Salt vs. Fresh

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
C

charles-n-charge

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Aug 28, 2010
1,644
3
68
Livingston Tx
I want to hear some of your likes and dislikes for both saltwater and freshwater aquariums, and which is better in your opinion, and why.
Let's see where this goes lol


I'll start.
I always told myself that I'd be a FW guy for life, and would never go to the darkside. Until one day a brackish experiment went wrong and I ended up getting a couple saltwater fish. Now I have a 20g reef system due to that, that I've spent hundreds of dollars on, and am still spending tons of money on; and I've found that I pay way more attention to that tank than I do to my 220 FW tank, with a 20" arowana and a few big cats and whatnot. I guess you could say I'm getting a little soft (unless we're talking pH... corny lol).
So my likes for saltwater are the fact that everything is just so much more interesting and beautiful than freshwater; and my dislike is of course $$$.
and Freshwater, I love and now appreciate how much cheapier and simpler and easier it is, but at the same time I dislike how simple it is... At least in comparison.

YOUR TURN!
 
In my opinion... Salt water has theee most gorgeous looking small fish there is so many and so many colors. Besides price, if you look at the FW selection of small fish like around the size lets say 4" under more than 85% don't look that cool at all but salt water! they just have purely awesome fish that are 4" under!
 
Well, due to circumstances (and not counting a WAY overcrowded goldfish tank as a kid), I started backward and dove into salt first when a friend sold his tank. I love those little guys. They are so fun to watch and are really responsive to me when I'm in front of the tank. One of my favorite things about salt though is hands-down the Live Rock. You never know what you're gonna get and who's gonna tag along! Its like Christmas months later! I'm not too experienced yet so that's pretty much all I got, lol.

That said, I've been falling in love with aros (thanks for nothing, Scott!) and polys. And don't even mention stingrays! Since I saw that one dude's stingray give birth on here, I was like :drool: and started dreamin! lol.

I think there's probably more...versatility (not the right word, but the best I had ATM)...with fresh than salt...Maybe accessibility is a better word...

Hmmm, interesting question...And yes, a major turn-off to salt is the money it requires to set up. Holy cow!! I had no clue what I was getting into!! Lovin every minute of it though!! :headbang2
 
I just started my first saltwater 6 days ago. But the lead up was months. I kept going back and forth whether or not it's worth it. I wanted to have a 3 gallon pico with corals. So to deter myself I set up a fake sw 3 gallon with artificial corals and non live coral rocks. Yellow tail guppies look like sw fish because of the bright yellow few fw fish have. Well, I loved it and it convinced me that a beautiful reef tank didn't have to be real and require so much maintenance.

But I kept seeing reef picos online. And I kept reading about sw. Until I was on the phone with pet solutions ordering a new pump for my fw sump and the lady said "will there be anything else today?" and I thought ugh, why did you have to ask that? "Yes, the jbj picotope!" slipped out. So even though I decided it wasnt worth the work, I let my subconscious have the final say. And I always do what that guy says. Because if I don't he tortures me night and day.

Anyway, I love fw particularly swampy wetland ecosystems 1st and foremost. But having a turtle/fish tank for over 10 yrs started to get boring. I love the biotech aspect of aquariums so I was always trying to up the filtration to be pristine conditions. Now I have and overfiltered 125g with pure and sterilized water and I started to realize it was a waste of time. I have turtles and big brown comets (carp), the most hardiest aquatic species. They can live happily in a mud puddle.

With the wind taken out of my sails I decided to go for a new challenge. Keeping corals in a pico is supposedly the hardest aspect of sw, so I think it will be a good point to jump right in.

The challenge was the calling to do it but after the setup I realized it was actually the missing link I have been looking for in the hobby. An ecosystem! A full one. Where as in a fw aquarium all I have to do is make the water as close to pure bottled water as possible and the animals thrive. If I ran my R/O unit directly through my aquarium with an overflow that emptied continuously then my fish and turtles would be living in an R/O tank. And that is boring.
What's exhilarating is running a sw tank with just a pump. I have a mix of hesitation and adrenal ecstasy every time I look through the clear power head plastic and see nothing in there. I goes against everything I've learned since I started keeping fish at 7 years old. And there's all kinds of animals in there that just appeared when the live sand settled. Things I never knew existed the day before where now creeping around my living room in a glass exhibit. And when I turn the lights on in the dark it's like Joe's Apartment! That is what I needed to spice up the marriage.

So, I'm not in love with another yet. But I am in a state of fascination that's kept me sitting in front of a 3 gallon more than my 125 or pond combined. And my turtles started to notice.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
 
+1 and the main thing i hated about salt was how expensive it was and the salt creep

Leptoe said:
Fresh.....easier maintenance!
Click to expand...
 
Personally, I prefer the aesthetics of freshwater, both in terms of fish and biotopes. All those pretty little bright-colored reef fish bore the crap out of me, and most reef tanks look all the same to me. I like the more subtle earthy tones of fw fish and I love the look of aquatic plants and driftwood. Also, at the end of the day, I am a catfish man. Freshwater fish are bigger in the context of their environment than saltwater fish are, and higher up on the food chain, and because of this I believe that fw fish behave and interact with their environment differently. You could hardly house any apex predators from the ocean, most of which are pelagic, but even something like a killifish could be the boss in its section of a little stream. There is a much greater level of habitat variety involved in freshwater than in marine.

One the side of saltwater, I like how much diversity there is in terms of invertebrates and oddball fish. I love gobies, blennies, anglerfish, toadfish, and moray eels.
 
I love both equally. My girlfriend likes salt more. The colours and the fish for salt are AMAZING but the cost and the attention you need for a large reef tank kind of gets annoying after a while.
 
I'd like to add that I wouldn't want a sw over 10g. To premix and heat that much water is the deal breaker for me. I'd rather do an artificial reef tank with colorful cichlids. People wouldnt know the wiser.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom