Salt water fish tanks......

[derwood]

I am just curious to know how many pepole besides me have both fresh and saltwater fish tanks.<br /><br />Derwood.

 

[gonfishn]

Re: Salt water fish tanks......

Musta missed oscar post DW..I got a 150 gal in the fresh world. Tried salt..to expensive what with fifty and up for some of them...Oscars and big ones are my inhabitants. Even got a little cement pond built in the back so i can walkem. Are you active or thinkn about it?

 

[Fishbusters]

Re: Salt water fish tanks......

Have freshwater tank and garden pond outside. We had a saltwater tank before we moved but in the move one of the tanks got broken and we decided we would keep the freshwater going and gave the s/w fish to a friend. We have been thinking about starting the S/W back up but we think we are going to do it like we did at the start all local fish caught by ourselves. We used to have mudminnows, mulett, anomenes, mollies, sea robins and a couple others I could not ID. While at the beach a couple weekends ago I caught two fish that look like some sort of angelfish but were only an inch long. The were swimming around me like a pair nipping at me as I was wading a lagoon fishing. I have yet to check my ID book but I bet they are not in it anyway. This just added fuel to the fire of wanting to restart a S/W.

 

[SCO]

Re: Salt water fish tanks......

I just bought a 30 gal tank for son and filled with mollys, tetras , guppies, etc. He wants a salt water tank too. I am pretty close to salt water, so is all I have to do is to scoop it up, aerate it and catch some mud minnows? Since the salt doesn't evaporate, can you top off to replace evaporated water with distilled? Weve got sargasso seaweed coming in right now. There are always a lot of great looking creatures in that stuff.

 

[CalicoKid]

Re: Salt water fish tanks......

I have a freshwater with a couple of Pumkinseeds attempting to spawn!

 

[NathanY]

Re: Salt water fish tanks......

150 gallons? Can I go fishing in that?

 

[Scoop]

Re: Salt water fish tanks......

I have a freshwater tank. It got an infestation of some red algae. The fish did not die, but it is fibrous and locks all the gravel and everything else together. Cleaning the tank makes it grow. I tried removing the fish and bleaching the whole tank setup, but that did not help either. Once all the fish are dead, I will probably start with a whole new setup. The tank was great before that.

 

[ob]

Re: Salt water fish tanks......

Scoop, what you describe is caused by a gram positive bacterial infestation of the substrate.It is indicative of uneaten food particulates and poor water movement and or insufficient mechanical filtration.Thers's an old adage that states to feed your fish and not your tank.Remember that all uneaten food decays forming amonia which is food for this particular bacteria.Use one fresh water Maracyn tablet per 10 gallons of water and it should allieviate your symptom.Also increasing the tanks water circulation works wonders after treatment.ie powerheads on the undergravel filter lift tubes.Hopefully you are also running a mechanical filter of some type.Hang on waterfall or canister type.<br /><br />I owned and operated a "marine only aquarium store" for 6 years.Been in the hobby for decades.

 

[gonfishn]

Re: Salt water fish tanks......

Beat me to it OB...temp levels can contribute to problems to..do you have any scavs in tank..Don't know about the red but they keep the green down in mine..

 

[snapperbait]

Re: Salt water fish tanks......

I have a freshwater tank (20 gal.) full of somekind of guppies, or neon tetras, or something to that effect... I dunno.. <br /><br /> I've had thoughts of starting a saltwater tank but I don't know the basics on the upkeep of the saltwater... Anybody got recomendations? Maybe the title of a a good book that covers the basics of saltwater tanks?

 

[ob]

Re: Salt water fish tanks......

snapperbait,First off I wouldn't recommend a tank smaller than say 30 gallons to start.Bigger is better.Most saltwater basic fish tanks once they have gone through the initial nitrogen cycle of around six weeks with break-in specimens require a 10-15% water change every 2 weeks to boost trace elements and remove ever increasing nitrate levels.There are synthetic salt mixes readily available for aquarium keepers.You'll need some basic monitoring tools for the upkeep of your tank to include a hydrometer for montoring specific gravity,a gravel syphon tube for conducting water changes,a suitable plastic bucket for mixing salt water to match the gravity of the tank water,a salt water ph test kit,a nitrite test kit,and a nitrate test kit.Is it getting complicated yet?Not really ,these things will quickly become old hat.Remember that a salt water tank will require substantial water movement through the use of powerheads connected to the lift tubes of the undergravel filter,a properly sized mechanical filter,and the use of either a protien skimmer and or one of the lift tubes driven by air to prevent the buildup of carbonic acid which depletes the ph level below 8.2 and also to add dissolved oxygen to the tank water..8.3 ph is ideal for marine aquaria.Also the subsrtate or gravel of a marine fish tank requires the use of crushed coral or dolomite as it keeps the ph buffered preventing it from becoming too low.These are just a few basics and by no means covers the entire scope of a succesful marine fish tank.Finding a reputable and helpful marine fish retailer will be your next and probably most important search once you have decided to begin a salt water aquarium.Read all you can and avoid enticing specimens that a beginner should not attempt keeping until they have had more experience in the hobby.Here's one good starter book that I use to sell to beginning aquarist that is not too comprehensive nor too basic.It is distributed by Tetra and is titled "Marine Aquarist Manual Comprehensive Edition."Good luck

 

[derwood]

Re: Salt water fish tanks......

