total dissapointment with FW tank

[Pomatomus]

I couldn't disagree more with the "limited in terms of behavior and lifestyle" comment. The most boring saltwater fish I have ever owned had more personality than any freshwater fish I've ever seen or owned. Just a few examples of some saltwater behaviors and fish that have a ton of personality.
Eels/fish living with and having their mouth and body cleaned by shrimp
Gobies pairing with shrimp and sharing burrows/protecting each other
clownfish hosting anemones/powerheads etc.
Tangs that will follow you around and stare at you through the glass all day long
Triggerfish, which have more personality than any fish I've ever seen
Groupers/lionfish/anglers/rays/sharks/octopus the options and different behaviors are endless.

I can stick my hand in my 28 gallon reef and handfeed any fish in there, get attacked by the clowns defending their anemone, have my hand cleaned by shrimp, and have every hermit crab in the tank race towards my hand to get on it and start picking at my skin. The personality and behavior is just on a completely different level than freshwater.

Also, if you buy healthy saltwater fish, properly acclimate them, and quarantine them, you shouldn't be losing more saltwater fish than freshwater. I'm 3 years in and have yet to lose a single saltwater fish or shrimp.

You severely misinterpreted my statement. I'm not saying that there aren't different and diverse lifestyles of saltwater fish, but there is a MUCH more limited selection. Also, freshwater fishes have increased speciation because land-locked bodies of water have increased genetic drift and reduced gene flow. This lends itself to varied strategies both in morphology and behavior. Tangs behave like tangs, but not all characins (the family including the tetras) behave similarly. The same holds true for many groups available in the hobby. You may have different species of damselfish with different levels of aggression and a few different lifestyles (such as clownfish), but it's not the same as the type of diversity you would see among catfishes. At least not what's available in the hobby. FW fish are more accessible because they can be farmed in man-made ponds.

And you must not have read the entire comment because I made it separate from symbiotic invertebrates. With the exception of the tangs "that follow you around the glass" and the triggers (which usually don't play well with ANYTHING, especially not inverts) that eliminates all of your examples. Triggers, however are known to be one of the most intelligent groups of fish in the world. They possess an enormous telencephalon (fish analog of cerebrum) compared to other species.

And when you buy fish from a wholesaler, you TRULY see what kind of losses you are looking at. Most SW fish are wild-caught using cyanide, not to mention being crammed into closed systems with pathogens from around the world.

You must have small clowns. I do tank maintenance and it's not always so fun to deal with an aggressive tomato clown (sometime large maroons also). They have drawn blood from me so many times I have to use a glove for certain individuals. All crabs and shrimp will bum-rush your hand, but I have yet to see a SW fish jump out of the water to catch food in my hand (I had an oscar and a warmouth that did this). I have also never seen a SW fish stick its head out of the tank and look at me like a spiny eel.

 

[PSU21Reef]

Saltwater is definitely more expensive and time consuming. I agree 100% on that.
I disagree with the point made about the equipment sticking out though. 99% of people who put the time/money into a descent sw tank will not have any equipment in the tank other than a powerhead or two, everything else will be kept separate in a sump or back section of a tank like in nanocube.

It's fish like this that make saltwater appealing to me:

and eels like this:

and tanks like this:

 

[PSU21Reef]

I can agree with most of what you're saying. You definitely do limit yourself when you pick certain species such as triggerfish and obviously can't keep them in a reef or with inverts. That's not much different than people on here that keep a community of a few aggressive cichlids, you can keep a tank with several different triggerfish. I haven't owned any sw fish that jump out of the water for food, but an octopus will climb straight out of the water and eat while it sits in your hand. Both sw and fw have their advantages, i'm just saying that its easy to see a lot of personality and interesting behavior in even the smallest of sw tanks. In sw the focus isn't really on the fish for most people anyway because there are so many cool inverts and that is where the real variety is. Besides, just because they don't jump out of the water doesn't mean they don't have cool feeding habits. Like I said, I like both fw and sw, which is why I keep both. I just like the amount of detail and control you have in sw, where you can control the types of bugs, worms, snails, crabs, starfish, sea urchins, cucumbers, corals, algae, fish, etc. That's what I mean by variety.

You severely misinterpreted my statement. I'm not saying that there aren't different and diverse lifestyles of saltwater fish, but there is a MUCH more limited selection. Also, freshwater fishes have increased speciation because land-locked bodies of water have increased genetic drift and reduced gene flow. This lends itself to varied strategies both in morphology and behavior. Tangs behave like tangs, but not all characins (the family including the tetras) behave similarly. The same holds true for many groups available in the hobby. You may have different species of damselfish with different levels of aggression and a few different lifestyles (such as clownfish), but it's not the same as the type of diversity you would see among catfishes. At least not what's available in the hobby. FW fish are more accessible because they can be farmed in man-made ponds.

