FrugalReef Blog

Contrary to popular opinion, a person does not have to be rich to enjoy a reef aquarium of their own.  Saltwater can be an expensive hobby, but it doesn’t have to be, and here’s how.

1. Buy a fully integrated aquarium

The first thing you’ll need is a tank. If you’ve ever been out shopping for aquariums before you’ll probably be surprised how aquariums are cheap and everything else is expensive! The fact is, most dealers prescribe to the idea that a person without an aquarium can’t buy any aquarium products and sell them at nearly zero markup. You’ll soon discover, however, a dizzying array of filters, sumps, pumps, and powerheads that will turn your cheap aquarium into an expensive and complex monstrosity, and thus my first recomendation.

A small, fully integrated aquarium such as a nanocube or a an aquapod. You can purchase a 12 gallon aquapod that contains all the filtering, pumps, and lighting you need for $130. This is a great way to get started in the hobby, and a wide variety of interesting organisms can be cared for and readily observed in one of these small tanks.

Don’t be turned off if someone tells you that small saltwater tanks are harder to care for than large ones, while the saying is usually quite true, these fully integrated systems are well designed and virtually maintenance free.

Don’t bother purchasing any Activated carbon for this tank if it’s offered to you. Your filtration will be taken care of by the organisms themselves, and you won’t need it.

2. Buy your water on the cheap

Yes, and I said buy. Tap water is just not suitable for an aquarium. You can often get away with it in freshwater, especially if you don’t live in the city or you treat it with over the counter treatments, but for salt water it’s just not a good idea for many reasons. City tap water contains chlorine, which will kill your organisms and the bacteria they need to thrive. Almost all tap water contains high levels of phosphate that will turn your tank into a green algae mess.

That being said, the last place you probably want to buy water from is the pet store. For a 12 gallon aquapod you should buy about 15 gallons of water to get started. The keyword to look for here is Reverse Osmosis (RO for short). You can usually buy RO water from large grocery stores or walmarts. They sell it for drinking water. You may also see other keywords such as carbon filtration, uv sterilization, and deionization. These things are fine but not required.

Water from a pet store may cost you two or three dollars a gallon, water from walmart will cost you about $0.30 a gallon. You will also need a container for the water. Usually you can bring your own. Walmart will charge $10 or so for a 5 gallon container, most pet stores will charge $15 or $20. After the container is purchased, you just pay the per gallon charge to refill it.

3. Buy your sand on the cheap

Your pet store will probably want to sell you very expensive sand. They will want to sell you live sand or Aragonite. Real live sand direct from the ocean is a beautifull thing teaming with beneficial and interesting life forms, but what most pet stores offer is stored cold in a sealed plastic bag and is not the real deal. Normal old play sand, silica sand or pool filter sand will work just fine for your aquarium, and sells for about $0.50 a lb. You’ll need 10-20lbs of this sand for a 12 gallon aquarium, so about $10 worth, to create the 4 inch deep sand bed required for Deep Sand Filtration.

One problem with buying your sand cheap is knowing where to buy it. Play sand can usually be sourced from any home improvement store, silica sand is often used in sand blasting, so auto body shops is a good place to find it. If you’re just setting up a small nano-cube, you may just want to go ahead and pop for the extra $10 the aquarium shop will want to charge you for their sand, but if you decide to set up something large, finding an alternative source for your sand is the way to go.

4. Live Rock

Live rock is the real heart of your aquariums filtration system. The rock will become the home for benificial marine bacteria that keeps your tank healthy by converting the toxic wastes produced by the aquarium inhabitants into harmless nitrogen gas. This process is called the Nitrogen Cycle. Live rock will be kept in an aquarium under water, and should exhibit a wide variety of colors. Algae growth and critters on the rock should be evident. You will eventually need about 1lb per gallon of live rock, and it sells for about $5 a lb. You can just buy a piece or two at a time to get started. If you’re setting up a 12 gallon aquapod, you should buy at least 2lbs to get started. This will give your tank a source for the beneficial bacteria it will need to thrive.

5. Testing Kits

There are a wide variety of testing kits out there. You don’t really need one. Almost all stores that carry marine fish will test your water for you. That being said, especially if this aquarium is to be educational, you may want to purchase one anyway. Testing and monitoring the water is a great way to learn about the nitrate cycle and to experience a little chemistry in action. If you do decide to buy a testing kit, you will want to be able to test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and ph.

6. Odds and Ends

You will need salt mix to turn your pure water into salt water, the type of salt mix you pick isn’t a huge deal. I’d recommend Reef Crystals brand, you won’t need much. A small bag will cost you about $12. You will need a hydrometer to measure the salt level in the water to mix it right, about $9. You will need a small submersible heater, 50 watts will be fine for about $14. You will also need a small thermometer, because the temperature indicators on the submersible heaters always seem to be wrong, a cheap digital one will go for about $7.

