As they say on radio, long time listener, first time caller...

I've been keeping cold water, tropical and brackish fish for a number of years now & I've finally decided to get a marine tank (I plan on renaming the house sea world soon). I'm sure the below has been answered before, but I just cant seem to find conclusive answers (nothing ever is)

My first marine tank is a trigon 190... The equipment I've bought is all shiny and new and is piling up quicker than the total bills, it always does though. To make the questions make sense I'll list my equipment. I'm not planing a reef tank first off as I plan to keep my sanity over the next few months

Trigon 190 tank
Internal juwel filter, heater (200w) and powerhead(600)
Tetratec ex700 external filter
Jebo 36watt uv filter
juwel duo-lux lighting
Tetratec air pump
Read sea prizim protein skimmer deluxe (with carbon media)
Marine safestart
sand

Live rock to be bought

Obviously, test kits, hydrometer, thermometer.....

Firstly,

The internal filter.... is it necessary with the external filter & I intend to buy live rock (20kgs) it takes up so much room and looks unsightly.

If the internal has to stay, does it need anything changed internally, some say that they can be nitrate traps in marine tanks?

The external filter, does it need anything changed? Some say remove the media it came with and fill it with crushed coral, others to amend the arrangements and others say not to use them at all with the live rock.....

Will the external provide enough circulation of water, seen as its not a reef tank?


I'll be using ro water as well, so no worries about quality, the tank will be run for a week while monitoring salinity and temp before I add the live rock and begin the cycling of the tank (any advice welcome)

Any other equipment a must for starting off without a nightmare?
wave maker perhaps?

Hi,

The fun begins...
Flow : you need at least 5-10 times turn over.
Int filter : Take out foam, crushed rock and phosphate remover/Carbon bags will work well
Lights : Should be enough for soft corals and fish.
Sand : At least 3-4 inchs of small grain sand.

Apart from that is time, the tank will go from looking great to crap in 1-3 weeks and then go back to nice again, once the No2 drops to zero you can add snails (lots) and maybe one or two fish. Try to get 1st fish to help clean up tank rather than make things worse. EG Lawnmower Blenny/BiColour and algae eaters.

If you start gettling alot of hair algae and only in patchs it's lack of flow, you need to make sure ALL areas are getting a current THIS IS IMPORTANT or algae will be always be a problem.

And Dont overfeed, yes I know a silly remark but once your tank gets stable alot of food will be produced in tank and it's very easy to over feed.

Dont be afraid to ask stupid Q's we all have done/been stupid with marines and no one knows everything (some think the do!)

Thanks for that.....

Think I'll get a wave maker so, to get the flow up from the start..... The one and only species I want as a definite is a porcupine puffer.... I know this really limits my choice of fish, but its more of a species tank really, so the cuc could be his lunch if I dont get the algae under control from the get go.

When you say crushed rock for the internal filter, do you mean live rock?

Yep but some you could use the ceramic Hexs you can get external filter. Depends on how much LR you have.

A puffer will really limit your fish list maybe a nice snowflake moray? too.

But note all big preditor fish are messy eaters and you will need to keep the sand and rock clean or you will hit probs. Depending on the puf size you can get some BIG snails the will turn into lunch after a while but by then the puff may be too big for tank anyway!

Thats the plan, get used to this tank, then get another when he is big enough & when I loose a bit more sense

I ordered 2 hydor korialia 1's yesterday to up the flow & an external heater. In the mean time I hooked up all the equip, put in water (mixed) and sand, turned it on & woke up this morning to find the tank at 32 degrees... The juwel internal heater was stuck on, grrrrr...... at least the external is on the way.

How long should I leave the UV filter on for each day? Or should it be left on continuously? It gets quite warm, is this normal given the volume of water passing through it?

I plan on getting 20kgs of live rock for the tank.

So the tank will have a water turn over of
Hydor - 1500 lph & 1500 lph
Juwel - 600lph
ex700 - 700lph
given a total turnover of 4300lph in a 190 litre tank,

I was told only to run the protein skimmer for a few hours a day, as it will be competing with the live rock otherwise?

As well as the puffer & eel, I was playing a clown trigger fish.... 3 tank mates should suffice.

the tank temp is 25.4 degrees with no heater plugged in? This is a constant temp.... is this normal?

What's your room temp. The pumps etc will also heat your water for you.

That's why some people opt for a closed loop system so the pumps are outside of the water column.