FishProfiles.com Message Forums

say.. if i have NEVER dealt with saltwater, what would it take to get started?

granted i have some spare tanks hanging around.

*Chelle*
_______________________________________________
I love the fishes cuz they're SOOO delicious...

biggest tank you can afford, salt, sand,live rock, powerheads, heater, protein skimmer, sump and lighting

and really expensive FISH!!!!


so... persay a 10 gallon wouldn't suffice?


how bout a i rephrase that in english..

a 10 gallon wont work?

*Chelle*
_______________________________________________
I love the fishes cuz they're SOOO delicious...

well, i wont touch marine with a ten foot pole, but i glanced at this post cause i saw a thread titled "beginners" in the salt water section and i HAD to look. call this a hunch, but, if its like any other tank, small is not better. i mean, smaller tanks are very hard to balance.

my wife has been wanting me to get into saltwater so my daughter can have a clownfish to look at, wants me to convert a ten gallon i have laying around into a salt tank....um...no...way too much work when i already have 3 freshwaters and im still learning how to take care of those,lol.

my suggestion for this one is do alot of reading not only here but grab some books at your library on saltwater setups. i am guessing you will want a large tank

a 10 gallon i wouldnt reccomend for begginers, (after 3 years in marine i still classify myself as a begginer) i would go for a 29 or larger.

There's a book I liked called The New Marine Aquarium by Michael Paletta. He strongly recommends 40 gallons as the minimum size for beginners. But he also says that if -- IF -- you have time every single day to devote to your tank, and you're willing to settle for keeping one or two very small fish and lots of live rock, you could conceivably do a 10 or preferably a 20 ... but you couldn't let your maintenance slip for even one day.

I also have a book on clownfish; that author says a 10 or 20 is ok, but she also says you can't let your maintenance slip ever.

Speaking from personal experience: I had a trigger and a tang in quarantine in a 30 gallon (my main marine tank is a 90) and I couldn't wait to get them out of there because I found it was so easy to tip the biological balance of the tank. A single overfeeding would cause an ammonia spike -- and that's with not one but two large HOB filters on the tank. Granted, the fish I had in there were larger than one would normally consider keeping in a 30, but I still find saltwater to be trickier than freshwater, and am happy to have the larger tank.

good call... lol.... well im not quite ready to go out and buy another tank, BUT .. i do have a 29 gallon that i could move my platies and swordies in to my 55 gallon.....

its sand, but im pretty sure you need different sand huh?



its just an option ive been toying with... i like the look, but ive never experienced salties.

*Chelle*
_______________________________________________
I love the fishes cuz they're SOOO delicious...

You dont need a tank size to get started.

Read the articles on this site, and the articles that are in the websites in some of the articles.

I'd read Anthony Calfo and Robert Fenners Marine Invertebrates and Calfo's Book of Coral Propogation if you're interested in reefs.

Browse reef central, find out if there's a reef club in your area, just talk with those involved. Then pick a tank. Find out what goes into it first. Very different from freshwater.


-Ferret [img src='/images/forums/halo.gif' border=0]

-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

You can start with a small tank but research it alot, set it up slowly, and severely understock it. You can start with a small tank in freshwater too but chances are you'll overstock it and run into water quality problems within the month unless you do some research. Saltwater just seems to multiply that chance by 10 or 20 times. If all I could do was a 10g I probably wouldn't even put a fish in it until I'd managed to keep liverock and a couple inverts with steady water parameters for at least 4months. Even then I'd suggest at least trying to get a 20g since I didn't find many common fish that would truly be satisfied in a 10g. If you already have an idea what fish you want then you need to base your tank size off what they need.

At various times over the past 2years I've planned out about 5 different tanks and posted on several other forums before finally deciding to try it in my 20g long. Despite research when I actually went out and started buying things I ran into several more questions I either never thought about or didn't research well enough. Then there's also bits of conflicting info where you either have to research alot more or go with the person that seems most knowledgeable.