Aquariums- salt v. fresh water

FrankieCrabs

FrankieCrabs

Joined
Nov 28, 2000
Messages
524
Hello, all.

My wife has requested an aquarium for her birthday. Is the one type better than the other? That is, how much more difficult is it to maintain a salt tank compared to a fresh? We've been leaning towards the salt since a friend of mine said the salt tanks are not as hard to maintain now as they used to be. Also, salt fish are, to us, much more interesting than their freshwater counterparts to look at- more colourful, very intriguing shapes, etc. Any info would be appreciated. :thumbup: :D

Thanks,
Frank
 
While salt tanks are getting easier to setup they are also a bit more expensive than freshwater tanks. I have never setup a salt tank and mainly stay with freshwater. Only reason being is lack of experience. If you are new to aquariums a freshwater system may be easier and a bit cheaper to get started. Learn as much as you can about cycling the tank through the nitorgen/nitrate cycle as this is the trickiest part of getting a stable aquarium. I have a 45 gallon freshwater tank that never needs attendance except the gravel cleaning every 6-8 months. Otherwise ammonia levels, nitrites, nitrates, etc are all sustained by the ecosystem itself. Another tip for beginners is not to overfeed. When you are starting a new tank, don't get a ton of fish. Start with 1-2 hearty species and let the tank adjust and cycle. Then add more slowly over time. The worst thing is a smelly tank that repeatedly cycles due to constantly changes levels. It's almost easier to start over at that point. There is alot of info out there as well as online sites that have great deals on supplies, equipment, and even fish you can buy mailorder. Drs. Foster and Smith have a great site with free catalogs and excellent pricing. Good luck.
 
salt water tanks are very expensive to maintain,unless you do fish only.
and some of the fish can be quite expensive.
Acrylic tanks are prettier but scratch easily.
The lighting for marine rocks and inverts is expensive if you do it correctly.
expect to change bulbs in the lights twice a year.get some prices on the bulbs and you will see.My 186 gallon salt water tank averages about $240.00
a month,salt,additives,lights and not figuring in higher electric bill.
If you want to add more rocks $12.00 a pound or coral $30.00 a pound.
186 gallon tank w/ coral $15,000.00 over two years plus mainteance.The smaller the tank ,less money.$80.64 a gallon average on marine coral and rock
plus maintenance.Enjoy your fish better than TV.
 
I used to maintain both freshwater tanks and saltwater. I have to say both offer different challenges. I beg to disagree that salt water aquariums are more difficult to maintain than fresh water ones. Although it will be more expensive to maintain a salt water aquaria, owing to the fact that you will need more equipments like a chiller or heater (depending on the season, your room temp etc etc), protein skimmers, thermometer, ph meter to name a few. You will also need to do alot of research on the type of corals and fishes that goes best together, and that they belong to the same ecosystem etc. There are alot of materials you can obtain on this. Just do your home work before you invest on one.
 
You'll probably need a reverse osmosis setup too if you do salt water as you can eliminate some problems starting with highly filtered water.

I have done both salt and fresh. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would rate fresh water as a 1 in difficulty and salt as an 8. I would rate fresh as a 2 in cost and salt as a 9.

One constant is the more water you have per biomass (or the more gallons per fish) the easier your life with be. Remember - have lots of water and few fish!
 
if your anyplace near me you can have my 30 gal and stand with some of the fixing
im moving and could real part with it
im keeping the one filter but it had 2 so i think that just about every thing you would need to get base start on fresh water would be there
way i see it when i can set up a new tank i ll be going to "that pet place" thatpetplace.com i think in lancaster and having them build my tank in the wall no less the 500 gal will do
and yes its much better then the TV that is if things are set up right
 
I've never had a salt aquarium, I had a fresh water aquarium for over 20 years, I'd say that if it is your first it should be fresh water with easy to care strong and inexpensive fish such as Mollies or Neons, I suggest visiting a local shop to see what they have and recommend, after a while once you get the hang of it and feel comfortable doing the maintenance, etc. you can get something else.

Luis
 
Don Luis said:
I've never had a salt aquarium, I had a fresh water aquarium for over 20 years, I'd say that if it is your first it should be fresh water with easy to care strong and inexpensive fish such as Mollies or Neons, I suggest visiting a local shop to see what they have and recommend, after a while once you get the hang of it and feel comfortable doing the maintenance, etc. you can get something else.

Luis
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Mollies and Neons? They croak if you look at them too hard. :D I would suggest a Pleco catfish and maybe a zebra danio or two.

DO NOT use goldfish under any circumstances.

If you want to get super technical you can "dry cycle" the tank with no fish and bottled ammonia but it's tricky.
 
Guys, I have one word for you. CHEMISTRY! Please let us know what kind of water you have in your area. Here in Ohio, I've been keeping African Cichilds because of the high pH in the area 7.6 to 8.0, and is also very, very hard, which would also make great water for a salt water tank. I tried keeping some softwater, low pH South American Geophagus (Jurupari, beautiful fish with irredescent spots!) But it was such a pain in the rear that I gave up, even dropping the water down to pH 7.0 from our very hard water was a lot of work. I set the tank up at pH 6.0 for these guys.
geophagus-jurupari.jpg

I only WISH I lived in florida so I could keep Discus!
discus.jpg

Before I kept Africans, I kept a number of South Americans, all kinds,.... tetras, cichlids, catfish, you name it, in our hard water, and they don't seem to do as well. The African that I have NEVER seem to get sick! I find one dead once in a while, but no body fungus or slime. IMO, any fish's immune system just works 1000% better in their own environment. (and yes, I can 1000% because pH is exponential. ;) )
*****So, in my opinion, go with whatever kind of water you have. If you have softwater, do freshwater, if you have hardwater, go for the African or even Saltwater. IF YOU ATTEMPT TO BUILD A REEF TANK, READ LOTS OF INFORMATION, AND EXPECT TO HAVE YOUR TANK CRASH AT LEAST ONCE!
 
