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View Full Version : How hard is it to maintain a Salt Water fish tank?



marinelover
03-07-2011, 10:19 AM
Not difficult at all, the larger the tank, the easier it is to maintain, minimum size for salt water tank should not be less than 30 gallons. Not saying you couldn't have a 10 or 20 gallon salt water tank, but then you would be limited to the types and size of fish you can have, and it is a little more work to maintain a smaller tank.


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3dees
03-07-2011, 11:58 AM
I have had a 72 gal. fish only and a 24 ga. reef and the smaller tank was a lot more work.

dawrtw
03-07-2011, 12:14 PM
My 75 gal. reef requires less of my time than the discus tank does. I love them both.

ockyra215
03-10-2011, 04:54 PM
A salt water tank rewuires a lot less work than a discus tank. Just keep in mind the bigger the tank the easier it is to maintain.Its not really any harder than a discus tank you change water less and have to keep the salinity stable and the same with ammonia and nitrates and nitrites.Its only as hard as you make it.

ExReefer
03-10-2011, 06:11 PM
I came from the world of reef keeping. See my user name. After caring for discus for 18 mos., I believe reef tank maintenance is less demanding. If you are used to aging your water, then you’ll continue to do the same when creating premixed saltwater. If you use RO/DI water (which I highly recommend), you will create a ton of waste water, but WC’s occur less frequently and the volume is less at each change. You can go 2-3 weeks between WC’s depending on your fish load. That’s never the case with keeping discus and discus WC’s waste a lot of water as well.

The reef tank feeding can be once a day which means less waste and less time spent on maintenance. If you really want to keep things simple, go bare bottom reef tank w/o fish. Just keep live rock, corals, and inverts. The tank will be very cool and super low maintenance. I plan to keep just one reef tank again in the future. It will probably be my 57G rimless with loads of live rock, corals, inverts and a pair of Peculiar clown fish.

saltydog
03-10-2011, 06:23 PM
After converting to fresh from doing saltwater for about 12 years, i have to say that keeping discus is quite the respite for me. I guess i was just needed something different a bit if a different challenge.
Maintenance is maintenance though. To keep up water quality you have to stay on top of things no matter what type of tank you strive to keep, just in different ways. The most important thing in reef keeping IMO and experience is equipment! Don't skimp. That will will your biggest upfront cost. Good skimmer, lighting, flow, CUC, etc is priceless when it comes to making your reef enjoyable and successful.

Asparagussy
03-16-2011, 10:12 PM
little more work to maintain a smaller tank.


Tell me about it!!! Im almost to week 4 of a 7.9 gallon nano... Much more of a challenge than anything freshwater or the larger saltwater tanks I've kept! The pH falls if I think about it to hard. having a nano reef opens a whole new world of opportunity in the hobby though!

judy
04-25-2011, 06:49 PM
The challenge with a salt tank, especially a reef, lies in set-up with live rock and sand, and the right mix of fish, corals, and invertebrates. That can take many, many months. Once it's settled in, though, I found my 125 gallon reef and 40 gallon sump about the same for maintenance as my 80 gallon discus tank.

mkv
05-01-2011, 09:42 PM
I have a reef tank running for 9 years now and the main things are:

Compability of animals (fish to corals and corals to corals)
Lighting.. usually the fancier the stock of corals the higher the lighting requirements
Keeping you balance of trace elements, if you do frequent wc with a quality salt mix this will take care of it and you do not need to suplement..
Water movement, this does not mean strong but placed the pumps/power heads in the right spots to eliminate dead spots...
I must tell you if you can grow discus from 3" to adult size and avoid illnesses then saltwater is a breeze

jball1125
05-01-2011, 10:16 PM
Is this some type of advertisement for marine aquariums? Anyway marine creatures are cool, its a journey I shall take someday. For now Discus take my time.

biotopica
06-09-2011, 06:27 PM
Easier than discus IMO