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Hello,

A couple of months ago I set up a tropical freshwater aquarium which was my first experience with fish keeping...

My place of work found out & have donated me a tank they don't want, all I have to do is get it home.

It measures apoximatly (seen it but not measured)6 feet long 3 feet high 2 feet depth.

Having spend my last month on this site & in my lfs i now have the challenge of what to do with it.

I want to do a reef tank as like natural things & my lfs has starfish & florecent slugs etc so i have a few (proably daft questions).

does a reef tank have to be salt water?
is so where do i begin? equipment etc? order of filling?
what fish could i put in it?

All help apreciated.

thanks guys...

anita/justice.

Yes a reef tank is salt water. I would suggest doing some more home work before venturing into a Salt Water tank. It is pretty expensive to set up a SW tank that big.
Even more expensive to setup a reef tank.

Since the supplies for a tank that big will cost a large amount, I would want to save money on stocking the tank. I would stock with livebearers. I'd get just 1 male and 2 females of each; Swordtails, Platies, and Guppies. Then just let them go wild. Soon enough the tank will be fully stocked with lots of color.

well ,you are 1 lucky person, i wish i could have a tank that size

i would do some larger, semi agresive fish. chichlids are very colourful. if you did a rift lake tank, it would be almost as colourful as a SW tank. i don't recomend doing a SW tank untill you have tons of experiance....i don't think i could do one, and i've had fish for over 3 years.

tkae a look in my profile, i have a list of fish in my 70g. i would do somthing like that, but with more fish

i have toask, but do you know if they have ever used medications in the tank? if so, it might have traces of copper, which is toxic to reef setups.

Might want to ask around in reef setup.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

Anita:

Your first task will be figuring how to transport that tank! Good luck. It will be -very- heavy.
What to do with the tank.... Well, that's YOUR choice. Be aware that a marine (or reef) tank will be a much larger investment than a comparable fresh-water tank. The marine critters are much more expensive. If this is your interest, I'd recommend visiting the Marine/Reef forums here and reading/asking as much as you can from the experts there. In addition, you should purchase a book or two on the subject. I'm not plugging it, but the books sold in the bookstore on this site have received good reviews.

-Wayne

thanks for the tips, I have several men & a van to get it here next week...

now i just need to decide what to do with it...

Go with the perfect choice: Goldfish. That tank would easily hold 6 or 7 full-sized fancies.
Or, hey, maybe Piranha, if they're legal in your area - with that space you'd be able to have a large enough group for them to come out of hiding every once in a while!
Or Bala sharks, always a hit. Or, in the same vein, Silver Dollars. Heck, even Tinfoil barbs would fit.
Or, hey, Mbuna! Saltwater color at, what, a 20th the price? Probably less than that, even.
Or my personal choice - huge colony of shellies (Similis get my vote) with a big ol' school of Paracyps above.
Or Discus.
Or a large Python ... oops, that's not a fish suggestion.
Or Altum Angels.
Or goldfish ....

-Molly
Visit shelldwellers.com!

That's a stingray tank right there. If ya don't like them, then it's a bichir tank. Still not satisfied? Plecs.:%)

With a tank that big, a reef tank could cost thousands. I belive DarkRealm_Overlord has already spent 10k on just his 75 gallon tank, and your tank is over double that.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

Well, if you've just ventured into fish keeping, I'd turn away from reef tanks as they are both pricey (already mentioned), and require a great deal of specialized care. You could go with a SW community tank (though I have little experience on the matter), but that still requires a bit of tinkering with salinity and the like. Personally, with a tank that big, I'd go with purchasing a couple of goldfish (fancies are quite pretty in the home aquaria), with a plec or two, both of which require little care and thrive in your large tank space (a big fat school of white clouds along with them). If you're thinking more along the tropical side of things, go with any of your common starters [WCMM, black skirts, livebearers, angels, (black) neons, etc.]. There's a good article somewhere about good starter fishes, and I'd read into that a bit first.

[span class="edited"][Edited by Klee 2004-08-01 19:50][/span]

Freshwater stingrays seem really cool... I would get them if I were you. Or of cource some lake malawi cichlids.

Bichirs are cool! i like tinfoil barbs balas?

Lucky lucky you. If it is the full set up (light,fileter etc) you are even more blessed.

What ever you decide to do I hope you get lots and lots of enjoyment out of it.

Remember to do lots of research. Take a look at lots of setups and think about what is involved in maintaining them.

Myself I would give some African cichlids a go but that is only because I built up confidence with fishkeeping over the last 5yrs.

That said and done some people jump right in the deep end (so to speak) and do a salt water setup and make a go of it. (that scares me though, it took a while for me to get my SA cichlids running smoothly)

Good luck and enjoy!!!

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~~~ My fish blow kisses at me all day long ~~~