GFarrell3 said:
Mollies and Neons? They croak if you look at them too hard. :D I would suggest a Pleco catfish and maybe a zebra danio or two.

DO NOT use goldfish under any circumstances.

If you want to get super technical you can "dry cycle" the tank with no fish and bottled ammonia but it's tricky.
Click to expand...

The last Pleco I had started out about an inch and a half long and ended up about nine inches when I finally gave it away. Zebras were always a fixture in my fresh water aquaria - they school and swim side to side so they provide a lot of visual interest.

I always had a lot of tetras, too. Neons are cool but there are dozens of other types too and they are all "community friendly" fish. Once I made the mistake of putting a bunch of Tiger Barbs in my community tank. All the tetras disappeared and then the Barbs started disappearing too while one of the Barbs get getting bigger and bigger.

One more bit of advice for the beginner - water changes. Change out about 25% of your water every week. That's the only way to take impurities out. If you just keep adding water to compensate for the condensation, the level of impurities just keeps getting higher and higher. Some of the by-products of the nitrogen cycle make excellent fertilizer. If you leave it in your water you will grow a crop of algae, but if you take it out and replace it with fresh water you won't have that problem. When you take the water out, use it to water your plants or garden to take advantage of the free fertilizer.

I used to use a siphon to take the water out and I would "vacuum" the gravel while siphoning - catching two fish with one hook, so to speak.
 
African Cichlids are what I mainly have now. I had 2 South American species and they were doing well. In my smaller tank I have 2 more plecos and a Venustus juvenile. The pleco I got started at 5-6 inches and is about a foot long now. He's a monster. My large tank includes the monster pleco, a Johanni (vicious bastid), 2 large bala sharks, a zebra cichlid, convict, and a Hap, yellow w/black stripes. All are 5-6 inches or greater. I recommend starting them on Hikari cichlid pellets and moving up to krill for the maximum crude protein. It's like steroids for them. In 6 months they'll bulk out massively. Plecos love the Hikari food also so don't feel you have to give them just algae.

Also recommended is not to clean all the gravel at once. Do it in quarters.
 
GFarrell3 said:
African Cichlids are what I mainly have now. I had 2 South American species and they were doing well. In my smaller tank I have 2 more plecos and a Venustus juvenile. The pleco I got started at 5-6 inches and is about a foot long now. He's a monster. My large tank includes the monster pleco, a Johanni (vicious bastid), 2 large bala sharks, a zebra cichlid, convict, and a Hap, yellow w/black stripes. All are 5-6 inches or greater. I recommend starting them on Hikari cichlid pellets and moving up to krill for the maximum crude protein. It's like steroids for them. In 6 months they'll bulk out massively. Plecos love the Hikari food also so don't feel you have to give them just algae.

Also recommended is not to clean all the gravel at once. Do it in quarters.
Click to expand...

Do your cichlids molest the Plecostymus at all or do they leave the dinosaur alone? :)
 
Once in a while the zebra (alpha) busts his chops but mainly he's left alone. The worst culprit is the Johanni. Nasty temperment. He's from the wild and not farm raised however. The wilds I have gotten are always a bit more aggressive.

I'll take some pictures tonight and try to show some scale of their sizes. The Johanni is the smallest as of now.
 
...Chemistry...
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Yes of course, seems logical that different fish will be different in different regions, I of course used Mexico City water...

I had a Plecostomus for a while, they're cool, you can get a small one and it will grooow...

I don't plan to set up an aquarium again, but one that I enjoyed much was a small one with only neons (20 if I remember correctly), they move around all together, shinning in nice red and blue, they don't pollute much and are easy to care for.

I used to vacuum the gravel regularly much as mycroftt mentions, I had a simple floor filter (it brings the debris down and though the gravel, then vacuuming will get rid of much of it but leave enough to keep a balanced system), I varied feeding alternating various dry flakes with live food (artemia which is cheap and easy to find here), I did get some fungus disease several times but it was handled fine with tablets bought from the Japanese guy who kept the local shop.

Luis
 
Saltwater aquariums are more difficult to look after as sea fish wee in the water and are susceptible to ammonia poisoning. You need good filtration and a good tset kit. I kept tropical freshwater fish including piranha.

I was here on Sunday and they have a great tank. It might be a bit big for your house? The diver is cleaning the rocks with a pot brush.

aquarium.jpg
 
Some pics of the monster pleco (and others). I should have put a yardstick or ruler to give it some better perspective. The floating thermometer is roughly 3-4" if that helps.
fish006.jpg

fish005.jpg

fish004.jpg
 
Hey, folks.

Thanks for all your useful replies, and sorry for taking so long to get back. :barf:

We've decided against a sw tank for now, fw seems enough of a challenge for novices like us. The main thing I'd like is to get some fairly colorful fish, then I'll be happy. That was my main reason for wanting sw in the first place.

I'll be certain to take note of the info presented here, it'll be handy when setting up our tank, and I'll let you know how things work out.

Be well,
Frank :D
 
Hi Holger

You have eaten at the Mandarin by the side of the 410 then? We were seated in the room next door, so we just tipped the waiter. :)
 
Yup, that's the one we go to - even if it's a bit of a drive for us. We feel it has the best quality food of all the locations. Could be because the head office is located there? ;)
 
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