Two noobie questions

[Econ]

1. How do you guys deal with water evaporation? Since the water must be cycled on saltwater tanks, what's the best way to deal with this issue?

2. How much lightning must be given (natural or artificial) to a 30-55 gallon fish tank in order to create a healthy environment for the fish and live rock used?

 

[smcdonn]

Water evaporation is delt with by either personally adding water yourself or setting up a auto top off system.

for lighting, you need to figure out whether you will have fish only or if you are going to have coral. FOWLR=Fish only with live rock. Reef=tank with corals

If your going to have a reef tank they usually say about five watts per gallon on the low side. If your just going to have a FOWLR, you can just run minimal lighting.

 

[bertoni]

1. I use autotopoff on three tanks, manual topoff on a small nano. The topoff water should be RO-DI, and it doesn't need to be cycled. Just don't change the SG more than 0.0005 units in a day, IMO.

2. For fish and live rock, any lighting that suits your eyes should be fine.

 

[mg426]

agreed