Please help[55 gal saltwater setup

[OrandaLOVER0905]

Hi For my christmas this year I am geting a 55 gal tank Saltwater .... The probollem is I don't know anything about it ... like what fish can live wth other fish .. I want Big and medium sized fish .. thats where you guys come in.. I need a little help on beginning my first Saltwater tank

[ggMing]

You have the wrong idea my friend...
if you don't know anything, at least do a research la..

anyway, best to have an overflow , a good protein skimmer

what you want to keep? corals? fishes?

list down what basic stuff you have and i'll try my best to guide you along..

[stinky]

I'd recommend 75 gal tank if you are trying it out for the first time. The hobby gets harder as your tank gets smaller. This is mainly due to the difficulty in keeping very stable water condition in terms of temperature, pH, etc.

In terms of easy to difficulty, it will be fish only tank, coral only tank, and reef tank (fish & coral). I suggest that you keep a fish only tank, and slowly upgrade from there. Also, for a coral or reef tank, you MUST have strong lighting and a chiller ... which is really expensive.

Assuming that you are going for a fish only tank, here are some pointers:

Observation 1. The number of freshwater fish per gallon of water in a pond, is A LOT MORE than the number of saltwater fish per gallon of sea.

Observation 2. In ponds, water dry up during hot weather, and fills up to the brim during raining season. Sand and mud is washed into the pond when it rains. In the sea, even if it rains, the water continues to be super stable.

Result 1. Sooo, fresh water fishes can tolerate EXTREME changes in water condition compared with salt water fishes

Result 2. Filtration is MEGA important for salt water tank.

Result 3. Due to less space per fresh water fish in a pond, salt water fishes are VERY teratorial!!!! Most of the time, you can only put in 1 fish per category ... or minimum of 6 fishes per category. If you have > 6 of the same fish, they will change from being offensive to being defensive. Being afraid of being attacked, they will attack others less.

CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION
Skip the corals and BIG fishes. You need excellent filtration for either.

As for mid or small fishes, COMPATABILITY is extremely important. Maybe, if you tell us what is your MUST HAVE fish, we can help suggest other compatable fishes, and setup requirements!!!

[harif887]

Oranda, ming is totalllyyy right. You cant just come expecting us to tell you everything about SW setups. Its a looonnnnggg topic to discus. You need to understand that alot more goes into a SW setup than just a tank, sand, water and fish...... ALOT of money will go into it (i just spend $1300 USD on my last SW tank) and alot of knowledge is required. Here is a basic rundown of ONLY the equipment youll need. From there i suggest googling certain things or buy some books.... here is a link: http://s11.invisionfree.com/The_Fish...103&st=0&#last