Freshwater vs Saltwater fish, which one do you like better?

[Sunofthebeach]

Hi everyone, my first post here so I'm sorry if I made some mistakes.

I was wondering what fish species do you like better in general, FW or SW, and why?

I've kept both and while I love my Jack Dempsey and Green Terror I can't deny that I like SW fish more. I feel like they have more personality and in some cases, more interesting behavior? For the record I've kept a wide variety of SW fish like Niger Trigger, Tang, Puffer, Eel, etc... When it comes to colors both FW and SW are beautiful in their own way, so it's all about personality for me. But that's just my opinion.

 

[Sunofthebeach]

Bump

 

[tlindsey]

Bump

Welcome aboard!

I like both kept Saltwater and Reef species yrs ago in the late 80's and 90's. Tbh I can't afford to maintain any Saltwater setups at this time so only have Freshwater now.

 

[Potato Patatto]

Saltwater is way more interesting, I think I enjoy my crabs & shrimp more than my fish. It really becomes an ecosystem and the colors are hard to top, but the maintenance & money give my preference to freshwater.

 

[Backfromthedead]

I'm really enjoying my fairly new fowlr setups after keeping freshwater for years. I probably will be sticking to single species marine tanks for the future.

 

[BIG-G]

Welcome to MFK.
I’ve kept both and as others have said financially speaking freshwater for me.
Saltwater has a lot of variety to with invertebrates and coral and triggers have tons of personality, it’s hard to beat some of the Central American cichlids for personality for a pure wet pet

 

[Fat Homer]

I gotta admit a lot of my favourite fish on paper are S/W species such as Dragon Morays, Honeycomb Moray, Green Moray, Porcupine Puffers, Mappa Puffers etc...

However, never had a chance to get into that side of the hobby for one reason or another especially since most the species i like all need pretty large setups which would potentially get expensive pretty fast to both keep and run...

 

[dogofwar]

I've kept both and always come back to freshwater. I think it's relative ease of caring for them and breeding them.

 

[celebrist]

My biggest issue with marine species is collection point mortality

 

[Deadeye]

Welcome to the forum!

I personally think that saltwater is generally more graceful and beautiful. Freshwater can look amazing, but a nothing compares to the calm you feel when watching a huge reef.
Freshwater has more monsters and cool fish imo. No freshwater fish compares to tangs or angels, but no marine compares to piranhas, tigers, wolves, and snakes. Plenty of freshwater fish (cough cichlids cough) are as good looking as marine too.
Both have equal amounts of intelligent and interactive fish, puffers and eels on both sides, cichlids are just tangs, damsels, and angels adapted for freshwater imo.

I think that you would wind up enjoying working with a freshwater more, but the payoff of a reef is one of the best in the hobby.

Just to tip the scales for me... saltwater has sharks (that you can get your hands on), and sharks are better than any freshwater fish...