

http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...ght-iron-stand

[David Moses Heng]

i saw your thread last night and am still contemplating now... Hmm...

[BFG]

Honestly speaking, I am not a fan of such system. My biggest worry for such a system is if you have a power failure for an extended amount of time. Since such system require to have a constant water turn over, without that, the beneficial bacteria might die and cause a massive spike that when you turn back on the water circulation, it will spread to the display tank and affect all the live stock. And when that happen, you'll have to remove all the media to clean and then place them back in the sump, which will take a lot of your time and energy, to do that. Also, the amount of compound produced from such system might not be enough to sustain what the coral need to have and so, you might need to dose, which defeat the purpose of having such system in the 1st place.

Such system needs you to keep the bioload at a certain number so that the amount of waste they produce is on par with the level the system is able to clean. Add more live stock and the system would be stressed. Adding more livestock again and you might be looking at the end of your tank life and a crash is imminent. In order to accomodate more livestock, you'll going to need more of the media, which in turn will occupy a bigger area in the sump. But my thinking for such system is if you left it for a long time, it might turn toxic to the tank inhabitant. It is similar to the ' Old Tank Syndrome', any new livestock you add in will die but the ones that was in the tank before may not have problem in that tank. A DSB set up ( Deep Sand Bed ) will have this similar scenario a few years down the road.

But, all marine tank will crash if it's without electricity for an extended amount of time.

My suggestion is for you to have the critical equipment 1st before stocking up the tank. Equipment such as,

1) Skimmer- This is the heart of the system. Get 1 that can handle a larger volume than your tank total volume. Other reefer might tell you that you can set up a tank without one but they are diligent and control their livestock number and know what they are doing. A skimmer not only remove waste in the water column but they also provide oxygenation into the water column itself. A skimmer CANNOT remove nitrate and phosphate but remove the waste before they rot and becomes the nitrates and phosphate.

2) Chiller- Same applies in the planted tank. Get a model up than what you need. But in a marine tank set up, don't forget to include the sump water volume too. Remember to modify it with an external temperature probe.

3) Lighting- T5 has been proven to be better than Metal Halide in terms of providing lights to various types of coral. Bulb brands such as ATI and Korallenzucht are the standard bulb to use for coral. Depending on coral that you plan to keep, you might need to change them at the 9 month or later stage but definitely you'll need to replace them every year due to the rate of par decay. You will notice this when algae start to pop up around the time you need to replace the bulb, same as planted tank. LED has been proven to be able to keep coral alive and thriving and they are even better than MH and T5 in that they are now able to provide better par at a depth that both T5 and MH has trouble doing that. Adding an optic would increase the focus of the par level in the depth that is required. And they do this whilst consuming less electricity than what the T5 and MH consume, a bane singaporean face due to electricity tariff increase every quarter.

4) Return pump- This is the pump that control the circulation of the tank water. It will pump water from the sump up to the display tank. Try to match the pump flow rate to the skimmer pump intake flow rate. Having a higher flow rate that the skimmer pump intake flow rate is not desirable in my personal opinion as the water that the skimmer miss will go back to the main tank and will become food source for the algae.

5) Wave maker- This is the equipment that will provide constant water circulation in the display tank. Do not try to use the return pump as a wave maker as the flow provided from these 2 equipment is vastly different. Having both item available is better than relying on a single equipment, the latter, when is spoilt, will cease to provide circulation to the tank.

These are the basic equipment necessary to start your marine tank journey. Try to get them right the 1st time round so that you do not need to spend more money to upgrade them when you'll find what you've purchase earlier is inadequate for your use. You will not need to have equipment such as calcium reactor or any other equipment in the beginning stage as constant water change might just be adequate, assuming you are using a good salt mix and also invest in a RO/DI filter to filter your tap water.

It is good that you are reading to gain knowledge about this hobby. But the data that you are getting from books might be obsolete or complicated for newbie. The best thing to do is to look at other salt water tank setup and learn from there. To do this, head over to ReefCentral dot com. New methodology of reef keeping mostly happens at that forum and sadly, books are usually not up to date with the advance in reef keeping methodology. Make it a point to read from that forum every time you have a chance. You will find that site more useful in your research. If you have questions about certain topics, post a link here in your thread for more discussion.

[David Moses Heng]

Rohaizal, may i pay you a visit in the near future or will you be kind enough to do a open house for AQ?

after reading the books, i can't help but agree with you that they are outdated(last print 2005 or earlier).
Can you refer me to any good marine LFS where I may "browse"?

the one I know is very expensive...

[samhon]

Rohaizal, may i pay you a visit in the near future or will you be kind enough to do a open house for AQ?

after reading the books, i can't help but agree with you that they are outdated(last print 2005 or earlier).
Can you refer me to any good marine LFS where I may "browse"?

the one I know is very expensive...

I have learnt very much from BFG too.

Mr Rohaizal and Mr Altum, could I come along to visit you too? If it's possible. I would to learn and see first hand your set up and smell the salt.

Mr Altum, I usually go to the website mention by BFG ie reefcentral to do some reading. I believe there are good links in this forum too.

As for Marine LFS, I have had bad experience with some of them, they feed you either with outdated information or incorrect information in a bid to get you to buy. Sometimes they convince you that you need the equipment when actually it might be rather useless for the type of setup you intended.

Of course there are those with really passionate and well informed LFS owners who enthusiastically tell you everything they know and then let you think through.

Sorry I think it might be abit sensitive to bring up LFS names here

Maybe we can go for a marine LFS trip together with other interested AQ salties.

God bless

[David Moses Heng]

Let me see what i can do...

[BFG]

Rohaizal, may i pay you a visit in the near future or will you be kind enough to do a open house for AQ?

after reading the books, i can't help but agree with you that they are outdated(last print 2005 or earlier).
Can you refer me to any good marine LFS where I may "browse"?

the one I know is very expensive...

Can no problem, I can accommodate a few person in my small home but the whole of AQ, don't think have space. If you guys got transport, I could show you around most of the lfs or farm that are retailing marine live stock. Singapore is small, it would only take a day but my main worry is pulling you guys out of the shop when we need to head to the next destination. I won't lie to you, an hour in a marine lfs might feel like 15 minute or so if the shop has a nice display tank, especially for a newbie!

My intention is to show you guys my set up, my aquascaping doesn't count for nothing as I am currently doing a major rescaping. We could communicate all we want through the forum but face to face is better as you get to see what I am talking about, be it good or bad. Even as we speak right now, there are new equipment breaking in the scene of this hobby. Some might be useful while some are just plain useless. You guys need to be updated on what is available in order to make the right decision for your set up.