The start of my reefing journey!

[madison.kn]

I just got my first saltwater tank, a 125gal! It’s so intimidating and overwhelming at first, but with some helpful people on Reddit, I found my way here! I’m excited to learn more about starting up and maintaining a reef tank! I’ve kept only freshwater tanks for years, so I have a long ways to go in the knowledge department haha! Any beginner reef tank start up advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Peace River]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!!!

 

[vetteguy53081]

 

[dstockwell]

Welcome to the Reef

 

[ScubaFish802]

This series is always my go-to for new people -

 

[mistyw]

Welcome! Make sure to have patience!

 

[Fred2482]

Welcome!

 

[sphinx15]

You found your way here! Welcome!

 

[AydenLincoln]

Hi! Welcome! Let me say this is going to be a lot of info. I recommend watching BRSTV on YouTube, too, if you haven’t already. This is a great article, and there’s more in the articles tab on this site: https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/the-supreme-guide-to-setting-up-a-saltwater-reef-aquarium.84 Remember, you are not creating the ocean. You are creating an artificial ecosystem and you will inevitably make mistakes and get frustrated. Look at Facebook Marketplace or the selling platform on here for equipment. You can often find very good deals, especially on lighting and tank equipment used. It would be best if you avoided API tests due to inaccuracy. Salifert, Red Sea, and Hanna Checkers (pricier but much easier) are widely regarded as being the best test kits in the industry. Alternatively, you can get your water tested at your local fish store, but it’s much better to learn how to do it yourself, which will be important later on. During the cycling process, you only need to test nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia those three parameters will tell you where or not the tank is cycled, and don’t turn the lights on it will cause algae ideally, you want to slowly turn on the lights or add a bunch of pods to eat the algae and a good clean up crew (that’s for another discussion). But before you add fish, test pH, salinity, and temperature too. Once you get corals, and this ideally should be a few months after setting up the tank/having a more established tank pH, salinity, magnesium, and alkalinity will be extremely important, and you should test for these weekly. In terms of water, you have two options one would be to buy it from a local fish store or make your own…for a nano, I recommend buying it, but I did include some items needed to make your own saltwater if you do then you need two heaters and two power heads there are very cheap options on those and Aqueon works great for that and for quarantine purposes. Oh, and you need lots of towels and bucks you’ll thank me later. And the best practice is to have another cheap tank setup for quarantine and to treat sick fish because you can’t add copper to the display tank with inverts and corals. Here’s a great article on quarantining: https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/how-to-quarantine.232/ Again I know this was a lot but I really hope it helps.

 

[ShepherdReefer]

Hello and welcome to the channel.

 

[Tiki_Reef]

Welcome aboard
Best tip I could give you is use live rock totally worth it.

 

[Kennya]

Welcome to R2R

 

[reaper93]

Welcome!

 

[Jedi1199]

Welcome to the Dark Side..

 

[Just John]

Glad you are here!

 

[Sean Clark]

Welcome to R2R.

 

[OctoReef12]

Welcome aboard
Best tip I could give you is use live rock totally worth it.

Can you expand on this? I'm wanting to get into the hobby and a lot of places recommend not to do live, to avoid parasites and hitchhikers. What are your pros that out weigh those cons?

Thanks in advance.

 

[ReefnFamilyMan]

Welcome to the community

 

[Reef and Dive]

Welcome to the best reefing forum in the world!

 

[ScionFRSguy]

One of the biggest lessons I learned in the hobby is that a lot of the high end corals are overpriced. A new hobbyist must learn how to say no, otherwise, they're going to get taken for. Good luck to you!