How To Set Up A Saltwater Aquarium For Beginners

today i'm going to show you how to set up your very first saltwater aquarium i'm going to talk you through every step you need to know and i'm going to show you things that you won't see elsewhere on youtube after this video i'm also going to do a deep dive series showing you everything you need to know about how to run your tank from the lighting all the way through to filtration maintenance and flow so make sure you subscribe and hit the bell so you don't miss out on anything right let's get stuck in for this setup we're going to use a 30 gallon 120 liter nano tank with a sump this is a bit of a budget build so i've bought everything second hand and i'll put a card up for a video showing you how much this all cost just make sure your significant other isn't watching over your shoulder when you check out the costs the tank is an aqua one mini reef 120 and there are usually plenty of these available second hand and like most modern tanks they come in gloss black or white which will look lovely next to your swedish flat pack furniture i've chosen a small tank over a big tank because i think it's just about a better bet for a beginner it'll cost a lot less money in terms of equipment livestock and running costs like electricity and salt mix for water changes and it's easier to fix problems with your water quality on a small tank for example it is of course a lot easier to do a 50 water change on a 100 liter tank than it is on a 500 liter tank and your partner might not take too kindly to having two enormous water change vats in your living room every weekend the downsides are that it's harder to keep water parameters stable in a small tank and you'll be limited in the quantity and type of fish you can keep for example i'm afraid you can forget about keeping a yellow tang in a 30 gallon tank and if you do just make sure you don't tell anyone on facebook about it so on balance a cheaper and more manageable tank just about wins it for me in terms of location you should put your tank in the room in which you spend most of your time that's as much as anything because you will enjoy it more but also because you're more likely to neglect it if it's out of sight aside from that you should also have it away from radiators to avoid overheating and ideally out of direct sunlight although a little sunlight won't do any harm especially at the start or end of the day and it actually gives your tank a pretty cool look this is my tank under a spot of sunlight in the mornings it's also a really good idea to leave a gap behind the tank so you can reach back there for maintenance and doing so will give you a bit of much needed storage space more on that later so now let's set the tank up if you've bought something like a red sea reefer you'll need to get all ikea and assemble the cabinet first doing so is easy but it takes longer than you might think so set aside plenty of time and make sure your kids aren't home so you can shout swear words when you bang your thumb with a hammer this tank came pre-built though so all we need to do is put it in place and make sure it sits level it's really important to have the tank level so there's no excess pressure on the glass panels if it's not level just wedge the bottom of the cabinet to even it out i use these marble coffee mats but please don't tell mrs reevedork before you get started i'm going to recommend you wrap the outside of your sump in white sticky back plastic over time silt and algae will build up in your sump and you'll also get tiny little critters swimming around down there and it is much easier to see what's going on if the sump walls are white especially if you have a black cabinet like mine you should of course wrap only three sides and the bottom leaving the front viewing panel clear next up is lubrication you should apply a liberal helping of vaseline to your cabinet hinges some cabinets are pretty humid places with little in the way of ventilation all of which is a recipe for a rusty hinge just make sure your missus doesn't catch you using her supply with any tank with a sump you'll need to channel your inner super mario brothers and do a spot of plumbing you'll have one pipe to take the water from your sump to the tank and a drain to return the water back down to your sump on fancier tanks than this you'll also have a third pipe that acts as an emergency drain in case the main drain gets clogged aquarium plumbing fittings are usually push fit or screw fit and of course they have rubber rings to form a watertight seal where the pipe meets the glass when you're setting up a tank it's always a good idea to have a small tube of silicon and some plumbers tape to hand silicon will create a water type seal if you don't have rubber fittings and plumber's tape prevents water from escaping past screw threads if you do find a leak when you set up one of these two will almost certainly fix it now don't let the thought of plumbing put you off it's really easy and it's basically lego for grown-ups all tanks come with instructions on how to set up the plumbing but to demonstrate how easy it is i put this together without looking