Salt Water Aquarium??

Okay, I know fish are not generally thought of as pets . . . but does anyone here have a saltwater tank? I have some ????????

You do?

Back in prehistoric times I had a saltwater tank and MAN was that a lot of work!!!!

Maybe it's easier now. :)

No, True, I don't have a saltwater tank . . . I have a 110 gallon freshwater tank at home and a 55 gallon freshwater at my office. I'm thinking of converting my tank at home to salt water and have lots and lots of questions.

I am thinking of getting one of those 24 gallon self-contained nano tanks to play with the salt water concept first tho, before I go whole hog and get rid of what's in my tank now and do a convert.

I don't find the fresh water tank that much work . . . in fact when I am doing the maintenance, I find it kind of therapudic . . . but the salt water looks like waaaay more work and equipment than I now have to deal with . . . maybe that's just because it's new to me?

Well don't go by me. Since then I've gotten to this weird place where I don't think it's humane to have fish in a tank.

I do love to eat 'em though! :D

Well, I imagine my well-fed, fat Oscars and Jack Dempseys might beg to differ with you.:D I would argue, that by being in a well-maintained tank, they are living a much better life than they would in the wild . . . for one thing, they don't have to worry about being prey for the bigger fish and they get fed on a regular basis.

On the whole, I think my fish are probably pretty happy fellows! :p

I have been keeping fish for roughly 50 years and also do outside water gardening which I find very easy and rewarding. Years ago I kept saltwater fish but I then got interested in native species,which I presently keep and collect.

Saltwater is not harder, in fact easier to maintain once the tank is established. Place in the coral and let the algae grow scraping only the front glass. Modern UV sterilizers and RBC filters have almost eliminated the need for water changes. Modern salt mixes are much better than the old ones.

Saltwater used to be much more difficult. Scientific approaches developed in Germany have advanced the hobby greatly. It was found that not just the salinity of the water was important but also the numerous trace elements found in sea water were necessary to maintain health in many species if fish and inverebrates. Modern mixes copy sea water very closely. Modern filtration removes ammonia and nitrates. After the initial investment the hobby is easy and rewarding.

Set the tank up for a month,leave the light on to get the algae started and add a dead fish to get the biological filter started. Mixes are also sold to do this. Start off with cheap fish such as Dominoes and Damsels. As a rule of thumb,the cheaper the fish the hardier they are. Do not blow a lot of big money on expensive fish in the beginning.

Since you like Oscars and Jack Dempseys you might like Groupers,their equivalent saltwater counterpart. I had a beautiful spotted one that was so tame he liked to be petted.

I used to keep and bred all kinds of Chiclids including Dempseys and Oscars. Their native counterpart are common sunfish and bass ,very interesting in an aquarium. My favorite native fish was the Alligator Gar a long pencil shaped type fish.

Dale

awww... I wish I could start a saltwater tank cause they are decorative!

I don't have any aquarium at home, but we have a petty big one at work that I started up for one of our pasients... and it is a LOT of work trying to keep it running since there is so may people who feed and "take care" of the tank.
Sometimes the light can be left on for days and other times it does not get turnes on at all... :(
I have been thinking about gettting a timer for it, but that really wouldn't work to well since the tank is in the pasients room and she likes to turn on and off the light when she feels like herself and the actually works pretty well... but she isn't always home and the rest of the staff tend to "forget" about it.
I don't know how many times i have had to take care of a poison green tank after been away on vacation. :mad:
If anyone has a tip on how to deal with that I would be very greatful, even though I haven't had that in over a year... and things have been pretty stabil.

Anyways... I found a lot of help on a forum for Aquarium enthusaists, if you do a search I'm sure that you can find one in english (mine is in Norwegian ;))
I found that the people that sells you the aquariums and the fish from the stores don't know that much about it, but the people that are on thouse forums have a lot of knowlage...

I'm getting a tank at home when I have the money and the time for it... but for now I get to learn from the one we have at work.

ohhh and post pics of the tank when you have it up and running. *smile*

Mrs Jazz

Green water by inself is not poisonous to fish. The cause is excessive light and too many nitrates in the water. In my experience the light can be left on continuously and not harm the fish. If you have green water however and eliminate the light source the algae will die and bacteria will grow which will turn the water yellow and acidic, depleting oxygen and kill the fish,.
When the light is off photosynthesis is reversed and plant emit CO2 instead of Oxygen. The fish will quickly adjust to the light being on continuously.

The most common mistake made in aquarium keeping is over feeding. Feed once to a few times a day depending on the fish but only as much as the fish can consume in a few minutes. A hungry fish is a healthy fish.

For freshwater if you maintain the filter and syphon off and replace 10-20% of the water weekly you probably will never have a problem. Filters with extra compartments to add Ammocarb are excellent as this actually removes ammonia.

For saltwater water changes are inconvienient and expensive since you have to mix replacement salt water. Modern filters have minimized need for water changes. Algae on coral and glass sides are actually beneficial and some organisms feed off of it. If the water itself is green then you have a problem as the tank is not balanced. Overfeeding and undelt with fish waste have feed bacteria in the tank. Stop the overfeeding and mix up some sea water mix in gallon jugs,letting it sit a few days,this allows chlorine and flourine to escape. (leave the jugs unsealed). Every week syphon off 2 gallons from the tank bottom sucking up the bottom crud and replace it with the bottled mix. Maintain the filter as recommended in the manual and the tank should balance itself after a while.

One last thing. Do not use any of the bottled remedies for fish diseases or algae killers. In the long run these are counterproductive.

Dale

Believe it or not I had a custom made square (sat on a marble pedestal, all the equipment was under the pedestal, on the middle of a stairs, open space on each side from an upper floor going to a lower floor, hard to describe, if I find a pic I will try to post it) 250 gallons salt water aquarium. It was so hard to take care of, I ended up having it service on weekly basis, and even for the expert it has very hard to maintain. The fish (which are very expensive) would die all the time. My house had lots of open space and lots of light coming in, which it was not good for the algae.

I do not recommend a big salt water tank. It is beautiful, but the work is overburden!

Good luck though! :)

Thanks Dale for your advice. Although I'm kinda backing off the saltwater for now. Just did a good bit of maintenance on my office tank tonight and it looks good.

JT, I have joined several forums and even tho they are informative, they have as many opinions on how to go as they have members . . . kinda like all the differing opinions we have here! And Dallas has an incredible fish store that I frequent where the people who work there are all very knowledgeable and helpful . . . they haven't led me wrong yet on my current tanks.

Rosa, I can't speak to saltwater since I have never had one, but with fresh water, the larger the tank the less work it is in my experience. The larger the tank, the easier it is to get it biologically correct.

I think I'm gonna just sit back and keep what I have. I have even abandoned the idea of getting a small self-contained reef tank to play with because I initially was going to put it in my office. But we got new aircondtioning units at the office, and they have decided the thing to do is turn them off at night and on weekends!:mad: Went in one Monday before I knew they were doing that and am lucky I didn't have stewed fish! :eek: So I had to buy a $400 chiller for my 55-gal at the office to keep the temperature level. I am not going to buy another chiller in order to have another small tank in there, so have decided to just be happy with what I have.

Thank y'all for your input. :)


.