^ Best way to cycle a tank is to get RO water and let it run with a filter for a few days to a week. That will build all the beneficial bacteria and microbes you need.

I keep cichlids myself....well, and an angel (20g) I've had for years. The cichlids I have are Blue Reef Afras (cynotilapia afra-blue reef) and Yellow Labs (labidochromis caeruleus). I used to have some demasoni but the blue reefs killed them all, I hope to have a species tank of them one day, maybe with yellow labs too.

Here are a few pics of my tanks, I built the backgrounds in both of them (although the 55 gallon one had to come out, I'm planning another one). I also built the 55 gallon stand and canopy, but I didn't save any money...it was expensive to build too. Over engineered though.

20 gallon


55 Gallon just starting to cycle...no fish or plants yet


Aged with fish and plants (most of these fish are dead by now, these fish are really agressive towards each other, I may have one or two left)

 

How did you build the backgrounds? They looks awsome!

 

^^ That is just what i was going to ask..They are SICKK!!

 

Saltwater tanks are easy if you don't overload them. Lights are expensive, you need them for corals and some invertabrates, skip them in the beginning, stay with the cheap strip lights for now, just keep fish.

A wet/dry filteris a must. A protien skimmer is important, but can be added later.

As JD said, use 'cycle' and get cheap damsels or something. Even Black mollies may survive in full salt while the tank cycles.

You will have to ground the tank to reduce lateral line disease (cheap).

Don't put the tank too close to a wall, the salt may stain the wall over time. Maybe try and solve that problem ahead of time.


Avoid fish that only eat live food.

Saltwater tanks aren't hard at all, they just cost more money.

 

Carve them out of styrofoam and then apply concrete to them. You silicon them to the back of the tank. Its a really long and tedious process and it makes the fish a bitch to get out. I think its worth it though.

 

Those aquariums look really good. This may be my next hobby!

 

I love me some fish, my freshwater tank is 65gal and all the damn fish are getting so big the tank looks small now hehe.

 

I'm sorry but I'm going to have to disagree with this statement. Wet/dry filters are junk and should never be used if possible. Do they filter the water? Yes, but they also produce a lot of nitrate in the system which will give you tons of algae problems. A good protein skimmer and a bag of carbon will be all you need for a salt water tank. Never run a tank without having a protein skimmer, ever. Even in a fish only system I would advise not to run a wet/dry filter... Only time I would suggest getting one is if you don't have enough live rock. The filter ***** in the wet/dry filter ACT like live rock to a certain extent, but do not filter the water the same. They grow an imbalance of bacteria on them which produces the nitrate that will go into the system. Trust me on this one... Do it right the first time and you'll thank me and yourself because you'll save money in the end, and countless hours cleaning, plus your fish will be happier. Between the bacteria in the live rock, sand, and the protein skimmer, you tank shouldn't need anymore means if filtering the water. Here is a picture of a protein skimmer in action... All that brown stuff is waste it has pulled out of the water and collected in the cup. These usually have to be cleaned at least once a week if not more... it's the not so fun part of owning an aquarium

 

I can agree with that too, it makes sense. What about a product like chemi-pure with/instead ofthe carbon?

 

Never heard of it so I just did a search... Not really sure how it works. "Removes Toxic Elements - Including Copper & Phenol" I'm kinda curious as to how it removes them... You can't just add it to the system and the toxic elements just vanish all of a sudden. My old job I worked at a strictly reef aquarium store and the owner was a marine biologist. All of our tanks there were set up with sand, live rock, proper lighting, water taken from the ocean (I live near the beach), big protein skimmer, bag of carbon nothing more. With the reef tanks we had to measure ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, calcium, ph, and salinity and adjust the individual levels accordingly. But with a proper setup the ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite should always remain at 0ppm. We would add kalkwaser through the auto-topoff setup we were running which kept the calcium and ph where they needed to be.

All that with a few little water changes here and there to replenish the trace elements and the tanks were doing well. There are other chemicals out there besides kalkwaser, but that is what he decided to use for the tanks. There are too many ways to get a reef tank up and going... If there was one way and one way only to have a great tank that would make things so easy, but there are tons of different variations out there. The majority consist of 1"-2" deep sand bed, at least a 1/3 of the overall volume of the tank consists of life rock for biological filtration, a good sized protein skimmer to remove waste, proper lights for the corals you want to keep, and enough water circulation via power heads. Everyone however has their own chemicals they add to the tank and swear by, while others will say that stuff is junk. Get the right equipment the first time, and experiment with the additives to see what works out best for you.