School me on saltwater aquariums.

[churchy]

I am thinking about setting up a saltwater aquarium. The last thing I need is another pain in the ass thing to take care of. So, how much work are they really? I have been told that once you set a big one up, they are low maint. What can you all tell me about them? Recommendations on what to get/do? Live rock or reef? Thanks.

[jt09]

they are a total pain in the ass for the first year or two. after that, they take next to nothing on a weekly basis.

live rock is reef, not "or". a better question is "reef" or aggressive fish? agressive = easier.

got to go to a lunch meeting, but i'll be back to help you out later.

[churchy]

[lcap]

Not any more time consuming than fresh water. For water changes just buy a large container to mix the salt and water with and to heat up before draining down the tank.

Don't skimp on the filters and light setup though. It'll cost you but the health and colors of the fish are well worth it.

[J-Ro]

[Tbonez]

Constant mess, constant work, constant worry and a constant drain on the wallet...

[lcap]

[J-Ro]

[lcap]

J-Ro,

Perhaps I've been lucky at something thing for ten years or its a matter of perception on what a "pain in the ass is." Only thing that almost killed one of the aquariums was a party my roommate had. So much dope smoke you couldn't see across the room.

Normally the hobby goes in stages. Goldfish -> Oscars-->Piranha-->Cichlids-->Exotics-->Saltwater Fish--Saltwater Reef Tanks.

Not much difference in a tank setup for freshwater exotics vs. salt. Few more timers for lighting (dawn, daylight, twilight) and some salt. You can do yourself a favor to reduce the costs of fish/coral by shopping somewhere they don't know what they have or go to work at one so you get an employee discount.

I've never seen someone go from Goldfish--->Salt so I skipped the obligatory "it's too difficult, it's so much work, it's so much money, blah, blah, blah.

But whatever

[holdsworth]

Just go basic with it. Everyone else can argue, I'll recommend this:

[jt09]

[warwagon]

only thing i do to mine is feed the dudes and change the water. key to setting one up is making sure your rock is cured before you start tossing fish in. I have done 1 water change on mine in the past year. I even have a rock with some pretty big mushrooms on it. I have a 47 gallon with 60lbs of rock, UV sterilizer, emperor 280 filter and power compact light. Fish include 2 clowns, yellow belly blue hippo tang, and 2 blennies

[jt09]

not to jump into the battle, but lcap couldn't be more wrong.

i've had my fowlr (fish only w/ live rock) for 10 years now. took me about 3 years and umpteen dead fish to get everything right. people (like me) jump into the hobby and think they can learn as they go, which they can....but it's expensive and not much fun. my advice is to go to

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/index.php?s=af6504d50e1cc5ddd27d8de6f8fe1918

and start poking around. try to find a boise, idaho group. find someone local who can help you out. there's groups of enthusiasts all over that meet once a month, trade frags (coral fragments), help w/ tips, brag about their new protein skimmer or uv light setup. they are the people who you really want to get advice from.

just for fun, here's my setup:

46 gal bowfront, ~20ish sump down below. 65lbs of live rock, 3-4" of live sand. i think right now i've got a clown, lemonpeel tang, a couple of shrimp (1 cleaner and 1 peppermint), couple of engineering type gobies - one's a lawnmower. couple of crabs and snails. need to do a big water change, rock restructure, glass clean soon and then add a couple new fishes. really need to get rid of the cleaner shrimp and lemonpeel tang - both are too big for the type of fish i want in there and are way too damn dominant/alpha. they gots to go.

[jt09]

[Commodore]

All I know is I watched my buddy work on setting his up for a long damn time. Getting the Ph right, and temp right, and salinity, etc. Yeah I love a project, but no way I could put up with this one.

I would love to have one though.

[jt09]

if he had to work that hard to get those things right, he was doing something very wrong.

those things are pretty easy to get down. shouldn't take more than a couple of days.

