Anyone have salt tanks?

[cobaltblue]

Im considering setting up a 90g salt water tank. I was wondering if they are as much , more, or less work than discus tanks. I have enough work keeping my 5 discus tanks up, i want something a little less maintenance. Somone told me salt water tanks only require water changes every couple weeks??
Are they difficult to maintain? Any comments would be appreciated. thanks

[pcsb23]

Hi Chris,

I used to run a 100g reef tank up until the end of last year. Once setup I found it easier to maintain than a discus tank. A lot will depend on what you put in there, if you go for SPS Corals they need a bit more work than the leathers and soft corals do, you would need kalkwasser and the like. The biggest probelm I had was swapping between reef mode and soft water mode, as well as running 2 different sets of kit and maitenance routines and also delaing with treatments etc.. Basically the tank maintenance became a chore on all of the tanks and none of them got the attention they deserved.

In the end as the bulk of my knowledge and experience is with discus I converted the tank back to a discus tank. At the moment though it only has 2 wilds in there.

I found that water changes every third week worked for me, my reef tank was lightly populated but had over 60kg (132lbs) of live rock in it. I topped it off every other day with straight RO water. They make very beatiful and colourful additions and some of the fish and shrimps etc are absolutely stunning.

One other thing I found with reef tanks was that they are very very expensive to setup!, protein skimmers, ozonizers, powerheads, flow pumps, tidal flow simulators, light computers, live rock, lighting, dosers. Second only to a divorce for removing money from wallets :D

hth,

[AmberC]

I would really love a salt tank! I am thinking about starting my 10 as a fish only with some clowns because I read that this is a good setup for a beginner. I also have heard that salt is much easier than discus lol. Barb (traco) had salt before discus too.

I was told by a good friend at one of my LFS's that you only have to do w/c's once a month. He said that he started off doing once weekly and had deaths and lots of probs, but when he went to once a month everything was fine. He chats on salt forums too and he said everyone he knows with salt does once a month. I thought that was awesome lol

Amber

[AmberC]

Hi Chris,

Second only to a divorce for removing money from wallets :D

hth,


LOL Paul! Your hilarious!

Amber

[traco]

Paul is correct in all he said about all the equipment needed for saltwater. I had my 65 with saltwater for 9 years. I had soft corals, 100 lbs. of live rock, shrimp and a few fish. Equipment I had was a protein skimmer (get a good quality one), good powerheads, a Red Sea Wavemaker, 4 55W power compacts. I had a deep substrate, around 100 lbs of live rock. I had no need for a filter as I had enough live rock to filter. If you go with the hard corals, you will be adding more with kalkwasser, again, like Paul said.:) Water changes were done once a month (if that) and in the meantime, just topping off the tank due to evaporation. Lighting depends on what you want to have in the tank. Metal halide is awesome lighting especially if you get clams!! But big bucks too! My power compacts sufficed for me and what I had in my tank.

I got bored with it and tore it down. I have yet to live down what I said of, "going freshwater and keeping discus will be way easier than saltwater".

When I got my discus and was doing water changes every day, they muttered between the two of them at dinner that "remember when she said this would be a whole lot easier than salt?, doesn't look like it to me with all these water changes?"!! They were right.:p

Hmmmm.... Amber, you got me thinking about setting up a little tank of saltwater with just a few shrimp, snails and a small fish. NO, Barb, NO!!

Chris, you are in a way better location for equipment, live rock, etc... living on the mainland. I had got all my stuff from JL Aquatics as the Island sucked for quality and pricing for everything. There are way more stores over there for you to compare prices.

Does that help any?:D

[pcsb23]

I have yet to live down what I said of, "going freshwater and keeping discus will be way easier than saltwater".


Thats definitely one for the Famous Last Words book!:D

[Timbo]

i can definitely attest to the fact that discus are more work than a salt fish or reef tank...its mostly in the water changes (about 30 times as much:)) used to change out about 30% a month with the reef, i do that daily with the discus

[chris allsop]

i have a reef tank and its much easier than keeping discus!

