How large of a reef saltwater tank could I set up on a $500-$800 budget?
Do not include price of the stand, as I have many just laying around, as I used to have ALOT more fish. I have been involved in fish keeping for atleast 15 years and have always kept freshwater fish. I feel I have learned and kept all the freshwater fish perfectly, and I would now like to venture into keeping a saltwater tank. I would like corals, live rock, live sand, anenomes, and fish. I believe this is called a reef tank. I have no idea if I need a protien skimmer, sump, or what kind of lighting. I know lighting is very expensive for a reef tank. I would like to keep a species of clownfish or lionfish. I want as large of a tank as possible with my budget. Any advise you can give me would be great. I have been reading up of saltwater tanks and reef tanks for about a week or so. I am going to do PLENTY of research, lol. I really don’t want to screw this one up. Thank you very much!
~Kobes_Clone
Tagged with: anenomes • budget • clownfish • freshwater fish • lighting • live sand • protien skimmer • reef tank • reef tanks • saltwater tank • saltwater tanks
Filed under: Saltwater Fish Tanks
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My husband got into his saltwater aquarium "hobby" about 5 years ago. We made alot of mistakes getting started, but we have it down to an art now. We have a 75 gallon main tank that he bought for about $150. We have a Metal Halide lighting system that he paid around $300 for. Our set up has about 45 llbs of live rock at about $4/lb. For our filtration we use a sump (mangrove and micro-algae), it increases the water volume and makes it easier to keep the water within parameters. We have a skimmer that he paid $150 for. A pump to pump the water back into the tank, about $100. We live in the south so it was necessary for us to purchase a chiller, we paid $300 for it. For the water changes that we do every 2 weeks, we purchased a reverse osmosis filtration system that we paid $150.
This is what we widdled everything down to. We started with canister filters and the like, but it just made the maintenence so much harder. We utilize alot of sites for help to. Check out http://www.reefcentral.com and http://www.reeffrontiers.com Everyone is really helpful there. Hope some of this rambling helps you out.
unless you have a single clownfish, or a single lionfish, the smallest saltwater tank you can successfully own is a 20 gallon tank, and that could only hold about 3 fish and only if they’re small fish. even then, you’d probably be at least 1000 dollars in the hole, and only if you’re lucky and don’t kill multiple fish in the beginning.
if you already have a tank it all depends on how elaborate you want to get but size wise youll be able to set up a 50gal tank pretty nice
no man you can buy a complte 135 gal tank from a fish store for a round 1000 since you have some of the things or able to make them the tank would be like 10 dollars a gal… is what i payed for mine is like 7 feet long two wide two feet tall… but id say a 55 gal would be great for your range… sing up at freecycle.com and you state and you just find come across one for free or craigslist.org and look….. and heres a great website dont let the name fool you theres a lot more there than fleshwater fish…. http://www.oscarfish.com