new tank need advice

On Aug 25, 10:48*am, Don Geddis wrote:
"mike d." wrote on Sat, 23 Aug 2008:

next week we are getting a new(from a friend) 6 foot long tank. I want to
set it up for sal****er and move my fishesd into it. I would like to hear
any recommendations as to substrate material, filtration, etcetera.

The most common, and successful, approach to sal****er is: live rock,
live sand, and a protein skimmer. *And nothing else. *(Well: water changes,
feeding, lighting, etc.) *That lets you have corals too.

is it okay to just have no gravel or sand or coral on the floor of the
aquarium, or would that be a bad idea? The tank is intended to be fish only,
with about five or six fish in it.

Sure, you could have a bare bottom tank. *Sand lets lots of interesting
creatures live there, and provides some important added filtration. *But
_especially_ with a fish-only tank (where water purity isn't quite as
important as with invertebrates), bare bottom could work just fine.

Could I just put a very small amount of crushed coral, or sand, and then
jjust add a bunch of live rock?

Yes, you could do that too.

If you _really_ don't want anything on the bottom (but why?), you can
certainly run a successful (esp. fish-only!) tank with bare bottom.

Live rock (and a protein skimmer) will take care of filtration.

* * * * -- Don
__________________________________________________ _________________________*____
Don Geddis * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *http://reef.geddis.org/
Sixty seconds to impact.
[...time passes...]
Twenty seconds to impact.
No, sorry, ten. *Ten seconds. *I read the thingie wrong. *Sorry!
* * * * -- Goats.com, 6/28/2007

I personally would use sand and stay away from crushed coral..or go
bare bottom before I would use crushed coral., Crushed coral traps
lots of junk which is inaccessable to most bottom inhanbitants whereas
sand at elast most can burrow through it fiarly easy as well as suck
it in and filter out any food particles easier than they can with
crushed coral. I have yet to ever see any what I would say is a
satisfied user of crushed coral in any posts in any of the online web
forums or in reallife. A regular bag of well washed play sand is
better than curshed coral and provides so much more benefits too,.

You really need more than live rock and skimmer, as a hang on back
filter such as a Aqua Clear provides a place to put activated carbon
or other meida if the need arises, as wellas providing current flow.
No need to use filter media batts etc but still nice to have a place
to put cabon if needed. SOme Maxi Or Mini Jet POwerheads are also nice
to have. THere is a lot of various inverts etc that can be kept in a
tank with relatively cheap power ocmpact lighting, and live rock and
sand bottom. The Coralife Super Skimmers are cheap and work just fine
and are hard to beat for the price..........At a minimum I uwl dhave
just enough sand on the bottom to take away that mirrow look a bare
glass bottom gives and make it look a bit more natural, but its your
time, tank and money but bare or covered will work.