Plan to convert 6 ft freshwater tank to Marine Tank

[mkbt]

Understand from others that the glass of the tank must be thick but how thick should it be? Also, any other thing that I should watch out for apart from the requirements for additional hardware like skimmer, brighter lights, wave makers. Mine has a 4 ft sump already.

Any advice please before I take the plunge and break the tank :-)

[Tian85]

Understand from others that the glass of the tank must be thick but how thick should it be? Also, any other thing that I should watch out for apart from the requirements for additional hardware like skimmer, brighter lights, wave makers. Mine has a 4 ft sump already.

Any advice please before I take the plunge and break the tank :-)

think need to be at least 12mm. Any guru can confirm if 12mm is enough or need to be thicker.

[hotsoup]

for 6 footer, my opinion to go for 15mm. How old is your current tank?

[Harlequinmania]

think need to be at least 12mm. Any guru can confirm if 12mm is enough or need to be thicker.

12mm is ok, but you need bracing around the tank to support it as seawater is heavier than freshwater.. Maybe you can share with us some photo of your existing tank ?

Going for 15mm is ideal but could be very costy..

[mkbt]

Hi,

Thanks for the advice. Mine is 12 mm with bracing around the top and bottom of the tank. It has an overflow that connect down to the sump below. I guess it should be ok. Hopefully someone has already converted similar tank before.

[dmck]

A tank that holds fresh water will be fine for salt water.

another major cost you should consider is the amount of live rock you will require.

Live rock is one of the major filtration components, both mechanical and biological, in a salt water tanks.

You should have roughly 1/3 of the tank as live rock. This will mean much less water in the tank and therefore less horizontal pressure on the glass as there is less water volume, so the added weight of salt water vs fresh water (which is very minimal) is greatly out weighted.

Live rock in australia cost about $10/kg and for a 6ft tank you will want 100Kg or so.

second hand equipment will cost roughly

skimmer $200

lighting $300

rock $500

wave makers $200 (for cheap) or $1000's for top of the range equip

and then the expense for livestock (corals and fish) is up to you.

[iskay]

You'll need a chiller if you intend to keep corals. For a six footer, you'll need a big one. Probably a 1hp.

[mkbt]

Thanks to all advices here.

I am ready but first of all, I need to clear my current fishes. I believe this will take a while as selling is always not an easy task. Once I have started on the marine set-up, I will keep you all posted.

I love that rock and water information from dmck. I believe that's the way to go to prevent breaking the tank.

Tks!