And you must not have read the entire comment because I made it separate from symbiotic invertebrates. With the exception of the tangs "that follow you around the glass" and the triggers (which usually don't play well with ANYTHING, especially not inverts) that eliminates all of your examples. Triggers, however are known to be one of the most intelligent groups of fish in the world. They possess an enormous telencephalon (fish analog of cerebrum) compared to other species.

And when you buy fish from a wholesaler, you TRULY see what kind of losses you are looking at. Most SW fish are wild-caught using cyanide, not to mention being crammed into closed systems with pathogens from around the world.

You must have small clowns. I do tank maintenance and it's not always so fun to deal with an aggressive tomato clown (sometime large maroons also). They have drawn blood from me so many times I have to use a glove for certain individuals. All crabs and shrimp will bum-rush your hand, but I have yet to see a SW fish jump out of the water to catch food in my hand (I had an oscar and a warmouth that did this). I have also never seen a SW fish stick its head out of the tank and look at me like a spiny eel.

 

[Redearsunfish]

To the OP - only you can know what will satisfy you or make you happy. The only advice i can offer is that sometimes the grass may seem greener on the other side, but truth be told, it isn't

 

[HungDang]

To the OP - only you can know what will satisfy you or make you happy. The only advice i can offer is that sometimes the grass may seem greener on the other side, but truth be told, it isn't

X2!

 

[B_IN_SD]

Natives, are boring.

Every fish is a Native somewhere

 

[talal101]

That is a female festae. Come to the dark side of aggressive new world cichlids.

Hahah I think I will. I was literally speechless for like a minute. I just sat staring at the computer screen with my jaw on the table. And a female wow, does that mean the male is even brighter or is this just a species where the females look better ( very very rare lol).

Thing is I'm not made of money and time and salt water requires double that over FW setups. I'd rather save the monthly cost of running a SW tank and got to the shed aquarium or something. I have a DIY thread on here about my former fish room and it cost me less to setup than my neighbors SW 125 did. (my setup was 2 100 gallon long tanks, 1 110 tall, 2 40 gallon breeders, 6 20 gallon fry tanks). Money is one thing but the amount of work that a SW requires(for my standards) is more than I care to contribute.

To simply put it no, I've never been disappointed by a FW setup other than realizing it wasn't large enough for my fish.

I agree with the thousands I would need to convert, I can get many beautiful rare cichlids and come out with an even more beautiful then SW tank.

You severely misinterpreted my statement. I'm not saying that there aren't different and diverse lifestyles of saltwater fish, but there is a MUCH more limited selection. Also, freshwater fishes have increased speciation because land-locked bodies of water have increased genetic drift and reduced gene flow. This lends itself to varied strategies both in morphology and behavior. Tangs behave like tangs, but not all characins (the family including the tetras) behave similarly. The same holds true for many groups available in the hobby. You may have different species of damselfish with different levels of aggression and a few different lifestyles (such as clownfish), but it's not the same as the type of diversity you would see among catfishes. At least not what's available in the hobby. FW fish are more accessible because they can be farmed in man-made ponds.

And you must not have read the entire comment because I made it separate from symbiotic invertebrates. With the exception of the tangs "that follow you around the glass" and the triggers (which usually don't play well with ANYTHING, especially not inverts) that eliminates all of your examples. Triggers, however are known to be one of the most intelligent groups of fish in the world. They possess an enormous telencephalon (fish analog of cerebrum) compared to other species.

And when you buy fish from a wholesaler, you TRULY see what kind of losses you are looking at. Most SW fish are wild-caught using cyanide, not to mention being crammed into closed systems with pathogens from around the world.

You must have small clowns. I do tank maintenance and it's not always so fun to deal with an aggressive tomato clown (sometime large maroons also). They have drawn blood from me so many times I have to use a glove for certain individuals. All crabs and shrimp will bum-rush your hand, but I have yet to see a SW fish jump out of the water to catch food in my hand (I had an oscar and a warmouth that did this). I have also never seen a SW fish stick its head out of the tank and look at me like a spiny eel.

I agree with a lot of what you say. I never read it like that either. I'm deciding to stay on FW side until I have 2000 to sink into this black hole.

Saltwater is definitely more expensive and time consuming. I agree 100% on that.
I disagree with the point made about the equipment sticking out though. 99% of people who put the time/money into a descent sw tank will not have any equipment in the tank other than a powerhead or two, everything else will be kept separate in a sump or back section of a tank like in nanocube.

It's fish like this that make saltwater appealing to me:

and eels like this:

and tanks like this:

Lol and to make a tank like that would need a ton of money.

