Which water to use?

Psychmajor

Im not looking at using any coral anytime soon. Im starting simple, some live rock, sme live sand, and some fish, thats all

onefish2fish

corals or no corals, RO/DI water for pre-mixing your saltwater (atleast 24 hours in advance) and for your fresh water top offs.

klosxe

Agree, RO is still what you want

Ask around your local fish or pet shops, they can typically sell you some, or point to towards where you can get some

Psychmajor

Ok, I am only looking into doing a 40 gallon set up, nothing fancy, this is a starter tank, Im not going to be going all crazy about this tank. once i can manage this tank, in a few years il upgrade and go all crazy. I found a powerhead for 30, 20 lb sand for 30, 7.99 per lb for live rock, havnt priced salt yet, 30 for a skimmer, and it looks like i found a tank with all accesories on a website that i can buy for 200, after that all i need is some fish. i have everything pretty much figured out. so all i need is to figure out the water. this is a new tank, so i dont need a quarentine, i am going to get the tank and the rock first, and cylcle the tank with just water and rock to further cure it, once thats done, i will e adding in the sand, then cycle that for a while, then finally after its all set up i will put in the fish. SO all i need is to take care of the water issue.

Psychmajor

Oh yea and a test kit for saltwater for like 20 bucks, ebay and amazon are a great thing.;

Bartman

I would spend a little more on a skimmer, they are quite important.

klosxe

yea don't cheap it out on the skimmer, it is the backbone of any and all saltwater filtration. It should be among one of your priciest pieces of equipment, but I'd recommend getting one rated AT LEAST double the gallonage of your aquarium. The more skimmer power you can get, the better health your system will have; and I can nearly guarantee that. Almost everyone in the marine aquarium world will agree that your Protein Skimmer is the most important piece of filtration. Often, its actually cheered on if your protein skimmer is rated for a gallonage that is overkill for the size of your system! (Ive seen a guy that had a 180 gallon, and his skimmers were rated for over 1,000 gallons a piece for 2 skimmers)

Anyway I agree that you should proably spend more on a skimmer, but if you think that you are getting a quality product for that price, more power to ya!

Psychmajor

It was originally priced at 60. its on sale

klosxe

whats the gallon rating on it and what company/model is it?

Psychmajor

actually I just bought a 75 gallon tank that comes with a new aqua-tech 30-60 system