I posting this for those that have an interest in starting a saltwater aquarium.

fist off you need to find you an aquarium, any size will do, i started with a 20 gallon and worked down to a 15 gallon.
( you can find them at petco petsmart or any local fish store)
once you have your aquarium picked out you need to find a place to put it, you need to make sure its in a spot where it don't get direct sunlight this is important as you don't want the sunlight hitting the tank and causing excess algae growth. you can place it on a dressser, table or many aquariums come with stands.

next you gunna wanna look at filtration, many starter aquariums come with a built in filter like the red sea series, biocube nano cube, instant marine. they come in whats called an "all in one" or "aio" for short, but if you go with a bigger set up besides the red sea series your gunna want a sump, now a sump is an addition tank under the aquarium that holds the protien skimmer(ill address this later) a return pump( a pump to return water to your display tank) a heater and many other filter materials

now your thinking how am i going to get water down to the sump, that parts easy, you want an overflow box they look like this
(you need an account to see links)
what this does it takes an amount of water out of your display tank and sends it over the edge and down to the sump via tubing.

but before you fill your tank up your gunna want live sand and live rock, now i know your thinking what is live sand and live rock, well the answer to that is its rock that houses millions of single celled organisms referred to as beneficial bacteria, these are good bacteria that live on the rock and in the sand that naturally filter the water. i good starting point is 2lbs of sand per gallon of tank volume and 1-3 lbs of live rock per gallon. i bet your thinking what live sand and live rock should i get? that part is totally up to your own preference personally i like argonite sand in special sea floor grade, its a bit bigger in save than most sand but that insures you wont have a dust storm in your tank, but any live sand will do the job just fine, and for the live rock goes there are many options to choose from, theres pukani figi tonga shelf branch and many others but what i like is the brs(bulk reef supply) reef save dry live rock
HTML Code:
http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-reef-saver-dry-aquarium-live-rock.html
its cheap and stacks together very nicely.

next your gunna want to look at a protien skimmer. there are a ton of them out there in all shapes sizes and models, but its recommended you get one that is rated for twice the size of your aquarium. the reason behind this is most people like to feed the fish and you also want more than just a handful of fish depending on the size of your aquarium this is. this insures the water is cleaned efficiently.

lets see what else do we have, theres heaters and lights left and wave makers left

ill start with heaters, most people want one big heater that will do the job, but what happens if that heater was to fail while you was at work/school your tank temperature would go plummeting down, so its better to have 2 heaters of half the power the one big heater has, but this also brings up an important issue what temp should my tank be? theres alot of answers to that question, it depends on if you want tropical fish or cold water species with the latter being self explanatory where they like colder water temps, but if your like most and want "nemo" and "dory" and an anemone you gunna want to keep your temp between 78-80 degrees F

now on to lights, the popular choice trending right now is leds but if you want leds there is a big upfront cost, but the advantage is that you never have to replace bulbs
the next big choice is metal halides these are the closest thing to the sun that man can replicate, and its been proven to grow coral like no other. the downside the get hot, real hot and they will heat up your tanks water if they are not hung significantly higher than the water line somewhere in the range of 9-12 inches above your tank. and the bulb needs to be changed once a year
then there is t5 florescent light fixtures these are still popular due to the amount and combination of bulbs you can buy with bigger tanks you need bigger light fixtures anywhere from 6-10 bulbs per fixture and these come in a variety of lengths so you can buy one fixture to cover your entire tank. and smaller tank you can do mostly a 4 bulb set up(most common) now most of these fixtures come with legs and just sit on the trim of your aquarium, but the downside is they need to be changed out every 6-9 months your the spectrum the bulb give off shifts and you get unwanted algae growth.

next up is you want some flow in your tank so the detritus( uneaten food and fish waste) get swept up to the overflow and down to the sump to get filtered out, the most common are koralia pumps they look like this (you need an account to see links) and come in all different sizes, so you have to get the right size for your tank, optimal tank flow is 10-15x the total tank volume. and you want to point the wavemakers towards the rock so that beneficial bacteria i mentioned earlier get plents of micro particles to break down.

now once you have all your equipment in place its time to fill up the tank. you can go to your nearest fish store and buy reverse osmosis de-ionized water or rodi for short or most stores offer fresh mixed saltwater that you can buy. but enough for your total volume for your tank and 20% of your sump size this will ensure you have enough water for your first fill up. after that your gunna want to buy rodi water for topping off your aquarium do to evaporation, you can also use distilled water if you cant get rodi

now your gunna want to immediately want to put fish in, but your cant you must let your tank cycle the cycle is the processes of the beneficial bacteria build a big enough colony to safely hand the ammonia fish produce. one way to decrease your cycle time is to next to nothing is this stuff
HTML Code:
http://www.instantocean.com/Products/aquarium-saltwater-care/salt-water-set-up/bio-spira-saltwater-aquarium-bacteria.aspx
read the directions to see how much your gunna need for your total water volume buy enough then pour it staight into the tank 24hrs after your get it running.
let it run with this in it and the protein skimmer off for 24-48hrs and your good to put fish and coral in.

all in all i know it can be a frustrating process so if you have any questions please feel free to pm me. and i know its a lengthy read with not a lot of pics but ill work on getting pics up at a later date.