I've just kicked off a couple of small saltwater tanks and so far havent run into any problems as yet(3 weeks plus).I am surprised at the hardiness of some of the marine fish and thought that the first couple of weeks would have been much harder.
I would like people who have kept marines or are still keeping them, to just share some of their experiences, good or bad, with the rest of us. Also the type of setups and equipment they have used.
It would be good to take some of the mystery out of keeping Marines.
Ps: I've decided to put a photo link here, save having to read all the way through. Its Google Web Albums, seems pretty cool so far.
This is my tank after 1 month. Hit the slideshow, nice touch.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Theobar/MarineTank
Theo
summer time is lots of fun
the heat was killing my corals and fish so i bought a chiller for my marine tank. all the chiller did was make the water in the tank cool and the rest of my house hot. so i bought an air con for the house.
now the chiller heats the air in the room and the air con cools the room and all I end up with is a big electricty bill.
I might be a bit Irish but why wouldn't you just aircon the house to be cooler?
Cary
true caryb but the cost of aircon with install is about twice the price of an average chiller.
But my fish would get really pissed off with me if I jumped in with them on a hot day 8O
Sorry for hijacking your post Theo.
C 8O ry
I kept a marine tank up and running for about 2 years untill we moved house.
If your keeping fish only, its no harder than keeping cichlids.
If you want to keep a reef tank corals + anemones etc and have them live a long time it can get a bit more envoled with adding and keeping a constant supply of all the different nutrients and trace elements.
But like most things it can be as hard or as easy as your prepared to make it.
I just used collected seawater from the seaway on the incoming tide and had no problems, but I only kept fish and some soft corals, not a full blown reef tank like some that you see.
Most important thing in my opinion is the temperature, gotta keep em cool.
The worst thing is the salt creep, gets on anything and everything :evil:
Masa is a great site if you havent allreaqdy joined.HTH :)
The room mine are in is aircondioned, so hopefully heat wont be too much of a problem.
As well as Damsels and Clowns, I've got an Anemone, Mushrooms and Zoo's just to make life a bit more difficult, but so far everything is going well. Even bought a "Lawmower" today.
I hope a few more people can share their experiences, I'm sure there a lot of people wanting to have a go at marine, but are a bit worried about jumping in.
At least so far, I'm finding it easier than I thought, and I'm not using very expensive equipment. I'm actually using filters I had from freswater and so far they seem to be working.
Theo
yer just make sure the impeller shafts are ceramic and not metal...
but you allready knew that
No I didnt, forgot. :oops:
Theo
Well well well... I have a dredful story of my start to marine aquariums..
I bought a second hand marine tank which was all set up with about 5kg of live rock. I got it home half filled it noticed a crack, started to unfil it when BANG water went everywhere. I had a quarantine tank so i put the rock in that with a heater light and power head (this all came with the tank). I then a few weeks later bought a new tank cabinet and hood.. got them to deliver it and then filled it let it sit for a day transfered the rock and the 1 damsel i put in the quarantine tank just for the hell of having a fish (it was only $6.90 wasnt too fussed). Then the very next day the carpet and stand was saturated.. this tank too was leaking. Rang the LFS to get them to come and get it which they did. They took all the stock and re-sealed the whole tank. We got it back with less live rock then we sent and when we went to pick up the 'remainder' at the store, we found that they had sold our live rock. They had also sold 2 of the hermit crabs and both snails we got back were dead!!! So they ordered in new stock and so far everything had gone well. It was all pretty self sufficient no cycling because this was all well and truely done.
New rock was picked up last week. I strongly questioned whether this should be placed in quarantine or whether it was cured as i had an anemone and a star fish and i didnt want any spikes in ammonium or nitrates to hurt them.. I was assured that they had been cured and i may get a very small reading from dye-off during travel. I placed in the tank did a water check the next day to find i had an ammonium spike. Then i have been doing water changes every few days (I go to the beach for this) and i also been checking parameters everyday to try adn get this right.. but i unfortunately lost the star fish, guess he couldnt cope with it.. So this is my terrible start to marine tanks but overall they are very rewarding and beautiful tanks completely different to fresh water. I'm glad i have kept persistent but i wanted to sell it all and pack up after the second leak..
I have been doing a marine for just on a week. so far more successfully then my tetra/discus tank :s :oops:
Lol hey Rusty.. you look familiar from another forum hhmmmmm lol. I wont ask what happened with your fresh water tank.. but i believe bad luck comes in 3's and luckily mine happened all at once.
Hey Jadels I wouldnt go outside in a thunderstorm. That shop's a beauty, leaky tank, sold my fish. Its a wonder you're still in the hobby.
Theo
G'Day Theo
I had marine tanks some years ago & I had great sucess with fish only tanks but the reef set ups were another story. I quickly found that you could spend many thousands of $$$$$$ on protein skimmers, refugiums, live rock, metal hallide lighting, a chiller & the suppliments to keep the water parameters correct & the corals growing. So in the end, the trips to the beach for water & the inevitable loss of very expensive corals became too much so I stuck with a fish only tank which was good as I collected a lot of the fish myself (I had a permit to do so). One bicolour angel lived quite happily for 8 years in the same tank & other butterflies lived for up to 5 years.
I only stopped keeping marines because I felt like a change & started to keep Africans & now I think I have been bitten by the Pleco bug.
Cheers
Clarkii.
Hmmmm, I know what you mean about the $$$$$'s, and the Metal Hallides and the Corals and the Live rock, somebody stop me.
I suppose the beauty of it is you can go in for a little or a lot, its just trying to control yourself that's hard.
I,ve also gotten to see some of the most beautifull marine setups I've ever seen, since getting into the salt.
Its amazing what you can do with marine setups, everything is alive and moving.
It would be nice if people that are still into marine could post up a few pics to show the rest of us.
Come on Jaynee show us a pic of your setup, I'm dying to see what it looks like now.
Theo
hehe..I think you are getting hooked Theo. Having kept marines previously for a while, and the same goes with any tank I guess, if you watching the money check out the various DIY plans on different sites, there are some very good ideas out there for everything from lighting to water movement.
KJ
ps. how are the tanks going Theo?
I found this sight a while back i hop it helps
There is heaps of info and pics
http://user.aol.com/cebrezzie/aquarium/page10aa.htm
Andrew
Hi Ken, the tank's going great, bought a metal hallide and more corals etc, its starting to look really good, will post some pics in the next couple of days..
Theo
Well here's a look at my Marine Tank at just over 1 month old. The pics arent the greatest but you should get some idea of what its like.
This is my first time with Google Web Albums, let me know if it doesnt work, and I might read some of the stuff to get it going properly.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Theobar/MarineTank
Check out the Nemos they are in love with their Anemones.
Theo
Just to update, the Humbugs(the black and white striped ones)have bred in the tank, they laid about 1000 eggs on one of the tree Corals, there are a couple of pictures there now. Never thought I would see the day when I would have Saltwater Fish breed in a tank.
Unfortunately the eggs dissapeared on the 3rd night because I didnt have anywhere to put them, but I will be ready next time.
Theo
Well the tank certainly is looking good. and for such a young tank - makes mine look boring, i think i need to take the OH shopping and get more corals lol.