20 Gallon Tank..Converting to salt...need help!

A protein skimmer will help alot. As far as filtration u might want to go with a sump/refugium. Im not sure how much room you even have under your tank in the cabinet. You can either buy these premade of make one urself. Maybe you could turn your old 20 into a sump? but i dont know if you could fit that in your cabinet. making one is easy. All you need is aquarium silicon and some plexiglass. Then you could put your protein skimmer down in the sump. But being a 36gallon tank im not sure if you could get a hang on back skimmer and just do weekly water changes? You will have to let the experts decide on that `1`
 
Hmm well I am going to the reef store right now, so I will see what they say too and throw it up here and then figure out what I want to do.

Right now I just am going to go buy some water and salt to get the tank ready for the live rock. I am going to 2 of the reef stores here to see what they have as far as live rock goes.
 
As was said a skimmer will definitely help. There are few problems with hang on skimmer. First the daily top off of the tank with fresh water will tend to upset the skimmer greatly reducing its performance. Second, hang on skimmers tend to release micro bubbles into the tank giving it a somewhat carbonated appearance like a bottle of beer which I personally hate.

IMO a tank this size given the small bi daily water changes I described in my earlier post will not require a skimmer or a sump. With a sump you open yourself up to plumbing issues and possible water on the floor issues. but then again that's just me I could be wrong.
 
Get a skimmer instead of any other types of filtration. A protein skimmer is the only one that does not have the potential to cause nitrate problems. I believe that a protein skimmer plus 1 to 2 lbs per gallon of live rock is the best filtration you can have. Any other type of filter are optional, and not as effective as a skimmer.
 
Ok

Well I went to the largest reef store here in Rochester and they were very helpful.

They had two types of live rock, fiji and tonga. They guy, brian, said that I could do 15lbs of each and see how it looks in the tank.

I noticed that the tonga is like $9 a pound. Whys that?

What should I look for when picking my pieces?

They sell water too, 75cents a gallon, so Ill get it from them. I will probably get the live rock and water on monday and see how it looks.

As for lighting/skimmers I am going to wait until the cycle is ready to support life. No point in having it sitting there doing nothing for a month.
 
Tonga has recently gotten more difficult to import. If you like the look of the rock thats the rock you want to get thats all. The skimmer will help to maintain water quality that should make your cycle a little shorter. I would get the skimmer whenever you can but put it high on the priority list. In the mean time more frequent water changes will help maintain water quality
 
There will be die off when buying rock online becasue of the shipping. It will have to cure.

If you decide on running a skimmer which is a perfactly ligit opinion and can certainly do no harm, buy it now and get it running so it can start breaking in. My bother runs a coralife 65 on his forty gal breeder. Once broken in it does a fairly good job with vary little in the way of micro bubbles getting into the tank.
 
Yeah. You will pay less for uncured rock, as opposed to the fully cured rock you linked to.

As someone else posted, there will be some die off during shipping, so even "fully cured" rock will have to be somewhat cured by you. Because you'll have to cure it anyways, I'd recommend just saving yourself the cash and buying uncured. To cure it yourself, you'll need a rubbermaid tub or plastic trash can, a heater and a powerhead. It could take as little as a week, or as long as several weeks. Just clean the rocks of any gunk and dead stuff, put the rocks in the tub with saltwater, add the heater to keep it at the correct temp, add the powerhead to keep the water moving, and wait a bit before adding them to the tank.
 
Bifferwine said:
Yeah. You will pay less for uncured rock, as opposed to the fully cured rock you linked to.

As someone else posted, there will be some die off during shipping, so even "fully cured" rock will have to be somewhat cured by you. Because you'll have to cure it anyways, I'd recommend just saving yourself the cash and buying uncured. To cure it yourself, you'll need a rubbermaid tub or plastic trash can, a heater and a powerhead. It could take as little as a week, or as long as several weeks. Just clean the rocks of any gunk and dead stuff, put the rocks in the tub with saltwater, add the heater to keep it at the correct temp, add the powerhead to keep the water moving, and wait a bit before adding them to the tank.
Click to expand...

Ok

Ya I have to pick up a few rubbermaid bins anyway to get the water from the place to my house. I figure I will do that monday. Ill order the rock monday as well and one of my power heads because I am not sure I will need the second power head as a few people have said 2 might be over kill.
 
You can get the rock shipped over night or 2-day, so if you order it Monday it will be at your house within a few days (at least, Live Aquaria usually ships stuff the day after you order stuff). One of the reasons I hate ordering stuff online is waiting for it to arrive, but with live rock, that's not as much of a problem.
 
Well I ordered the power heads and a heater. I went to order the live rock but they are out of stock for the 45lb and I am not going to pay double the price for 2 20lb pieces so I will wait until they come back into stock.

I am going to get the water in the tank tmrw and the salt.
 

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