Anyone Have a SaltWater Aquarium?

[defense]

Just curious if anyone here has a saltwater tank. I was just skimming through Finding Nemo..and after seeing the commercials for so long as well as the animations...I'm really amazed. I've had a saltwater aquarium for well over 3 years and I can say that it's been incredibly difficult to maintain for so long. But what prompted me to post this is that the animations are so damn realistic in Finding Nemo...I mean..just skimming through I saw several things that I have in my own tank....and the animations were damn near perfect.

Even the Two fish in all the commercials..the blue fish and orange fish. The Blue fish is a "BLUE TANG" and the orange fish is a clown fish..I believe it's a percula clown...but I haven't had clown fish for almost 3 years due to the fact that they have natural tendencies to stay in certain coral and kill it because in the ocean they hide in anemones, they are immune to the sting of the anemone. And being that anemones can move and sting and kill coral....I don't have any in my tank. But clown fish will go in any coral similar to an anemone such as my sunflower pot coral or grape coral...that type of coral.

Anyway....I'm just curious if anyone else on this forum has a saltwater aquarium. I got into this about 4 years ago...I know a guy that owns a shop of exotic fish/coral and he gives me incredible deals...basically at cost for almost everything I want. He cultures alot of his own coral.....so I can get a $150 piece of coral for $8. It was definitely overwhelming when I started out...and damn sure costly.....good thing I have a connection.

What I had to pay a lot of money for was the bio-balls/filtration system....reverse osmosis water and the Power Compact Lights. I have doubles connected. Two blues with a spectrum of 7800 and the whites with a spectrum of 10k.

One thing i'll say is that everything i've put into the tank work wise..has really..really paid off. Every time I look at the tank...I'm amazed. I can't think of ANYONE from friends to the Cable installer who has seen my tank and hasn't literally gasped. Without going on and on.....I can say that i'd easily give up every one of my DVD's...CD's...and electronics components..including my PC....over my tank ANY DAY.

I'll post a picture of it..if anyone wants to comment...either way..that's cool. If anyone has been or is interested in starting a saltwater aquarium...shoot me a PM or ask anything you want here....I'm sure I'll be able to answer just about any question. I will say...if anyone is lazy in the least bit...don't even think about a saltwater aquarium..forget about it.....it won't work out. But if you are really interested and want to see something that's so beautiful it's priceless......and are willing to put in the effort.....your results will be seriously rewarded.

Anyway..back to my original question..anybody else on here have a saltwater tank?

[holistic]

Anyone Have a SaltWater Aquarium?

yes - years ago - not now. No time , far to much upkeep AND expensive.

Like you I had a clown fish, a tang (yellow), some damsels (fiesty little things), a few different angels, and a flamehawk (cool fish - had a personality of sorts - if fish could have personalitys). Some cleaner shrip and small crabs.

This is my fish tank now.
http://www.serenescreen.com/product/

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[defense]

Here's a couple of pics...my most recent ones i've yet to develop.
This was @ 4-6 months.

Here's a better pic at about the same time.

In this pic..you can see about10 pieces of coral.....I now have 32 pieces of coral.....you can see the "type" of clown fish from Nemo on the upper right...below him is the Blue Tang....to the far right is one of my favorite coral...an Open/Fluorescent brain coral. Next to it is a longnose hawk which unfortunately died recently. In the middle of the thanks are two pink anthias fish..beautiful fish..but they need to be fed at least 4 times a day...or they'll die quickly....mine died very quickly because I'm not here to feed them four times a day.

They are difficult fish to maintain..almost impossible..just like the Mandarin species are difficult...those fish should be banned from being caught for the sole purpose of being sold for tanks. They're life won't be long. You can see to the far left...one of the most ironic fish I have...the "BANGHAI CARDINAL"..they are from Japan...and I have two...they actually mated and had babies in my tank about a year ago. That was really amazing. The male holds the eggs in his mouth and won't eat until the babies hatch. I knew something was going on when I would add food and only one of the cardinal would eat..for about a month. He damn near starved himself..but he ate like a pig when he had the babies...lol.

You can see at the bottom also...a neon Wrasse...another difficult fish to maintain..they eat bacteria off other fish...and they die quickly...not enough bacteria in a home tank for them to eat.

You can see the electric flame scallop on the bottom right next to one of my neon mushroom rocks. You can actually see the electricity go from one side to the other. And of course..the yellow tang at the bottom..minding his own business. You can see the clown at the bottom of the tank is in my lettuce coral.....at the top of the tank where the second banghai cardinal is..that's the SUNFLOWER pot coral..the clown fish LOVED that coral....they basically killed it by swarming in it. It was a nightmare getting those clowns out of the tank and taking them back.

Nearly impossible with 60 lbs of live Fiji Rock like I have. But I did it..only took 8 hours...lol

I won't name all the coral...but what you don't see in the pic are my shrimp. I have an amazing RED BLOOD SHRIMP...TWO PISTOL SHRIMP....a PACIFIC CLEANER SHRIMP....and a Coral Banded Shrimp. They love to hide....especially the pistol shrimp. You won't see them unless you put a flashlight to the tank at night. They have a thunderous claw....that has been known to break the glass on tanks. Good thing I never got any Mantis shrimp hiding in my Fiji rock....i'd have no fish..they are lethal. You also don't see any of my starfish..they hate the light...except my African Star fish....loves to come out and feed during the day.



This pic was at about a year. Tough to get these pics with a good view while @ 50kb's. Even looking at the best pic in person doesn't even do the tank near justice.

