New to the salt water game

Welcome to 3reef. You can keep brittle stars just stay away from the green one it eats fish. Seahorses will need to be kept in a species tank. They require cooler water than the corals we get in the hobby. Also they have a terrible time competing for food with other species of fish.

 

seahorses are pretty tough since they need live food. *Very Important*: if you actually do end up doing seahorses, then ALWAYS keep the temperature between 68-74 degrees Fahrenheit; otherwise the seahorse is more prone to disease if it gets higher, and I'm sure you don't want vibrio to be a big problem

 

oh I can't believe I forgot about brittle stars
ok sloooooow down. As your finding there are many ways to build a tank, and many different thoughts on how to do it. Fro example I started with a 30g reef and think it's a great beginner tank. If you just jump in you better have a nice fat budget set aside. I really think you should ask a few questions about any tank set up. Q, no 1 What are you trying to do with this piece of equipment? Q, no 2 Why do you want to do what you are doing with that equipment? , and Q, no 3 is how is that item doing what it is doing and are there any needs this item has to work properly?. Until you understand what why and how the basic stuff works I would stay away from something like reducing the recommended amount of live rock. Your lfs has many reasons for doing what they do, but I don't think I would try to copy them.

 

Ok to more answer that last post and several others at the same time. The first 30 gal im setting up now is in my living room, a show piece to speak, so kinda wat a variety of wat ever I can get, like color speicies, things that when people say "oh a fish tank" and then look closer and are more like "Wow wat is that" is wat im looking for in this one. Like I said i have several other tanks so something for seahorses will come later in one of the other tanks.

 

ok well in your position you have a clean slate to work on. Just set up your tank and fill it up with water. for the water you might want an RO/DI unit, which is a pretty vital piece of equipment IME. Actually better yet make a plan for what your gonna get and when you're gonna get it and maybe how long it will take to set up the tank completely, but not with fish yet, fish come later. Get all your equipment, set it up properly, and when your tank has water and filter functions and whatnot then the fun really starts

 

Different ways of refilling tank if water is evaporated, was told distilled will work if you have reef water? or put more reef water in?

 

As the water evaporates the specific gravity value increases, the water becomes more concentrated. To maintain the SG within the ideal range you need to add either ro/di or simply di. Salt does not evaporate.

 

I always recommend ro/di water

 

Well got a new pump today, got a Marineland 55 gal canister filter with bio max to replace the carbon for it, also got test kits for nitrate and ph, both look good right now.

 

Get your live sand and your live rock and put it in the tank.Then let it cycle until you have 0 ammonia,0 nitrite and some sort of reading of nitrate.Then you can add fish but i recommend using a quarantine tank for all new fish.You should also do research on everything before you buy it.You should stock your tank slowly by adding one fish at a time.