How difficult is it to set up and maintain a salt water aquarium?
If youve been keeping freshwater for a while, the saltwater switch is intimidating. I kept freshwater for about 7 years, and I finally switched. Let me tell you. lmao. Im disappointed I didnt switch over ealier.
As long as you research everything, and do it right the first time, everything will go smoothly. The problems come when you do something wrong, and have to try to fix it, only to make it worse. You just need to keep up on water changes though. Saltwater creatures are generally very sensitive to bad water. You are probably better off buying test kits as someone mentioned above for just about everything. That way if something starts looking bad, you can test and find out whats going on.
The big difference is cost. Youll need a protein skimmer, which is between 50-200 bucks depending on your size of tank. Youll need a powerhead or two, which each one would be 40-150 bucks. Youll need between 1-2 pounds of live rock per gallon, and that costs between 4.99-6.99 a pound.
long as you can keep the salt water levels at their correct levels. adding too much or too little could be main problem, other than that there is no big difference in freshwater or saltwater.
the saltwater tank, equipments etc are little more in costs.
March 13th, 2010 at 11:02 amReferences :
It will definetly cost you alot of money. So far we have spent maybe close to or over 700 dollars on it and that is with the 75 gal tank, stand, setting it up with everything that it needs. A water change should be done every week. ( basically taking some water out and putting fresh saltwater in.) making sure pH, nitrates, nitrates, ammonia, etc are at their proper levels. Basically you need to buy kits for those to test it out. We only have 2 clownfish, a dwarf lionfish, and a lawnmower blenny with a clean up crew as well. I believe that was all in about a month. It can be difficult at times but overall it’s really awesome to have. you may be able to go to reef central to get some more info and help with setting one up. Just make sure you don’t put too many fish in the tank if its a small one.
March 13th, 2010 at 11:34 amReferences :
http://www.reefcentral.com/
It’s not too hard, but it is very high maintenance for all the things you have to do to keep it up, here are a couple of links to help you get started
March 13th, 2010 at 12:23 pmReferences :
http://www.fishlore.com/SaltwaterBeginners.htm
If youve been keeping freshwater for a while, the saltwater switch is intimidating. I kept freshwater for about 7 years, and I finally switched. Let me tell you. lmao. Im disappointed I didnt switch over ealier.
As long as you research everything, and do it right the first time, everything will go smoothly. The problems come when you do something wrong, and have to try to fix it, only to make it worse. You just need to keep up on water changes though. Saltwater creatures are generally very sensitive to bad water. You are probably better off buying test kits as someone mentioned above for just about everything. That way if something starts looking bad, you can test and find out whats going on.
The big difference is cost. Youll need a protein skimmer, which is between 50-200 bucks depending on your size of tank. Youll need a powerhead or two, which each one would be 40-150 bucks. Youll need between 1-2 pounds of live rock per gallon, and that costs between 4.99-6.99 a pound.
March 13th, 2010 at 12:47 pmReferences :