at them and i am a total diy numpty it is a great idea to fill the aquarium with tap water to check for leaks before you fill it with salt water or at the very least do a leak check in the weir box around the plumbing once you're satisfied there are no leaks drain out all of the tap water so you have a blank canvas to start your aquascape if you have the patience it's a great idea to make a cardboard cut out of the base of your tank so you can plan how your escape will look without the restriction of glass walls getting in your way many people spend days getting their escape just right but you don't have to be vincent van gogh to make a decent aquascape the fundamentals of a reef tank aquascape are that you should have caves and hiding places for your fish to escape to to avoid unnecessary stress and your rock work should be at nice sloping angles wherever possible if you have a vertical rock face in your tank it is extremely difficult to fix corals too so avoid cliff edges where you can other than that just make sure you leave a one-inch gap between the rock and the glass so you can get your algae scraper in to clean you can cement rocks together to make sure they don't fall but with a small tank like this with only a few rocks stacked on top of each other i prefer to just make sure they're firmly balanced that also makes it easier to remove a rock you're not happy with in the future if for example it gets covered in an invasive coral you decide you no longer like i'm looking at you pulsing xenia and moving your escape into your tank is another opportunity to play around with the spacings and make sure you're absolutely happy with it before you get it wet for this build i've used dry rock in the form of real reef rock instead of wet live rock live rock is increasingly expensive and difficult to get hold of these days and there's a risk it will bring unwanted hitchhikers into your tank like avatar anemones that can take over your tank the benefits of live rock though are that it's more porous than man-made rock so it has much better filtration capacity and in theory it should have greater biodiversity in terms of helpful critters and bacteria so while i usually prefer man-made rock if at all possible you should add a few kilos of live rock to the sump so you at least get some of the benefit of the good stuff the next step is to add sand if you use dry sand you'll need to prepare it first with two steps firstly run a magnet through it to make sure you remove any particles of metal you might be surprised just how much metal you find and if the metal is magnetic it is also likely to rust in salt water which can release toxins that are poisonous to our fish and corals then you'll need to rinse the stuff using tap water for this stage is fine and you can just put it in a bucket or jug and run a tap through it until the water runs clear for this build though i've used red sea life sand which you don't need to wash it claims to reduce the time your tank takes to cycle which might be a load of box but it probably doesn't hurt the grain size is pretty fine so it will blow around if you have too much flow in your tank but that shouldn't be a major problem in a low flow soft coral and lps tank like this and quite simply finer grain sound just looks awesome a single 10 kilogram or 22 pound bag of sand should be enough for any tank up to about two foot square to create a one inch sand bed it's best to add the sand after your rock work so the rock sits nice and stable on the bottom of the tank just pour it in around the rock work and don't worry about getting sand on the rocks it'll come off in no time when you turn your water pumps on now you have rock and sand in you are ready to get it wet the best way to do this is to buy yourself an rodi filter and produce your own filtered water tap water contains impurities that are harmful to salt water tanks and often lead to outbreaks of nuisance algae so it's important to remove as many of these impurities as possible which is where an rodi filter comes in if you don't want to buy your own filter just yet though you can either buy rodi water and a bucket of salt mix to make the stuff yourself or you can buy pre-mixed salt water from your local fish shop now whatever you do ask your local fisher what tds the water they sell is tds is the total dissolved solids in the water so the lower the number the better ideally you want zero tds water but certainly no higher than 10 tds for this build i'm using pre-mix salt water because i think that's the most popular option for a first tank and because i know the water used to make it was zero tds if you're ocd like me you can pour the water gently into a bowl and let it spill out to avoid disturbing the sand either way though it is inevitable that your water will look a bit cloudy at first but that'll clear soon enough so don't worry about being too gentle i always use a jug to transfer water from the bucket to your tank there are quicker ways involving pumps and hoses but everybody has a jug to hand and i've always found this is the least messy method at this stage it's worth pointing out that you should mop up any water spills on