[cobaltblue]

Thanks for all the great replys. Sounds like cost is the biggest deterent, but it should be ok as i have alot of the setup already. I would only be doing mushrooms and soft corals, so MH lights i dont think are neccessary. I have corallife dual powercompacts already. Would i have to have a sump or would dual fluval 404s be ok for filtration. I would be getting alot of live rock as well. I have a lfs down the street the specializes in salt water fish and have tons of live rock.

Would i have to drain and clean out the whole tank before i started the changeover?

[pcsb23]

Thanks for all the great replys. Sounds like cost is the biggest deterent, but it should be ok as i have alot of the setup already.

It can get expensive f or sure!



I would only be doing mushrooms and soft corals, so MH lights i dont think are neccessary. I have corallife dual powercompacts already.

Should be fine, you will need tubes in the higher kelvin range 10,000 or higher though. And possibly 1 or 2 acrtinics.



Would i have to have a sump or would dual fluval 404s be ok for filtration. I would be getting alot of live rock as well. I have a lfs down the street the specializes in salt water fish and have tons of live rock.

Whilst sumps are the ultimate in filtration wth lots of live rock and a moderate to light bioload they are not required. I've had lots of discussions with reefkeepers over how they introduce live rock. If you get the uncured rock it takes anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks to cure (cycle), but you often get the best rock this way. When I last did it I had rock in about 5 tanks curing, took 5 or so weeks as I did large w/c every other day. But I got lots of little critters surviving that way as well as lots of little anemones and the like. It was cheaper too! If you buy it cured then a lot of the extras are in the dealers tanks and they most likely will charge like a wounded bull! Sorry Chris, long answer to a simple question! :D In short no you don't need a sump.



Would i have to drain and clean out the whole tank before i started the changeover?
Yes it is best to, sterilize it all too. I don't belive many of the diseases are transmutable but why take a risk?

Sounds like you are going for this so post some pics!! and good luck.

[traco]

Hey, Chris, I got uncured rock when I first started and yes, Paul is right. You get way more "goodies" doing it that way.;) I even enjoyed looking at the live rock while it was curing, as something new would show up live a patch of coral, anenomes, feather dusters. It was not boring waiting for the tank to cure when I had just the live rock.

[korbi_doc]

:D I've had only "fish only" SW tanks in the past so don't know the details of settin' up for "live rock"....when you put live rock in a tank do you set it up as you would for fish with filters & heaters?? If starting out, is this the beginning of the future tank or do you then move the live rock into the final tank after curing?? I would still be more interested in the fish that would populate the tank, but some "easy" reef creatures might be the way to go, I think...I do have a protein skimmer or 2, & powerheads, but not "compact lighting"...... what does that involve? tia, Dottie ;)

[pcsb23]

Hi Dottie,

Compacts or power compacts (PC) lighting is a small flourescent type light fitting based on T5 technology and electronic balasts. Or they are small neat and very powerful! :D

If setting up from scratch it is best to decide if you want to keep corals (mainly hard corals here), a reef style or fish only. Fish only are the easiest in as much the lighting requirements are easier, a thin layer of sand, seawater, heater and filter and your good to go. Protein skimmers help in all cases.

Hard corals are the most demanding, they make the water management for dicsus look easy as in nitrates less than 5ppm and very low DOC's and high O2 (redox) etc...

Reef tanks are the most interesting to me, so if going this route its best to start with the live rock, the more the merrier as it works as a filter in its own right (and a de-nitrator too!). Let it cure (cycle) and then add stock slowly over a few days. I started with various shrimps and hermits and the like then some fish, finally some soft corals. And yes you would still put heaters in there, as well as filters. Also you really need a reasonable to high water movement so some powerful powerheads would be best. Seeing a bunch of Anthias swim in and out of the rocks and hiding in holes in the rock is quite something! The soft corals would need reasonable light levels, hence power compacts or T5's or metal halides!

If you wanted to add live rock to an existing tank with livestock in there you would need to buy pre-cured or cure it in another tank 1st!

Well thats the way I would do it! hth,

[korbi_doc]

:D Thanks Paul, that's a good planning script for me...I won't be ready for this for awhile, but would love to try it out after I set up my discus tanks...& I do love those Anthias'.......someday soon I hope, in the meantime I'll try to educate myself on that lighting....lol, Dottie ;)