its not yet.... but i was thinking about turning this tank into sw. i am very new with sw, and was thinking some live sand and live rocks, and just haveing a bunch of gobies, shrimps maybe some crabs, just small fish. i have been told this tank would be fine, just have to add some bio balls and powerheads for movement. any help would be nice as i know nothing about salt water. here is a pic of what i got.

Looks like a nice tank to start off with. Marine fish come from some of the most stable environments on the planet. The temp might fluctuate only a degree or two ever. Keeping this in mind it's easy to see why some of them seem so fragile in our ever changing glass boxes. The bigger the system the better for a saltwater tank since it's easier to keep water parameters constant with larger volumes of water.

What is your current filter like? If you're not keeping Corals (which I strongly advise against until you get the hang of saltwater in general) all you need is a good powerhead and a good mechanical filter if you're keeping fish and inverts.

Get about forty lbs of good quality live sand and maybe another forty to sixty lbs of live rock. The live sand and live rock already have the nitrifying bacteria so you shouldn't have to let the tank cycle much.

Get a good hydrometer, not the floaty glass kind. They're not accurate and break easily. I've gone through about ten of them. These are both good ones...


Your current heater should be fine. No particular temp is as important as a constant temp. Keep it around 76 or so and you should be fine.

Once you have everything mixed up and all the sand and rock in the tank add fish SLOWLY. I can't stress this enough. Even the slight ammonia spike of a few additional fish at once can be enough to throw off the whole system. Decide what you want, determine who to add first, second, last, etc. and buy them in that order. I'd add one new fish a week or so to give the system time to adjust.

Some good starter fish are Gobies, various Clowns and Damsles but stay away from Dominoes they're evil little bastages and will take over your entire aquarium and attack you viciously when you reach in to move stuff. Hawkfish are nice but will eat smaller Shrimp. Snowflake Morays are excellent for community tanks but again will eat shrimp and crabs since this is their natural diet. Hippo Tangs are great too, they stay smaller and aren't too cranky towards other fish.

Tangs bring up another topic. They're ICH magnets. Look at them crosseyed and they'll get ICH. ALWAYS keep a bottle of KickIch on hand. It's the best stuff. It kills ICH thoroughly without harming even the most fragile inverts. I can't say enough about how awesome this stuff is.

As far as inverts, you can get Snails, Brittle Stars, Hermits (Make sure both claws are the same size, the ones with one claw bigger are fish eaters and they WILL catch your fish eventually and eat them) Emerald Crabs, Decorator and Spider Crabs, etc. If you want Starfish, Chocolate Chips are nice but they'll eat Snails and Tubeworms. Sand Sifters are nice but they stay buried in the sand most of the time.

I'm rambling so I'll stop now. But I love the idea of setting that tank up as saltwater. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

Patience and research are the two keys for success in salt water tank.
That tank look like a typical Jebo's tank with built in filtration and compact light.
From the light I guess it has 2 bulbs with each bulbs split into 1 white and 1 blue tube.
I would check the space under the tank and see if you can take out the middle divider without effecting the stand structure to support the tank. This will give you room to put in a sump/refugium. This is where your skimmer, heater, cheato, etc. are store.
As for live sand and rock the concensus is minimum 1 lb per gallon. These are part of your main filtration system in salt water. so in your case 60 lbs of live sand and 60 lbs of live rocks.
under your light, you can have low light soft coral such as mushroom, xenia, cloves. LPS you can keep frogspawn, hammer, torch, chalice, etc.
All of these are cheap if you keep an eyes on the reef forums in your area. They are very expensive if you buy from local fish store. for example, liverocks you can pay anywhere from 4-8 dollars per lb. The key is patience and watch for cheap but good deal from your local reefers. I will give you a link to the most well known and popular salt water forum here and take an advanatge and read and research all you can. Do not be afraid to post and ask for their opinion like you did here.
www.reefcentral.com do not discourage if they tell you to get a new tank ... hehehe ... please do not put any livestock in until all your water parameter stable, usually take from 4-6 weeks for a salt water tank to be cycle properly.

thanks you two...the tank is stock,so it just has a couple of pads and some bio home for the filter.i was told that i should add some bio balls and that would be fine???not sure??would i need a skimmer?? i just plan on keeping small fish, like a colony of different gobies and some kind of crays and crabs,nothing to big.and lighting is what came stock ok??,or should i upgrade the bulbs?and water do i make my own or try and buy some???? thanks for your input,i really need it

Dude, that is a awesome tank. You will need skimmer and UV light for sure. If you do FOWLR your lights are fine. If you want a reef tank you have to upgrade your lights. Also check this out. that helps a lot. http://www.wetwebmedia.com/marine/index.htm

Your filter should be fine. All the filter is for is mechanical filtration. The live rock supplies the biological filtration. Your lighting is fine too as long as you're not planning on any corals or anemones. If by making or buying water you're talking about the salt mix, just get a bag of Instant Ocean and follow the directions to mix it to a specific gravity of between 1.020 and 1.024. Once again as with the temp constant salinity is more important than any particular salinity. You don't need a refugium or bio balls. I personally don't like bio balls or wet dry filters for saltwater anyway as all they do is increase NitrAte production. As with freshwater frequent small water changes will keep your water parameters constant and keep NitrAtes at safe levels. Just start out slow and keep it simple. You can add and expand later on if you want.

thanks katt you have been a big help .....oh ya and the guys have been helpfull also

Here's an interesting thread on UV sterilizers and their usefulness or lack thereof. UV Sterilizers I personally don't use UV sterilizers anymore. Haven't seen any problems without them on freshwater or saltwater.

Protein Skimmers may be important on a reef setup but I know of quite a few people who don't bother with them but use a refugium full of Spaghetti Algae instead even on their reef tanks. IME they're a waste of money on a FOWLR tank. If your NitrAtes and organic wastes are so high on your FOWLR tank you may need to take a look at your maintainence and feeding practices.

The more stuff you have going on, the more stuff there is to go wrong. Keep it simple.

if you not gonna have a big bio load all you would need is a skimmer, lose the bio balls

Cool stuff man! Salt water is great!