[ontrider]

jt09, I've gone back and forth with the idea of setting up an aquarium in my house... what do you think is the best low-maintenance option? (freshwater) And I don't want a goldfish bowl but I'm more like haugy, in the fact that I don't want to spend hours on it... more of a decorative thing then me getting all kinds of crazy fish.

[E.J.]

Get what you want....pay someone to maintain it. FTMFW!

[churchy]

Really on the fence here... I don't think I want another chore. I just emailed a buddy, and he has 5K into his... don't really want to drop that kind of coin.

[jt09]

ontrider, freshwater cichlid tank, imo. there's a learning curve w/ them as well, but the fact that you don't have to worry about the salt is huge, imo.

i don't know a TON about them, but they are incredibly interesting social animals. there's a lot of monitoring you have to do to make sure they aren't killing each other. which species can go w/ which, how many fish in a tank? overcrowd or go super light...overcrowd, imo - but you need to learn HOW to overcrowd w/ them so you don't f things up.

cichlids are cool because of 2 things - great colors and personality.

[jt09]

churchy, $5K easy if you want to do it right. easy. it might be $2-3K upfront, but that learning curve is EXPENSIVE. you WILL kill fish. you WILL break things. it's just part of the hobby.

i can't wait until i can upgrade to a 180-200g tank w/ high power lights, corals, all that cool stuff. I'll need about $6-8K to really do what I want.

[J-Ro]

ontrider, Get an Eclipse setup. Everything is in one nice neat package. That is what I used for my last saltwater setup. Not a fan of the jumbled equipment look.

Like JT says, most of the "Cool" fish like Tangs, most angels, triggers, etc need at least 50+ gallons. If you do go that big, get a lot of LR to help with filtration but don't bother with coral as most of those fish will eat something you put in. Or you could do what JT says and keep anything porous out (Sand and rock) so it is easier to clean since those are dirty fish....mmmm detritus.

jt09, Not to be a d!ck but that is a lemonpeal angel. They are super cool and one of the few pigmy angels. Pigmys are cool because you don't need a big tank. Nice setup BTW.

[ontrider]

I will check those out for sure. I'm hoping the learning curve isn't too bad, I did have an aquarium maybe 15 years ago over about a 5 year period with goldfish, angelfish, guppies, tigerfish or something... I don't remember exactly what kinds, but a good amount and learned all those nice things like who is eating who and shouldn't be in the tank. I'm really thinking something that I wouldn't have to clean a ton or very frequently - as churcy said, I don't really want another chore to do... so salt for me is defintiely out. Also definitely don't want to drop 5K into a tank.

Sorry, I should add that waht I'm really looking to do is a wall mounted aquarium if that makes any difference. I was thinking the aquarium could sit flush on the wall and be accessible through an unfinished storage room and sit on a base or something... or am I better to get a special wall unit or are they more expensive?

Sorry for all the questions... I know nothing about these.

[jt09]

churchy, will you post some of those links that said reef or live rock? i'm curious about those. wonder if i'm missing something.

[J-Ro]

ontrider, Oops I meant Nanocube. They come in 5, 12, 27 gallon varieties.

Cichlids are cool and it is pretty easy to find out which are aggressive and which aren't. Frontosas are neat and I may set up a little colony of those for my kid.

Oh and with Salt don't forget that water quality is huge. If you mix yourself make sure you use IO or DI water and you use high quality salt mix. I just bought my water pre-mixed from the store.

[jt09]

[Wakebrad]

I've always wanted a salt tank. For me fresh wouldn't even be worth it. I would need something that was exactly what I wanted for it to be worth the amount of work I would put into it. That would mean a massive tank built-in to my house in a very visible place somewhere. I've seen ones underneath stairs that I liked a lot, or one that would be in the wall that separates the dining room or something.

My house right now is not built for it so I'll have to wait.

