Newbie to Salt/Any tips for startup with old supplies?

[TripFamAZ]

Hi! We are newbies to the saltwater world and are in the process of setting up our first saltwater tank. We previously ran freshwater for about a decade.
We are using a Fluval 107 canister filter… can anyone tell me if there is any specifically different media needed inside the filter from what we were using from freshwater? Do we for sure want to add a protein skimmer? Anything else mandatory we need to invest in?
Finally should we let the tank cycle with just live rock and sand for a couple months to be sure our water is on point?
Any tips or advice is much appreciated and thanks for the time!

 

[jda]

If you are going to be in this for the long haul, then drill the tank and get a sump. It helps. Even a simple baffleless sump can house a protein skimmer, heater and return pump and have some more room for toys like auto top off, reactors and stuff. The overflow will also do surface skim which helps gas exchange and to allow more light to penetrate.

Canister can do biological filtration fine. You will still need more water movement in the tank - there are many ways to get this done. Rock and sand can eventually do most of the filtering that you ever will need, but a canister can help at the jump.

I would add a skimmer. There is where the sump helps. The skimmer removes organics that can build up, does gas exchange to keep the pH good and also can skim out heavy metals (bad) when they attach to organics. You don't have to run a skimmer, but you have to do those three things in other ways.

Coming from freshwater, just know that high levels Ammonia/Ammonium are bad for fish and Nitrite does not matter at all. Most inverts are sensitive to too high of levels of nitrate, but the levels vary with the invert - this is true in FW too.

In saltwater, the nitrogen cycle is not done until anaerobic bacteria form to turn nitrate into nitrogen gas - this can take 6-12 months if you leave the sand alone. People often think of a "cycle" as just the part that allows you to keep fish after you set up a tank, but that is just a small part. Best to avoid terms and describe what you are doing with other words so that you can get the best help.

If you get real live rock from the ocean, then the tank will be able to house fish pretty quickly - like once the die-off from shipping/moving the rock is done. You don't need live sand, but it does not hurt anything either - stuff from the live rock will populate the sand just fine.

 

[Stephen8169301]

What size tank do you have? Fish wish list do you plan to keep coral? You will soon have a bunch of suggestions thrown at you and it will get overwhelming but the post above is a very useful one to follow