[holistic]

Small tank for salties . Hard to gauge but appears 60 gallon - maybe as big as 80?!

Small tank = lots of work to maintain.

[defense]

that pic was at a little bit of a distance...so getting it sized to fit under 50 kb's..doesn't really make it look like what it is. At that time...if you zoom in and look closely..you can actually see the "BLUE TANG" and Percula Clown I had at the time...swimming next to each other. Just like in Finding Nemo..lol.

My Blue tang is by far my favorite fish. I've had "BLUE" for over 3 years..and this may be hard for most to believe...but he will actually rub up against my hand when i'm feeding live brine shrimp or frozen brine..he'll eat it right out of my hand. I have a heater in the top right of the tank...he sleeps there at night....he squeezes between the heater knob and glass..and feels protected there...amazing stuff.

@ Holistic ..if you look at that one pic I just posted...I too had a yellow tang. Pretty fish..but they are the most aggressive of all tangs. Some will say that the purple, red sea sailfin tang is more aggressive..but not from my experience. You absolutely can NOT put more then one yellow tang in a tank..unless they are put in at the same time. And if you have other tangs..besides a yellow tang....such as a blue tang...the blue tang must be in the tank PRIOR to the yellow tangs acclimation.

I see you had "ANGEL" fish....I take it you didn't have coral then..huh? lol...I have coral....won't even think about changing the "IFFY' Angels like the Bi...etc.


Very good Holistic...yep....right on the money..it's a 55 gallon..and YES...for salt..you don't need more then 55 IMHO. I've been extremely lucky my central A.C hasn't ever broken since i've had my tank. I don't have a chiller and i've always maintained between 77-79 degrees farenheit....I have a digital temp gauge..I don't like it to vary more then 2 degrees either way....since i've stuck to the "TWO DEGREE" temp....I have NEVER had a case of ICK for my fish. And i'm sure you know..ick is a mother to deal with.


If you look at the top right of that pic....you'll see a small piece of coral...that's my "GRAPE CORAL" ....it only had 3 heads at the time....it's been over 3 years later and the damn thing has grown into a MONSTER. lol...it has 14 heads and when it opens up fully it is an amazing site....the same with pretty much all my coral. I have a leather coral that has grown from about 6 inches...to now taking up about 25% of my tank.


BTW: Holistic..you are dead on about damsels...I never got any...they could live through about anything..but they are really aggressive. I do have some chromis though..they are part of the damsel family...I have the least aggressive ones...the green ones...pretty fish....but even they can be a little aggressive at times.

Holistic..you have any pics of your tank? If so..post em up if you get a chance.

[freestyler]

Those are some very cool fish Defense. Your tank looks like an underwater wonderland

[defense]

freestyler wrote:

Those are some very cool fish Defense. Your tank looks like an underwater wonderland

Thanks man....I take pride in it...as it takes a ridiculous amount of time. I'm often times up til all hours of the night/morning doing maintenance at any given time. It seems like there is always something else that can happen...and you gotta be prepared for it. The chemicals have to be damn near perfect....i'm no chemist..but probably could be from what i've learned over the last 4 years.

Anyway..thanks for the comments...the coral actually looks much,much nicer then any of the fish. The coral is also much, much more sensitive. If I didn't have live coral...I wouldn't really need the powerful lights I have. It's amazing to see the coral grow countless times it's size when the lights are on...and when the lights go off ( I have em set on a timer) ...the coral closes......my Umbrella leather coral shrivels down tp about 1/10th of it's full size at night.

Unfortunately..none of the pics I have really do the tank justice.....at least I don't think so.

Anyone else have a saltwater aquarium?

[Faustus]

I dont' have one but the guy I used to sit beside at work did.. it stank alot and liked to splash water about. Then that water would dry and leave well... salt. Needless to say I was happy when his Eel commited suicide buy jumping out of its tank over one weekend... now the smell is gone.

[defense]

I dont' have one but the guy I used to sit beside at work did.. it stank alot and liked to splash water about. Then that water would dry and leave well... salt. Needless to say I was happy when his Eel commited suicide buy jumping out of its tank over one weekend... now the smell is gone.

lol...some people just aren't cut out for hobbies like this. Sounds like your friend just wanted an eel and didn't take too much care of his tank unfortunately. I've never had any smell come out of my tank..my pumps produce circulation of approximately 700 gallons of saltwater per hour.

Yes...when the water evaporates...salt is left behind...that's why you'd add freshwater..and more specifically...Reverse Osmosis water which has no phosphates. The R.O is used to top off the evaporated saltwater. If someone would add saltwater ...the saltlevel would end up being like the DeadSea...sounds like your friend may of been adding saltwater to his tank when he should of been adding fresh. Also sounds like he never did a water change. Dirty water would cause a stink like you described. I do a 25% saltwater change once per month. Some people try to go 2 and 3 months before doing a water change...but that will definitely cost them sooner or later.

One thing people that see my tank are always amazed by...especially when looking at older pictures....is how I've managed to keep fish and coral for over 3 years. Most people coudln't maintain a freshwater fish for 3 months...let alone maintaining saltwater animals for years. I've lost VERY FEW fish....and most of the time that was due to the fish just not being fish who can live in captivity/tanks. The other time was due to a serious ick issue I had which was hell to cure. Bottom line is you gotta seriously devote the time to a hobby like this....but the end results can be so damn amazing..it's worth every minute.