Newbie here

[Eryl Flynn]

We are converting a 125 gallon fresh water to a saltwater tank. So far we have the wet dry filter on it, 2 of the coral life actinic lights at 4 x96 watts in all. We have sand in it, 180lbs in all 4 of it live. Some base rock, and about 90lbs of live rock.

We are currently letting it run so that it can get stable. Stores locally are telling us that in a few days with what we have in there we may be able to add a few fish. Some hardy ones. Reef Gallery here said to bring in a water sample and they will test it and let us know if we can add fish.

Any comments or problems you can see so far?

 

[Anonymous]

Welcome to RDO, Eryl!

180 lbs of live sand 8O... the LFS must love you for that.

So are you going FO (fish only), or you are considering low light coral, or a SPS/fish setup? If you plan to get coral in there instead of FO, you may want to considering getting rid of your WD filter and get a decent skimmer. Do a little bit of research on the type of skimmer and get some idea from LFS, I bet you will like this hobby as much as the freshwater.

 

[Eryl Flynn]

Oops, dam poor typing skills it is 180lbs of sand and 40 of it is live sand. That would be expensive not that the whole thing didn't hurt the wallet bad as is.

We have a protein skimmer in there at the moment. We are not running it til we get a bit more established.

Or are you talking some thing other than that? They wanted us to go with a refugium but that was way more than the wet dry and from what I read they are only marginally better.

We do want to look into coral, we were told with the lights we could do most if not all of the easy coral. Light upgrade if we go into the harder to keep coral.

Oh and I am reading that lion fish are carnivores. Can you put them in a community tank? And if not can the dwarf ones go?

Things we want are a star or 2, some shrimp, clown fish, maybe some anemone, coral MUCH later, and after that unsure on fish. We like alot that we have seen like the green mandarin, and are not getting any damsels.

 

[Anonymous]

With lion fish, there are some ramifications.
1, no shrimp or fish that is small enough to fit in the lion fish's mouth (note: it can open up pretty BIG!).
2, it eats like a pig... I mean, a lion, and you maybe safe with WD filter, and forget about low nutrient coral, but mushroom and some "dirty" LPS may still do fine.
3, little lion cub can get pretty big, even for dwarf lionfish...

You can start your skimmer as soon as you want. There is no advantage to start it after you feel the tank is establised other than a few dollars of electricity that it uses.