I am setting up a new saltwater aquarium and i need to know if i need any additives such as pytoplex or others. PLEASE HELP!!!
Until you keep corals, the only basic chemistry needs you have are a good synthetic sea salt blend (I usually recommend Instant Ocean or Tropic Marine), a buffer (I usually recommend Kent's SuperBuffer dKh, as it is well concentrated for the cost, but easy to work with). a dechlorinator that treats both chlorine and chloramine (unless you are interested in possibly going reef and, then, I recommend an ROdi unit), and good, old fashioned water. Other additives and dosing chemicals are intended for the feeding of filter feeders and invertebrate animals such as corals, clams, scallops, feather dusters, anemones, etc. As you won't have these in a brand new tank anyway, you won't need these right away. As you grow with the hobby of keeping saltwater and move into keeping inverts, you can tailor your additives to their needs. Now, some people will recommend Essential Elements and the like to offer minerals to fish and inverts that are naturally found in saltwater in trace amounts, but many of these are already OVER compensated for in many synthetic sea salt blends (*so don't bother). Welcome to the hobby!
It depends very much in what are you planning to put in your fishwater tank. I been having my saltwater fish tank for 5 years with 2 clownfish, some hermit crabs and all i put in the water is the saltwater mix salt that you find in the Pet Store. This website might help you