your tank immediately every single time if you don't you'll forget to do so and you can get water damage to your cabinet which looks horrible it's a mantra i follow religiously on my tank to this day and evidently one that the previous owner of this tank didn't follow you want to fill your tank to the bottom of your weir box inlet and fill your wear box too then fill your sump to the maximum water level line if your sump doesn't have a water level line fill each section to the top of the baffle then fill the final section a good few inches above the top of your return pump and now we're ready to kit out the sump all you need for a first set up is a filter a heater and a return pump for a filter you can't beat a protein skimmer they oxygenate the water in your tank and pull out fish poop which will help keep algae at pay and this is what a working skimmer will look like and i guarantee you won't be able to resist giving it a sniff i've gone for this budget bubble makers curve 5 skimmer which is rated for tanks up to 500 liters in my experience cheaper skimmers tend to have exaggerated claims of their capacity and this will be the only filtration on the tank so oversizing is probably a good idea all skimmers need to be at the correct depth to function properly for the curve 5 that depth is 9.5 to 11 inches and the skimmer chamber on this sump is around 9.5 inches deep so right in the slot for temperature most people will tell you to put a heater on the floor of your sump in any section other than the return pump section but heaters don't all hold a steady temperature so for this build we're going to use a temperature controller it's a cheap device with its own temperature sensor and two plug sockets one for heating and one for cooling you choose the temperature you want your tank to set out then you tell it how much of a temperature swing you're happy with for this tank i've set the temperature to sit at 25 degrees celsius or 77 fahrenheit with the lowest temperature allowed at 24.5 degrees celsius or 76 fahrenheit which is a perfectly acceptable swing you'll need to make sure the temperature on your heater is slightly higher than your temperature controller otherwise it won't turn on and that also gives you a redundancy in case the heating controller gets stuck on as the heater will then turn itself off make sure you put the temperature sensor in a different chamber to your heater and your freshwater outlet pipe so it doesn't get confused for cooling i'm using these aquarium cooling fans they reduce the temperature of your tank by blowing across the surface of the water causing evaporation they're surprisingly effective although they're only likely to turn on in the summer months certainly here in freezing cold blighty when summer falls on a wednesday in july i've set the fans to come on at 25.5 degrees or 78 fahrenheit which should stop the tank getting too hot then we have our return pump the return pump's sole job is to circulate your aquarium water 24 hours a day 365 days a year so for that reason i have gone for a 3 000 liter per hour eheim return pump if you look up the word reliability in the dictionary it probably says eheim pumps because this is an ac not a dc pump you can't adjust the power output you can turn a dial that strangles the amount of flow allowed to exit the pump although that will make the pump vibrate more how much flow the plumbing can handle varies from tank to tank so check the manufacturer's recommendation to make sure you get the right size pump dc pumps like the ecotec vectra series are fully controllable and are much quieter i've gone for the eheim on this tank because this is a budget build and because ac pumps are cheaper but if you do have the budget the reduction in noise and the ease of control of an ac pump are well worth the extra cash money the final item for our sump is the auto top off water will of course evaporate from your aquarium and you'll need to replace that water so your tank doesn't dry up you can do so manually but you can easily lose one percent of your water volume to evaporation per day and because only fresh water evaporates leaving salt behind your salinity will increase significantly if you don't top off regularly so an auto top off not only takes away the hassle but also keeps your salinity nice and stable i'll be using this refloat auto top off it has a water level sensor connected to a pump that sits in your fresh water reservoir it then adds fresh water to your tank every time the water level drops and it has some useful fail safes that should give you peace of mind i'll put a card in the corner to my full review while tanks like red sea reefers come with built-in freshwater reservoirs this one doesn't so for this install i'll be using a slimline container as my freshwater reservoir because it only holds three liters i'll have to top it up every few days but it does at least sit out of sight you can get creative and hide your container in furniture like this ikea side table or you can have a custom reservoir built to fit in a tight space but just keep in mind you may need to think about where you can fit your freshwater reservoir without upsetting