SW is made WAY more complicated than what it should be. One of my friends literally bought a 5 gallon jebo, filled it up with premixed salt water, tossed in 3 pieces of live rock a clownfish and a damsel, and the fish thrived perfectly. Aside from the premixed saltwater it was no different from freshwater in any way
Salt vs Fresh
- Thread starter HbDragon
- Start date
I kept a ten gallon tank with two strip lights, an undergravel filter, a couple of rocks and some gobies for years. I've also had a 20 gallon reef, a 55 gallon oyster reef, a 37 gallon fish only, and a bazillion 10, 15 and 20 gallon clownfish rearing tanks. The only difficulty I ever encountered was with a timer getting stuck in the on position when on vacation, and melting a few corals. I've only owned two skimmers, one I've never used (it's huge, bought for 20 when a petstore closed, skimmed their central sw stuff.) And the other was used, but never did much.
If you want a cheap, good sw setup for a few small fishies, grab a 55, through some aragonite in it, some live rock, about 50 lbs, and a few powerheads. Just use tap water for mixing the sw, and call it good. The vast majority of fishies will be good in this. Plus you can keep some lionfish in this setup, how cool is a venemous fish if were talking monsters?
Sw can be ridiculosly expensive and complicated, but only if you let it. It can be mush simpler than FW, it's all about how you set it up, and what you want to do. For fish only tanks, follow the KISS principal, and it will be much easier.
By the way, a very common thing in the hobby used to be a 5 or 10 gallon tank, no filtration, placed on a sunny window with some macroalgae and seahorses. How much simpler can you get?
If you want a cheap, good sw setup for a few small fishies, grab a 55, through some aragonite in it, some live rock, about 50 lbs, and a few powerheads. Just use tap water for mixing the sw, and call it good. The vast majority of fishies will be good in this. Plus you can keep some lionfish in this setup, how cool is a venemous fish if were talking monsters?
Sw can be ridiculosly expensive and complicated, but only if you let it. It can be mush simpler than FW, it's all about how you set it up, and what you want to do. For fish only tanks, follow the KISS principal, and it will be much easier.
By the way, a very common thing in the hobby used to be a 5 or 10 gallon tank, no filtration, placed on a sunny window with some macroalgae and seahorses. How much simpler can you get?
I think some posters here may be missing the point. I understand there are misconceptions about SW tanks however, what I am trying to get across is, even considering you don't need corals, you don't need live rock, and once it's set up its "easy" I have a few problems. The first being the fact no one has mentioned that a SW tank without live rock and corals is lame lame lame! Also (personally) I'd want a big tank, I wouldn't want a small 30 gallon or something. So if I wanted to start it up, I'd want to go to the LFS and buy a TONE of fancy cool corals to cover the tank and live rock. Man I could spend £500 easily on that, then theres the fish, the tank, the skimmer, salt, RO units, the lighting for the corals its MUCH more expensive stop kidding yourselves on! And the whole thing is much more delicate to if you keep corals. Lighting goes out for a few days or the bulbs blow on your tank when your on holiday you could come back to everything dead in your tank, at least if this happened in FW it's cheaper in general! The fish cost a fortune for the really cool ones (personally I'm more into amazonian and indonesian FW fish but go figure). I'd still consider it one day.
It's so much more hassle so stop kidding yourselves. I'd also want to have an RO unit also, unless I want to have water sitting around the house everywhere with salt in it, or having to cart big drums of water from the LFS once a month. I'd also need a good skimmer.
I could go out tomorrow and buy an 8FT tank for under £1000 with some cool FW amazonian fish that get huge and colourful and stick the FX5 on it i already have with another. I'd like to see that happen with SW...it's just not realistic.
It's so much more hassle so stop kidding yourselves. I'd also want to have an RO unit also, unless I want to have water sitting around the house everywhere with salt in it, or having to cart big drums of water from the LFS once a month. I'd also need a good skimmer.
I could go out tomorrow and buy an 8FT tank for under £1000 with some cool FW amazonian fish that get huge and colourful and stick the FX5 on it i already have with another. I'd like to see that happen with SW...it's just not realistic.
SteveR;3898935; said:
Well thats why people start with frags and watch a coral reef grow before there eyes. Its kind of like fish keeping. You buy babies and grow them up.... I have 1 50 gallon bucket and 1 100 gallon bucket. I just fill it up infront of the tank mix the salt , 30 mins later pump it in.... i dont wee where it gets complicated. I think people make it complicated for themselfs.... live rock is 3$ a pound. I guess just people who can think outside the box do saltwater , cause they dont play by the marketing stratageys of companies.
It can be as difficult and expensive as you want it to be. I can tell you that the salt water 10g in my dormitory bathroom takes almost no effort. All i have in it is some blue leg hermit crabs, a clownfish, aiptasia, and a fire goby. In fact it's easier than my current FW setups.
TheCanuck;3898961; said:
See what you've just said is complex. I don't know many folk willing to whip out a 50 gallon bucket in their living room and then mess around mixing salt and then pump it into the tank - don't down a pump for a start etc. 50 Gallon bucket, do they even make buckets that big!? I python, it's easier. FW is easier for me and less hassle.
Pomatomus;3898970; said:
Again, but that's pretty small and boring though (personally for me) that scale would not interest me, or I believe many posters...
Let's compare like for like. Set up a 150 Gal FW and compare it to a 150 Gal Salt!
SteveR;3899020; said:
The 12,000 gallon one I'm sitting next to right now only requires a sump and a skimmer. It doesn't require much more effort than the 1,000 gallon freshwater tank to my left, with the exception of hardware sizes.
But that has no coral (FOWLR). The 1,000 gallon coral tank requires lots of water chemistry and micromanagement. Like I said, it's as difficult as you make it.
