Hello, New to the forum!

[Willie T 0813]

Good Morning, I truly hope this is the place I am looking for. A little bit about myself. I have had freshwater fish tanks for many years. It all started on my 9th birthday. You see, my mom and her sister in law had guppy and gold fish tanks back then and me, well I was amazed. So on my 9th birthday I got my very own goldfish bowl and 2 comet goldfish with the promise that if I took care of them properly that one day in the future I would get my own first tank for my bedroom. So that's where I started at back in 1969 and yes I did so well that on my birthday in Dec 1970 I got my first tank. A brand spanking new 10 gal tank. Mom and my Aunt Carol helped me to cycle it and they both gave me my first guppies. So most of my life I have had freshwater fish but have always been amazed at saltwater and all the color. In 1995 I decided to give it a try and boy did I flop. So now knowing that I don't know it all lol and knowing to acheieve what Im looking for I am going to need all the help I can get to get converted over to nothing but saltwater I am here hoping this is the place I can find those that are willing to help an old freshwater guy get changed over to saltwater. I have a 40 gal freshwater tank up and running now and I had a 55 gal tank and the tank only gave to me. I only have room for one tank and it will be a couple years before I buy a house here in Clearwater Fl. I am a disabled Army Vet and I work part time so I am on a budget so I have to pay attention to my spending. Any questions you have about what I am looking to achieve or what equipment I have at this time please feel free to ask. I want this saltwater tank to be a success even if it takes a few months to put it all together. I want it done right. So thanks for reading my little book lol. I look forward to hearing from you.

Bill

 

[kschweer]

Welcome to R2R!! Thank you for your service!

 

[RyanCSGO]

Hi Bill! Welcome to R2R!!
I'm very confident you will be happy to call this place home for all your questions or concerns. Everyone around here is very knowledgeable and always happy to help. :)

 

[twilliard]

Welcome to the R2R community!

 

[Anirban]

Welcome...:)

 

[Naiad]

Well as you stated it is best to plan out your tank build before jumping in. There are many different types of saltwater tanks and you will find someone here for each :). What are you looking at for your tank? Do you want just fish or a full reef?

 

[Colin Chaplin]

Hi Bill, Welcome to R2R, take your time, do your research on compatibility of fish and corals, plenty of members on here to give you advice depends on what you want to do, size of set up, fish only, corals etc.

 

[sNaFu]

Hello Bill, Welcome to R2R. I am pretty new to this whole adventure myself, but what I have learned in a short period of time is that these folks go way beyond what is necessary to help and make someone feel at home.

 

[4FordFamily]

Welcome home, you will love it here.

You definitely found the right place and thank you much for your service.

 

[Tahoe61]

Welcome Bill. :-)

 

[rantipole]

Welcome to r2r! I'm a salt newbie too. This has been a great place to learn and hang in the short time I've been a member.

Cheers,
rant

 

[Diesel]

 

[Reeferfourlife]

Welcome aboard! This time around your tank will be right with all the knowledge that is available here. There is no stupid question here. Just ask away. Also thank you for your service.

 

[Willie T 0813]

Wow! Thanks for the welcome. I work part time in security so I'm on my phone right now. I will answer a few questions and thank everyone this afternoon after I get home.

 

[120reefkeeper]

 

[KJ]

Welcome to R2R;)

 

[jsker]

Welcome to R2R were reefing is fun

 

[Chrisfish]

Welcome! Looking forward to following your thread. I'm a newb to saltwater too and the people here are really nice and very helpful.:)

 

[Willie T 0813]

Ok so good afternoon everyone, I made it home from my security job at a private boating property on the Gulf here in Florida lol. Thanks everyone for such an awesome welcome, wow! I was in a different forum for several months and it was both fresh and saltwater. I really lost interest fast and started looking around and found REEF2REEF and made my first post and the welcome response was way more than I expected.

So I have been asked what is my long term end result goal if you will, what is it I want? Well to be exact I want color, lots of color, I was thinking of making my primary fish the Clown fish. Now I know the Clown loves to host in the Anemone so is it true that they do not have to have an Anemone to host? I've read that in several places. My thoughts are this, we live in a 2 bedroom 2 full bath apartment and we are on the ground floor so no problems there we have tile on concrete floor, but I only have one wall and that is where my 40 gal is setup. it is 71 1/4 inches from the bathroom door and the other edge. I can when I get a nice cabinet type stand for my 55 gal tank that was gave to me but is in storage, I can set it up in the same place my 40 gal is. In the meantime I was thinking about using my 40 gal freshwater tank to convert over to saltwater so you guys tell me if this idea will work and lets think of the health of the fish first.

As you can see in my pic that is my 40, it is a little blurry so sorry but I wanted to show the wall for future reference. This setup does have sand from petco and I chose that sand because it was white and was suitable for freshwater or saltwater. We just moved into the apartment almost 4 weeks ago and when I got the tank and fish moved in and setup I now have diatoms so I may have to change my substrate in the long run. So my equipment is of course the tank with a glass lid I have a Finnex Stingray Led Light its 36 inch pencil thin multi colored LED it listed to be (40) 7000k + (8) Acttinic Blue LEDs + (8) 66onm Red LEDs True 66onm RED High CRI Scoring LED Bulbs at 20 Output Watts. 2 line air pump, submersible heater, digital thermometer and a 5 stage generic canister filter. The can has a top tray of filter floss, second tray is activated charcoal and bottom 3 trays are my ceramic bio balls.

Now with all that said and the pic posted can I for now clean everything completely and staying artificial rocks and coral can I get by for now with my canister filter and a protein skimmer? Be honest and tell me what you think. I can use my 40 right now It is on a stand and has the glass lid etc.

 

[omykiss001]

Welcome to the forum! You're doing the right thing by taking it slow. I spent over a year planning out my current tank.

The 40 you have would work well for a 1st system you'll just have to balance your end goals of the tank and or future tank. You might want to consider adding live rock rather than artificial, but if you're doing fish only you can get by with a good canister filter, but live rock really is worth it in the long run.

The wall you have picked out is plenty big you could fit a 4 ft 120 gallon and it would look perfect. I suggest you read as many books on saltwater aquariums, corals and fish as you can. I would spend tons of time on this forum in the tank build forum to look over what others have done and see what really peaks your interest. Clowns are certainly good fish to start with and they don't have to host a nem. Mine are tank raised and have never seen a nem so that is not a requirement. I think what you'll need to make the first choice of is do you want live corals or anemones down the road. If you do your lighting will be a major expense you'll need to consider as all this animals are photosynthetic and will require not only the right amount of light, but balanced for their needs. If you want to do fish only then lighting is for viewing pleasure more than anything. I spent several months just reading any book I could get my hands on, then going through the forums here about corals, fish, tank builds, etc. and slowly accumulated an equipment list and the the cost/budget I had to work in. I also watched tons of youtube videos lots of see it done that really helped with ideas to see them in action. Craigslist and the selling forum on here can be good places to get good deals on tanks and other equipment used. If you end up like me I originally was going to build a nano tank in the 30 gallon range, then it became a 75 gallon, then 90, then 120, then ended up getting a super sweet deal on a 180 with stand so my tank grew and that was mostly due to the type of fish I ended up really wanting to keep in a full reef.

Take it slow, plan, plan some more, then execute. ask any question you like the folks here are super helpful and will help you avoid the mistakes many of them made by trail and error.

Once again welcome to the addiction!