New to salt water

I am not new to salt water but my sister and her family just got a 100 gallon salt water tank and they are new. They are not doing a reef tank. Is this a good site for them to come and ask questions or is there a better site to go to?

 

I think they can get plenty of help right here. :thumbs_up

 

Welcome them to 3reef!
And you are good to go to get all the help you/they want!

 

No site is better!! welcome to 3reef!

 

So they just got a 100 gallon tank(for a $100 dollars are you kidding me, they were in walmart going to get a little tank for the kids and some lady over heard them talking and said she would sell them her tank for $100, right place at the right time) and it has been up for about 3 weeks. Don't know the params, we are going to the LFS in a bit. They have 2 chromis, 2 zebra and 2 the kids call yellow tail fish. 5 hermit crabs and one turbo snail. Should they get more snails? The LFS told them one was ok. I have 10 snails in my 29 gallon reef tank. Here are some pictures of what they have so far.

 

Lookin good so far. I'd say hold off on getting any other live stock until your sure the cycle has completed. The creatures you have in there now might be so happy as it is while they go through the cycle. Just make sure your salinity is where it should be (1.024-1.026) and check for ammonia in about a week. At least that's what I'd do.

Also, if you are using an under gravel filter I would strongly suggest converting to some other type of filtration system, especially if your doing Fish Only With Live Rock. It will be a nightmare to keep it clean and keep your nitrates in check. I see the hang on back bio wheel, that might be all you need. You can still use the powerheads for flow, and you could even leave the grates under the gravel, basically just remove the tubes. In my opinion better to do it now while everything is relatively new and clean, and the tank is still cycling. That's just my opinion though.

Great deal on the 100g for $100, plus the dimensions are nice for saltwater, can't beat that.

Welcome and good luck!

 

What kind of filtration system do you reconmend?

 

Well that bio wheel alone will work pretty well, up to a certain number of fish. You can't go wrong with sump filtration, which requires an extra smaller tank or a specifically designed unit. In the end it's the best system because you can have all kinds of equipment running in the sump rather than in your display. It takes up room and it requires the use of some kind of overflow system, which can be time consuming and expensive.

You'll benefit greatly from a protein skimmer. If you get a good one you could probably get away with just a "hang-on-back" protein skimmer and that biowheel you already have running.

So basically I'm giving you two options (there are others, but I don't know anything about them), at the bare minimum you can just get a protein skimmer, at the other end you can setup a sump. It's far too complicated to explain everything there is to explain so I will try to answer questions you have as you have them.

 

welcome to 3reef!

 

Welcome to 3 reef. There is a whole section dedicated to each if your questions. If u search the forum you can be busy for days reading about a single subject. The best advice I can offer is to go slowly and pick livestock that you have previously researched.

Good luck on your tanks.