New to the hobby and need some HELP

i am surely a fan of gear

 

very true but my thinking was get him going with the simplest way to succeed and then have him laern and go from there this way not to over load

 

gotta go
running out of excuses to stay away from my wife

 

Your right I don't know anything about saltwater fish, and I'm trying to learn. What i have must not be working to bad or those people prob wouldn't have all those fish still. I think the rock thats in there is live ( looks like some pics I have seen of others set ups) the Eheim professional pump that came with it looks like the Eheim wet-dry external pumps. Not really sure of all that it does. What about one of the hang on protien skimmers by aqua C. Are the like an another type of filter? Is is okay to have snails and hermit crabs in there too? Like I said I hope to build a reef tank out of it someday. Would I be able to convert my tank to a reef tank in the future. I know I'm asking a ton of questions I just don't know and I wanna learn. Thanks for the help

 

Heres what i would do if i where you....

Buy an aqua clear filter
Bring the fish load down to 5-6 max
let the system run like that for a while until you get the hand of everything
A hang on the back would be nice but when u learn more u might want a sump thus wanting an insump skimmer that would perform better

 

we'll I dunno about buying all the stuff the one guy mentioned seem a bit overkill to me, I as you have just started out and i dont have a chiller or a vortech powerhead and i'm doing fine

here's what i would do

for lighting:Odyssea T5 High Output Lighting
I just got mine I like it, it is cheap and from china but it gets the job done and looks good

as for filter i just picked this up
WET/DRY SUMP from eshops
Reef Aquarium Filtration: Eshopps Wet-Dry Filters

comes with overflow box so its a pretty nice kit for the money

I have some more suggestions for you cant think right now tho, I'll chime in later

 

1plus for op1 you will be done spent 6 grand before your through slow down buy a book read got to the bottom of a home page and start reading all the tacked threads they will answer a lot for ya.

 

new to hobby

I wouldn't change anything right now. What you've got is sufficient to keep fish only tank. If it's the eheim professional wet/dry, you probably don't even need the hang-on filter. Only thing I'd probably get is a u/v sterilizer, so your fish don't get any parasites.( lot of fish in a small tank).
Just get some api all in one test strips to test your water once in a while.
Fish only systems are really easy to keep. Only thing you got to worry about is diseases like ich and velvet.
Run like this for awhile and see if you get the bug, which most saltwater hobbyists do. I guarantee that if you stay in the hobby, you'll be wanting to upgrade the tank to a bigger tank in no time at all. That's when you can spend on fancy equipment. No sense spending thousands on lighting and chillers and protein skimmers if you're just going to keep fish.

 

i agree with the too many fish thing simple is always better.

 

Well after work today I went to Hastings and got Saltwater Aquariums for Dummies. It really seems like a good book so far. It explains different componets and what they do, as well as fish anatomy and what kind of fish are good for rookies like myself. Is it possible to add some snails and a couple of hermit crabs to my current set up? Or do they need more specialized equipment. Thanks everyone for your help and advice. This looks like a great place to be.