7. Critters

On your first trip out you won’t get much in the way of critters, because your tank will need to establish itself, grow the required bacteria, and reach a point of stability before it can support most fragile marine organisms. That being said, you will want to get something, because the bacteria will need something to feed off of. My favorite recommendation for this is Hermit Crabs. This is because they’re very hardy, they’re fun to watch, and they’ll serve the very important task in your tank of keeping it free from overgrown algae and eat up any food that your fish may miss before it can rot.

Every reef tank should have some hermit crabs. Pick up about half a dozen of them. They will also need “replacement” shells to change into as they get bigger, ask the pet store owner for some. Make sure to get the small 1.5-2″ marine varieties, and not the huge land variety! You should also pick them up some algae pellets or wafers to feed them with until your tank gets established.

8. Total

Aquarium	$130
15 Gallons of water	$4.50
3×5 Gallon Jugs	3x$10
20lbs of sand	$10
2 Lbs Live Rock	$10
Reef Crystals 50 gallon mix	$12
Hydrometer	$9
50w Submersible Heater	$14
Digital Thermometer	$7
6xHermit Crab	6x$1.50
Total	$235

As you can see, it’s perfectly possible to put together an entire marine aquarium without breaking the bank. Ongoing expenses will be the occasion purchase of water, 5 gallons a month will cost you about $1.50 from walmart. You will eventually run out of salt, but you’ll only use about $1 of it a month, so that’s no big deal either.

Most of these prices came directly from http://drsfostersmith.com. You may not be able to match them locally, but nearly your entire kit can always be ordered directly online from them or any one of a thousand other discount online retailers.

You will also want to fill this tank out with some more live rock. Buy a couple lbs at a time until you have about 10lbs or so. The rule of thumb is about one lb of rock per gallon.

9. Putting it all together

Putting it all together will take an afternoon Follow these steps:

1. Find a place to place and assemble your aquarium. You’ll need a powers strip because you’ll have half a dozen plugs to hook up when you’re done.
2. Place the sand in the aquarium, you need it to be at least 4.5 inches deep. This is a critical depth because the sand must be at least that deep for it to develop the bacterial colonies your tank will need to break down the wastes from your aquarium inhabitants.
3. Fill the tank with your RO water.
4. Insert and plug in your heater. Place it in one of the filter compartments in the back out of sight. Make sure all the glass parts of the heater are submerged. Set it to 78 degrees.
5. Plug in your pump. This will get the water in your aquarium circulating.
6. Mix the salt in per instructions on the bag. (Never mix salt water in the aquarium after you add creatures, the stress can kill them, in the future always mix the salt water in a dish or bucket, and only add it to the aquarium when it’s ready)
7. Test the salt level with your hydrometer. Fill the hydrometer with water and set it on a level surface. The hand will move to point to the salinity. Make sure there are no bubbles on the hand, because they can make it read too high. Keep adding salt slowly until the the hydrometer reads about 1.0222.
8. Wait until the temperature of the water reaches 78 degrees. If heater turns off before it does, turn the heater up. If the water temperature exceeds 78, turn the heater down.
9. Place your live rock in the tank.
10. Float your aquarium critters in their bag on the surface of the water and give them plenty of time for the temperature in their bags to equalize to the water temperature in you tank. After 15 or 20 minutes, release them into the tank.

10. Maintenence

After your tank is going, you need to give it time for the beneficial bacteria to migrate from the live rock you purchased into your substrate. This will take about 30 days. If you bought a test kit, you can monitor ammonia and nitrite levels. When ammonia and nitrite reach 0, you can go ahead and precede to the next step, as long as it’s been at least two weeks.

When you’re ready to proceed, do a Water Change. That is, mix two or three gallons of saltwater in a bowl or bucket, drain two or three gallons of old water out of your tank, and replace it slowly with the new water. Do this slowly so the temperature doesn’t change sharply and stress your creatures. You need to do a water change weekly or monthly, depending on who you talk to. If you bought a test kit, do it often enough to keep your nitrate (Not to be confused with nitrite) below 80mg/L or so. After your aquarium is well established and has sufficient amount of rock, nitrate levels may never rise on their own. In this case, still do water changes from time to time.

Never buy creatures unless your ammonia and nitrite levels are 0. These wastes are toxic to marine life. If these levels aren’t 0, it indicates that your bacterial colony hasn’t grown to sufficient size to balance out your aquarium critters. Adding more creatures would only make things worse. If you didn’t buy a test kit, bring in a small sample of your water for the dealer to test for you.

Decaying creatures and overfeeding can also cause these levels to be high. If anything dies, remove it from your tank right away. If you have hermit crabs, chances are they’ll eat anything that dies for you before it poisons you tank. And also, if you see them eating anything, it was probably already dead before they started.

That’s it! Enjoy your new aquarium. Do lots of reading and ask lots of questions, and you’ll be well on your way to a rewarding and challenging hobby!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.