Howdy Gents.<br /><br />OB Is correct....There are a bunch of diffrent ways to go about a Marine fish tank....no one will ever agree on the best way....I have found that as long as you follow some basic rules you will be ok.<br /><br />First you have to understand that a marine fish tank is alive....all parts of it have to be treated like a fish.<br /><br />The filter is alive, the substrait(sand,crushed coral....whatever the bottom is made of) is alive, the water is alive and all of it needs the other to live.<br /><br />The more stable the water quality....be it good water or bad water conditions....the better off you will fair with the tank....sounds funny don't it.<br /><br />Fish can adapt to poor water quality for short times as long as it does'nt go from good to bad fast....or see sawing back and forth between good and bad 3 or 4 times a month....witch can happen for as many reasons as stars in the sky.<br /><br />Some of my favorite tanks are 10 gallon marine tanks....heres the trick....10 gallons of tank 30 gallons of sump (a sump is a salt water filter that goes under the tank inside the stand....a world in its own).<br /><br />The more water you have the slower changes take place inside your tank and the more buffer time you have to fix the problem while the fish go about their buisness without stressing out.<br /><br />You must be mindful of the dark side.....don't take your credit card with you when you go to " buy some fish for the tank"....<br /><br />If you buy too much stuff for the tank at once you will overload the liveing filter and as your amonia level goes up the fish population will go down till you give up and say you can't keep a marine tank....witch is B.S.<br /><br />Get a marine aqurium book and plan it out....then after you have it awhile you will want to do your own thing.<br /><br />Go with marine fish or with marine non fish (invertabrets like anenomes, coral, shrimp, slugs.....and certian fish {clownfish are my favorite and I have more than one kind}).....<br /><br />If it has teeth it eats something elese you paid money for....Be carful what you wish for....it might get it instead of you!<br /><br />If you get a marine aqurium you have alot of neat stuff you can choose from (carefuly)and you won't be disapointed if you are sucsessful.<br /><br />Derwood.

 

[ob]

Re: Salt water fish tanks......

Derwood is also correct.Easy to spot an aquarist that has been at it a while and done his homework.No mystery about successful saltwater fish keeping or even graduating to reef tank keeping.Just an understanding of a few basic set-up and equipment guidelines and some knowledge about the biology of the tank and its inhabitants.I assume the undertank sump that Derwood is refering to is what is often called a Wet/Dry biologigal filter.This is a device that usually contains some sort of porous media that is either completely or partially submerged with water that is constantly syphoned from the aquarium ,disributed over its substrate,and then pumped back to the aquarium.This allows the aqariums water to be passed through the media within this system where its waste products are broken down into a non toxic state by the nitrifying bacteria that is teeming within it.The aquarium develops the numbers of these "beneficial bacteria" in direct proportion to the amount of waste produced by the tanks inhabitants.It is for this reason why one should exercise caution not to add an abundance of fish or marine load to a recently cycled sysytem before these bacteria have had a chance to multiply enough to accomodate the added waste.<br /><br />For all practical purposes consider your tank and its water volume as a miniature Pacific ocean.An uneaten scrap of food or a dead inhabitant the size of a penny is equivelant to a decaying piece of matter the size of a city in proportion to the water volume.Most marine fish will not tolerate high levels of amonia or nitrite which is formed by fish waste and food particulates decaying.Some will.These in the marine trade are refered to as suitable "break in" fish.Select a quantity of these specimens(ie damselfish)as your first inhabitants until your bacteria bed is established.They will be able to tolerate the otherwise deadly levels of amonia and nitrites that a newly set-up tank will experience for the first six weeks or so .<br /><br />Stocking levels in a marine tank are also proprtionally much heavier per water volume than you will experience in nature which is also a good reason to be a careful handed feeder and a selector of fish that will be teritorily compatible in close proximity.This is where the experience and a good helpful retailer will come into play.Assisting you with some of the definate does and don'ts and apprising one of some of the shady areas of the maybes and sometimes.Case in point ,I once owned a Large clown trigger fish that would virtually kill aything that was put in the tank except the one red banded cleaner shrimp that he grew up with and used as his daily back scrather.Trust me , in most cases if a shrimp was later added to the tank it would be consumed before reaching the bottom and all the aquarist would be left with was a 24 dollar puff of smoke.<br /><br />Buy yourself a good book and do some reading and ask questions to your local retailer and other hobbyists and you'll find that operating a marine aquarium will be a gratifying hobby that will surely become a conversation piece for your family and friends alike.

 

[DJ]

Re: Salt water fish tanks......

Derwood,<br /><br />Great advice!!! About the simplist explanation I've heard.<br /><br />Why am I not surprised you take a liking to "Clownfish".

 

[snapperbait]

Re: Salt water fish tanks......

Wow! Ob and Derwood, great advice... Thank you... You guys have helped peak my interest, but I must wait for a while because my living accomadations may be changing in the next few months to a year... So the marine tank may have to wait for a while... In the mean time I'll do my "homework" on the subject...

 

[Scoop]

Re: Salt water fish tanks......

Thanks for the advice OB. When I started the setup (actually it is my sons) there was a great store with hugely knowledgable owner that was of great help. Unfortunately he was not a great business manager and had to sell the business. They were of no help.<br /><br />On the tank itself. It is 35 gallon with an underwater gravel filter powered by two power heads. I also have an Empire hang-on water filter. It does make sense that there is too much food getting into the system. I don't know how many times over the years that my wife and I have tried to instruct my son on how to feed his fish. He has been at 6 years since the age of 5. I will give the maracyn tablets a try along with a copy of your post to my son so he understands better how overfeeding can affect the tank.<br />Thanks again for the help.