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This is my first blog and until a week ago I didnt even know what a blog was so please bear with me!
When I first started in venturing into fish care, my first tank was a 1/2 gallon bowl with a 3 inch goldfish in it. I was so excited about it. Now I refer to it as my personal torture chamber and feel bad for “flipper” the goldfish. After about 5 years of housing freshwater fish I started to look for the next big thing in the aquatic world. To me that was saltwater. How I started was I went to the lfs and looked at there setup. Then wrote down the setup that they had. Then I tried to replicate it in my own tank. I started with a 40 gallon tank, a undergravel filter, a few cool looking ornaments, white gravel and a heater. I gave the tank about 3 days before I just couldnt wait any longer to add my fish. I went back to the lfs and bought a yellow tang, a coral beauty, a niger trigger, and some mushroom corrals. Well the yellow tang and the corral beauty ate my corrals with in about 2 days and the day after that the trigger ate the tang and the corral beauty. I cleaned up the tank, basicly a water change and added salt. and a few days later my trigger was dead. I thought to my self how did this happen I have had fish with very little problem for 5 years now. Well after I did some research on saltwater fish. I learned about protien skimmers, trace elements, the need for calcium, proper lighting, and the all important live rock. I basicly spent another 3 month just doing research. When I tried again I made sure I had the live rock, the right lighting, protien skimmer, live sand and all the proper necessities of saltwater. While the tank was “cycling” for a month, I researched fish and compatabilities. I have been caring for saltwater fish for 10 years now and I still learn something new everyday.
The moral of the story here is if you want to get into saltwater please don’t treat it like a freshwater tank with salt. A freshwater Is challenging in its own respect but when your looking at saltwater you have so more variable and more sensitive fish. I’ve been seeing alot of post on saltwater tanks lately and have been getting alot of question about it in my store, It is a great and exciting venture, but if you start it how I did you will waste alot of money. Research before you test, is the way to start out any new venture.
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Very well said. Thank you for sharing.
A first post, but an excellent one…. :-)
BTW, I fancied for a long time to start a salt water tank, and eventually decided to skip it… Well till now anyway… :-D Quick question - the fish are amazing, but I have never found an equivalent to the fresh water rich and heavy plantation, something that would give the aquarium a “native look”, is there such a thing?
This will be a very interesting blog!
I spent a little time thinking about the response to admin’s question before answering. Unfortunatly the look for a reef tank is alittle more sparse than a planted freshwater tank, but I guess you mainly supliment the heavy planting for the vibrant colors. Also its alittle more challenging to plan out the look of a reef tank because some variety of corrals move on there own accord. I hope that this helps with the question but if not then I can try again. :)
I saw somewhere that you can buy actual plants (not corals) for SW. Have you tried those? Like admin, I would really love to start a SW tank but money is just the factor. Being around tanks for so long now, I feel that I must do everything correct the first time. There isn’t much use in buying something twice, make it correct the first time.
How much roughly do you think that you spent and on what size tank. I know the bigger the better because of the fluctuations in water perameters.
it all depents on if you want a reef tank or a fish only tank the prices are much differant to do a 55 gallon reef I would budget about 700-900. Honestly I have not tried them I will actually be looking into that tomorow to see what its all about. and yes always the begger the better!!
http://liveaquaria.com/product/aquarium-fish-supplies.cfm?c=490
This is where I saw marine plants. I use this site for a lot, it gives you detail of fish and pretty much anything. They always have specials on reef cleaner packages.
Thanks for the lead, I’ll check it out :-)
I placed and order for some of the marine plants. I honestly didnt know about them. Thanks for the lead. I’ll post when i get them and keep you guys posted on how they work out
Thats cool, let us all know how that turns out. I was interested in those plants, although I do not have a SW tank. Glad I could help with the link, thats what I’m pretty good at when I’m bored.
being your first blog, it is up to mark with all the necessary information compiled and presented properly. well done by sharing it with us.
Just to keep every one posted I got the plants the other day and they are actually really cool looking. im setting them up in there own tank so I can get them to hoepfully grow and I can easally track there progress. They seemed to arrive in pretty good condition too!! I,m hoping to get a digital camera sometime soon so I’ll hopefully be able to do some pictures. I’ll post more when I know more!!