A Beginners Guide To Reef Keeping

This will not be an in depth, step by step guide to new aquarists. It will be more like a guide sheet with summaries I have concluded over the years.
But let us imagine that John is looking at the colorful displays at his local pet store. He decides that he would like an aquarium and proceeds to..... Well, what's next?

There are an awful lot of choices to be made when starting out in the hobby.
Let's take a look at some good choices to get off to a good start.

First, before you buy anything, except for study material, you need to have at least some idea about what it is you will attempt to create.
Is it a saltwater aquarium with predator fishes that will rule out adding corals, or perhaps a seahorse display where correctly adjusted water flow will be important. A lot of people see the dazzling colors of reef tanks packed with stony corals.
What you have to consider is how your choices in livestock will alter the requirements of the equipment you need to purchase. Making the right or better choices early on can significantly reduce overall cost of keeping an aquarium.

• Choice of fish.
  Consider their adult size and have this in mind when purchasing the aquarium.
• Will you stock with corals?
  Have this in mind when choosing your lights.
• Available space in the tank location.
  This might impact your options as far as filtration equipment goes.

It pays off to learn some basics and plan ahead as much as possible before purchasing equipment.
It is not at all unusual to spend $200, $300 or more on lights and then learn after six months that they aren't adequate for the livestock one would like.

After making some choices you are ready to purchase equipment.

• An aquarium.
  Here you are looking for a size that will accommodate the fish you imagine you plan on acquiring.
  Don't buy a 10 gallon tank if you plan on stocking it with surgeon fish for example.
  If you plan on adding a sump you will have to drill the tank yourself, use a hang on overflow box or simply buy a reef ready tank with a built-in overflow system. This will allow water to circulate between display tank and filtration.
  You also have a choice in material. Glass is cheaper, but it also weighs more and unless you go with more expensive glass like Starfire glass it will distort colors a bit due to metal content in regular glass. An option is acrylic which is very clear and light, but is also more expensive and will scratch easier although this can be buffed if it should happen.
• Filtration.
  You will find a lot of debate on filtration. As a newcomer to the hobby however I recommend purchasing a good quality protein skimmer. It allows you to remove waste and nutrients in the aquarium prior to it breaking down into ammonia and phosphate. There is debate that since protein skimmers today are so good at their job they also are responsible for removal of large quantities of food for the corals in our tanks. I truly agree with this. But I recommend this be a topic you stay clear of for a year or until you feel confident in your skills.
  In addition to a protein skimmer it is recommended to install a sump. This is essentially an empty vessel holding water that circulates with the display tank. It is a location for equipment like heaters, protein skimmers etc. so they can be hidden out of sight as a sump is typically installed in the stand under the display tank. Low flow through the sump allows waste to settle on the bottom allowing the hobbyist to remove this waste easily.
  Personally I would never run a saltwater aquarium without a refugium. A refugium is a place where small marine life like amphipods, isopods and copepods can thrive without predation. They will help eat leftover waste and will in turn become food for your fish and corals. Many people including myself culture algae in their refugiums. The algae takes up inorganic nitrate and phosphate and when you prune the algae and throw it in the trash you essentially remove bad chemistry from your tank.
• Lights.
  This largely depends on what you plan to stock the tank with. If your display will be fish only then there really is no need to spend a lot of money on lights. A simple shop light from the local hardware store will do the trick.
  If you plan on stocking with coral however there are very important requirements as the vast majority of the coral we keep in the hobby are photosynthetic and will die without proper lighting.
  You have a number of choices from Very High Output (VHO) fluorecent bulbs over smaller T5's to Metal Halide bulbs. Since they all require different ballasts, bulbs and light reflectors this can be a confusing area initially but it is also an area with a lot of plug and play equipment of high quality.
• Pumps.
  You need a lot of circulation. We measure tank circulation in numbers like 10x or 40x meaning how many time the display tanks total volume of water is circulated through pumps per hour. It is recommended to have over 20x circulation in saltwater tanks, so if you have a 100 gallon aquarium then you should aim to have more than 2,000 gallons of water pumped around the display per hour. 20x is a minimum and it is common to have much higher flow, my tank has about 80x because of coral requirements.

To get a good start, you ideally will add live sand and live rock to your aquarium filled with new saltwater.
At this point you have the option of adding fish when the tank seems stable, or do what you will eventually be happy you did and wait as long as you can before adding any fish and corals. During this period, all the micro fauna and flora that is essential to a visually healthy and balanced aquarium will thrive due to the absence of predators, yes corals are meat eaters. No doubt this is a difficult step as you are no doubt impatient getting the tank to look like the masterpiece you envision. Patience at this step however cannot be overvalued.

Live sand is more than the bacterially active sand purchased from the stores. Quality live sand has worms and mini brittle stars and other life that will work to keep your sand bed healthy and clean. If you start with dry sand or the sand that is only live on a bacterial level then your live rock will have to seed the sand, and it can easily take a year to get a good sand bed infauna going.

Live rock should be purchased uncured in my opinion. Get fresh uncured live rock and cure it yourself while performing frequent water changes to keep ammonia and nitrite to a minimum. This will ensure that some of the life that comes in on the rock will survive. Again this type of life will be greatly beneficial to your tanks overall health.