the feng shui of your living room now we've kitted out the sump we just need to add light and flow to the display tank before we can get our first fish for lighting i've been a bit naughty and i've stretched the budget for this radeon xr15 it's strong enough to keep any corals you want in this tank so you're future-proofing yourself for when you inevitably progress onto sps corals it's also nice and compact and you can easily set it to a crisp white light during the day turning to a deep blue in the evenings to show off the fluorescent colours of your corals it's a 95 watt light which has a rough guide is probably enough for anything up to a two foot cube tank most led lights are pretty powerful so i'd recommend you start them at 30 to 40 intensity and build up slowly if necessary corals will be fine for long periods with too little light but they can bleach and die in a matter of days or even hours with too much light and algae ruddy loves a bit of strong light so less is very much more and the last piece of equipment to add is a powerhead to create flow it can be quite confusing trying to work out how much flow you need but when you first set up a small powerhead will do and this 4000 liter per hour geckod sow4 will give up to 30 times tank turnover per hour now you'll need at least double that when you get corals and higher flow also lifts detritus off your sound bed keeping it nice and clean so if you do have the budget you won't regret going bigger but if you only have one set it to a random flow mode and point it towards your overflow outlet which will help create a more turbulent ocean-like flow pattern and now we get to the exciting part adding your first wet pet before you do so just double check your temperature in your salinity which should be around 35 parts per thousand or 1.026 specific gravity now at this point i need you to promise me you won't get a damsel as your first fish they're often recommended as a great first fish simply because they're hardy but despite their diminutive size damsels can be extraordinarily aggressive think joe pesky in the film casino and you're about there and it's not uncommon for them to batter fish several times their size to death clownfish though are a much better option as your first fish they're from the damsel family so they're still very hardy but they are far less likely to be aggressive certainly in the early years there are also loads of color varieties so just choose whatever you think looks best i've gone for two lovely pink skunk clowns to acclimate your new fish you only need to let the bag float in your tank for 20 to 30 minutes there's no need to add tank water to the bag or to drip acrimate them and the longer they're in the bag the longer they are exposed to high concentrations of ammonia which is toxic to fish and once the temperature has equalized they'll adapt to your water just fine i'm using bottled bacteria to seed this tank doing so should mean you never see a cycle in your tank and should mean that your water is safe for your fish but make sure you test ammonia every day for a week or so to be sure and carry out a 50 plus water change if you detect any ammonia the bad news is that you now need to turn your lights off for about a month if they're left on when the tank is establishing itself it'll just encourage algae growth patience is the single most important quality for a reef keeper to learn so don't be tempted to break too soon although turning the lights on occasionally to show off to your mates won't do it any harm and finally you'll need to fit an aquarium cover to stop your new pets trying to recreate free willy pretty much every saltwater fish is a jump risk and clowns are one of the worst offenders when it comes to carpet surfing they're also most likely to jump when they're in a new environment so it really is important to fit a cover on day one and now you're done so all that's left to do is crack open a cold one and admire your handiwork fish are pretty timidly so don't expect to see much of them for at least a few days and no matter how tempting it might be try not to chase them out into the open for your viewing pleasure it'll only stress them out more than they already are so now you've set up then the fun is only just starting if this is your first tank i've made a ton of videos with tips for beginners that you don't see elsewhere and i'll put a link to a playlist up there if you enjoyed the video then give me a thumbs up and subscribe for next week and until next time happy reefing you

Channel: Reef Dork

Views: 268,667

Rating: 4.9013815 out of 5

Keywords: how to set up a saltwater aquarium, how to set up a saltwater tank, how to set up a reef tank, how to setup a saltwater aquarium, saltwater aquarium for beginners, how to setup a saltwater aquarium: step by step, how to setup a saltwater aquarium for beginners, reef tank setup for beginners, how to setup a saltwater tank for beginners, saltwater tank setup, saltwater tanks for beginners, saltwater tank setup for beginners, nano tank, How to set up a salt tank

Id: dCSU6ZnOVTg

Length: 18min 45sec (1125 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 01 2021