freshwater or salt for 55-gallon tank

Question
After keeping freshwater fish for many years, I have purchased a 55-gallon
aquarium and am considering fresh or saltwater use. I have no experience
with saltwater, but the impression I get is, it's more expensive to set up and
maintain and requires much more maintenance and attention to detail. I am
not intersted in purchasing large amounts of expensive hi-tech equipment
like protein skimmers and spcial filtration equipment. I don't mind doing the
work to keep things running, but I am not interested in completely blowing
my bank account for special equipment, not to mention the fish. Is it feasable
to sustain a salt-water tank with normal freshwater filtration equipment (i.e
Whisper filters) and other equipment usually designed for freshwater use?

Answer
Hi there,
Saltwater is definitely more expensive to maintain and run and it does require more maintenance than fresh water.
Firstly anything used in your freshwater tanks will need to be cleaned and dried.
Most filters can run in salt water tanks but you do need a pretty good one for that. I use noodles, purigen and the white filter wool in mine, and in my larger tanks I have an internal filter running as well as a power head. I am not overly familiar with Whisper filters but as long as they're made for the volume of water your tank can hold you should be ok. A skimmer is something you could look into in the future if you are able to, not mandatory, but will help.
When beginning with Salt water, the tank needs to be cycled for at least 4 weeks if not more to build up the beneficial bacteria needed for the aquarium. You need to get some live rock for the tank and feed it every other day. (Some people don't feed the tank with live rock in it but I put a little mysis in as I cycled mine just to keep the bacteria at work while there were no fish in it.)
Water and salt need to be added and then tested with a hydrometer or refractometer to check the salt levels.
After the tank has been running for 4 weeks with live rock you need to test it for Ammonia and Nitrite. Once these hit 0 you can look at adding your first fish.
Water changes really need to be done once a week if possible which is about 25% (I do 25%-30% on my tanks)
After adding a fish or 2 you need to check the levels again to check that the bacteria is working with the fish wastes.
After the fish is happily swimming around for 1-2 weeks you can look at adding another one.
Its important not to add too much too fast.
There is a fair bit of work and maintenance involved but once its up and running everything should be alot easier to manage.
Hope this helps some, let me know if you have any further questions.