My aquariums
- Thread starter eon aquatics
- Start date
One thing I will say is, if you are stressing over 20$ to get rocks for your FW tank, definitely don't get into saltwater. It's a much more expensive side of the hobby. And while saltwater itself isn't much more difficult, keeping a thriving coral reef is a different thing altogether. kind of like rocket science, compared to simple FW tanks being an 8th grade bio class.
(For eon aquatics), it's also worth adding that there's often far less in the way of guarantees or warranties for saltwater than there is freshwater. One example of this: Big Al's does not apply the 5 day guarantee and warranty they have for their freshwater livestock (if it dies within 5 days of purchase, you get equivalent store credit or a new fish at 50% off provided you bring back the order form, receipt, and dead fish) to their saltwater livestock.
So that 100-300+ dollar tang, angelfish, or blenny is not only far more money than an equivalently sized freshwater fish, in some cases you'd be no worse off just flushing that money down the toilet.
It’s actually not as complicated as it looks.
Just freshwater with added salt. The coral is the hard part.
One of the worst aspects is disease, if you think it’s a problem in freshwater, you basically have to assume that every marine fish is terminally ill when you get it. You are spending too much money on fish to risk disease…and there are a lot and much more virulent. Marine ich makes freshwater ich look like the common cold.
Disease is the reason big box stores don’t refund on saltwater fish. I don’t know how big als is, but if it’s anything like petco, their salt fish are disgustingly sick. We know, they know, but the inexperienced fish keeper trying to buy Nemo or dory for their kid does not. Then the fish gets brook or velvet or ich (petco is notorious for carrying sick fish), and when it dies, you aren’t getting your refund on an expensive fish. But don’t worry, that 2 dollar guppy is fine.