I can agree with most of what you're saying. You definitely do limit yourself when you pick certain species such as triggerfish and obviously can't keep them in a reef or with inverts. That's not much different than people on here that keep a community of a few aggressive cichlids, you can keep a tank with several different triggerfish. I haven't owned any sw fish that jump out of the water for food, but an octopus will climb straight out of the water and eat while it sits in your hand. Both sw and fw have their advantages, i'm just saying that its easy to see a lot of personality and interesting behavior in even the smallest of sw tanks. In sw the focus isn't really on the fish for most people anyway because there are so many cool inverts and that is where the real variety is. Besides, just because they don't jump out of the water doesn't mean they don't have cool feeding habits. Like I said, I like both fw and sw, which is why I keep both. I just like the amount of detail and control you have in sw, where you can control the types of bugs, worms, snails, crabs, starfish, sea urchins, cucumbers, corals, algae, fish, etc. That's what I mean by variety.

I agree with this point as well but he has a good point, SW is very limited because not many petstores even carry salt and your right though that is not much different when you get aggressive FW cichlids.

To the OP - onlt.elchehimi@hotmail.comy you can know what will satisfy you or make you happy. The only advice i can offer is that sometimes the grass may seem greener on the other side, but truth be told, it isn't

Your right thank you. I'm gonna stick with what I know best.

X2!

Every fish is a Native somewhere

Loool I literally laughed out loud. Hahahah that's so true.

 

[kamikaziechameleon]

I think there is so much to explore inside the brackish/fresh aquarium experience I've been keeping for over 10 years and feel like I've only tapped about 1/10 of what I aspire to and about 1/1,000 of what is possible. I love the look of saltwater but really I don't appreciate it in the classic aquarium setup its just not for me. I hope you find something fresh water in your price range that you like. I'd recommend you try to consider the larger scope of the tank beyond the water salinity and stock list. Consider and explore how an aquarium fits into your living space and then after finding your optimum arrangement where it is not only good for viewing but also contributes to the aesthetic of the entire space then move inside the tank and do the same, aquascape something fierce. If you don't know what I'm talking about just google aquascaping, not all tank setups have to be live plants Sometimes a glass bottom tank with one piece of gorgeous drift wood is enough. After tackling those two consider stock, you'll want colors and movement/behavior that fits in with the space and its aesthetics as well as making sure the fish are going to live comfortably in the aquarium you've decorated. Basically don't put pacus in with stem plants... Proper investement of time and experimentation will yield something to your liking.

If you choose to go SW, may the force be with you.

 

[talal101]

I think there is so much to explore inside the brackish/fresh aquarium experience I've been keeping for over 10 years and feel like I've only tapped about 1/10 of what I aspire to and about 1/1,000 of what is possible. I love the look of saltwater but really I don't appreciate it in the classic aquarium setup its just not for me. I hope you find something fresh water in your price range that you like. I'd recommend you try to consider the larger scope of the tank beyond the water salinity and stock list. Consider and explore how an aquarium fits into your living space and then after finding your optimum arrangement where it is not only good for viewing but also contributes to the aesthetic of the entire space then move inside the tank and do the same, aquascape something fierce. If you don't know what I'm talking about just google aquascaping, not all tank setups have to be live plants Sometimes a glass bottom tank with one piece of gorgeous drift wood is enough. After tackling those two consider stock, you'll want colors and movement/behavior that fits in with the space and its aesthetics as well as making sure the fish are going to live comfortably in the aquarium you've decorated. Basically don't put pacus in with stem plants... Proper investement of time and experimentation will yield something to your liking.

If you choose to go SW, may the force be with you.

your right, im missing the most important thing im gonna go pick up some rocks and do a nice rocky lake cichlid setup

 

[Khemul]

Saltwater doesn't really have to be a lot more expensive. The water changes do cost more, but everything else is optional. If you are keeping just fish then you can basically run a saltwater tank exactly like you would a freshwater tank. Even the fish arn't necessarily a whole lot more expensive. It is just the fish people commonly keep are more expensive. Damsels, $1-5/ea. Engineer Gobies are often $5/ea. Plenty of Clowns and Blennies in the $15 range. The price balances out when you consider that you arn't putting half-a-dozen of those saltwater fish in the tank like you often do with cheap freshwater fish.

The main thing with saltwater vs. freshwater is variety. If you are happy with fish and plants then freshwater is easier and cheaper. It's the variety that makes saltwater interesting though. Hermit crabs, lobsters, shrimp, slugs, cucumbers, anenomes, coral, sponges, etc.. The options are wide open for how you want to keep it. Anenomes and corals are really the only things that force you to go into the "omg this costs how much?!" territory (and even then, you can cut corners if you are extremely careful on what you buy and do a lot of research).

Plus if you live near the ocean, freebies.