[jt09]

if you guys want to see some incredible tanks, check out this link.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/subject/totm.php?s=172ebe41227e2b4797803af50f38d578&menu=15

skip october and start w/ september.

for those who want to say it's not a lot of work, here's some pics from the sep totm:

super sick 200g reef


System Water Volume: ~205 gallons
Main Tank: 180 gallons - estimate 110-gallons volume
Sump: 100 gallons - estimate 70-gallons volume
Refugium: 55 gallons - estimate 25-gallons volume
Skimmer: ASM G-5
Return Pump: Mag 18
Water Movement: Two Tunze 6060, one Tunze 6100 and one modded maxi-jet
Lighting (display): Two 175 watt 15,000K Iwasaki, Two 175 watt Ushio 10,000K, three 60" VHO Actintic, and two 60" T-5 ATI Blue Plus on Icecap 660
Lighting (refugium):Two Lights of Americia 65 watt Flood lights.(rated at 500 watt output)
Cooling:Rancho Dual temp controller with 2-500 watt titanium heaters with 20 inch box fan on the cooling circut.(Fan never runs) Room temperture controled with portable AC/Dehumidifier vented out basement window.
Calcium Reactor: DIY, holds est. 25 lbs of coarse media.
Misc: DIY Kalk Reactor, pH monitor, Ozone fed into skimmer controlled with Milwaukee controller
Water: RO/DI water, dual 75 membranes and dual DI. Water stored in Brute trash can. Waste water stored in dual trash cans used for laundry

his water setup/storage system:


his heating / cooling system:

[Wakebrad]

jt09, wow, that's impressive. far more complex than I would have ever imagined.

eeeehh, maybe I'll wait until I can pay someone to setup and maintain that crap for me haha.

[churchy]

[ontrider]

Ahhh, perfect. This is roughly what I want to do. This shouldn't be too hard right?

[5280HighButter]

Yes it's time consuming until you have it right (then ironically you have to move and everything has to be redone F). When it is almost self sustaining it is easy, but getting it there is not. So listen when I say go with as big of a tank as you can. Get good lights because you will want them eventually, just go halide or T5 and be done with it. Do not skimp on filtration, a skimmer is a must IMO. Live rock is a must, preferably cultured with copepods (SP?) etc, if it isn't you can buy these little guys online. Go with sand as well, a rocky substrate on the bottom will harbour nitrates in the long run. Use macro algae in a sump.

So go big with equipment but start slow when it comes to adding fish/inverts/corals etc, you will save money this way. It is a fun hobby but it is expensive if you are constantly fighting micro algae, starting right will help you get over this hump. Oh and chemistry is a big part so get it right, good luck

Oh and on the Eclipse tank, no, I know from experience they suck. It can be done (I did it for a year) but it took 3 tough years to get it there. And when it gets tough you will want to upgrade things and then it gets expensive retrofitting that tank becasue the filtration is in the hood. So start right and don't look back, I would say at a min a 55 gal. And someone mentioned RO,DI h20, this is probably the most important part of it all because if you introduce impurities into your tank at the beginning then you are done for.

[jt09]

^^^^ yup

[lcap]

^^^^yup

^^^^yup

and further up the line ^^^^yup

My kids think taking out the trash is a pain in the ass. Aquariums are a hobby, if you like them, the maintenance is not a pain in the ass.

The books on the subject are usually authored by or paid for by the companies who make lights, filters, timers, etc. Of course they make it sound complicated, they want you to go over the top and shell for their equipment. Go to a reputable store and see what their fish look like. Establish a relationship with the people--it is a hobby so you'll be back plenty. They will steer you in the right direction. If they try and sell you a designer "hex" tank, run. Surface area of any tank--salt or fresh is critical.

I could automate my swimming pool, so what? I've put in commercial systems that analyze the water quality and dose the pool at precisely the right time. It costs a fortune but I can take a five minute job once a week and automate it to remove any doubt. Same goes for an aquarium.

You can fuss and fret from now until the end of time and attempt to replicate mother nature with every conceivable gadget made for a tank. You can so far as to buy pre-made salt water.

Or you can buy the system, toss in some mollies to cycle the tank and replace them with cheap salt water fish and go from there. Not too damn difficult. It is a learning process, but a fun one until you go on vacation.

[churchy]