how difficult is to maintain a salt water aquarium?

Question

i saw in an internet page that is a place that sell the water ready to put in to the aquarium, what is the best, is really hard to keep it in good conditions, it is really expensive?

Answer 1

A saltwater (marine) aquarium is much harder to maintain than a freshwater tank. The funny thing is, it is easier to start up and cycle in than a freshwater setup.

The problems are that you must maintain absolutely perfect water for the saltwater creatures. That means daily testing, water changes very often and continued replacement of the bulbs in the lighting system.

You might be able to start a 55 gallon marine tank with about $500. That would buy the tank, light, bulbs, filters, skimmer, substrate and the initial quantity of marine salt. Then you could start buying fish, crustaceans and other marine animals.

The larger the marine tank, the easier it is to maintain. A small one (anything less than 30 gallons), can go bad in a day and kill all your fish. Then you start over.

Learn all you can about it before you start, mistakes are very costly in the marine aquarium hobby.

Go to "About.com" and follow their links to setting up and maintaining a marine aquarium. They have a lot of great info there.

Answer 2

I have owned and maintained a beautiful reef tank for 7 years, and still have all the original fish.
My best advice is to be extremely cautious and pacient and find a reputable and caring salt-water focused supply store.
I advice you to do a lot of reserch about what kind and size tank you would like. Once you understand how the fish, corals, and sand all work together, you will be able to better maitain the aquarium.
First, buy your tank, filters, lights, sand. The sand much be live-packaged sand. Set up the tank where you want it for a long time, pour in the sand and salt water, turn the aquarium on and set the appropiate temp and lights and let it sit for month. This prepares the tank for life! Add the rocks in the design you like and wait again, then buy a few fish, don't over crowd your tank and make sure they get along, buy some coral, make sure you lighting is suffient for both. Coral needs alot of light.
Buying from a good store will increase your chances of success, they will generally check the health of fish and coral and supply good quality water.
Put your animals all in and maintain the correct chemial and salinity levels.
Don't change it. Changing tank decor, food, or adding lots of diferent things can stress and possibly kill some of you critters.
Snails are a great way of keeping a clean glass, you'll also need a scruby for the inside, you can a magnet that can go all over.
Change the filter once a month, the eclipse filter systems are so great, affordable and easy to maintain.
Depending on where you live i can offer you advice on specialty stores to visit.
Start small, take it slow, and really understand how your little ecosystem works, when you do this your tank will flourish.

Answer 3

It is very expensive to set up, and you need new bulbs every six months, but maintaining it is no more work then with regular fish tanks. You just buy large containers of RO water (the ones with the $10.00 deposit), add salt and aerate it with an air stone for 24 hours before the water change. Life only gets difficult when you start adding corals (which also need feeding with specific water additives). For a fish only tank, you need a good 3 stage filter, florescent lights, heat, marine test kit, hydrometer, salt, 3 inches of crushed aragonite as a substrate and one pound of live rock/gallon of slat water.
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Answer 4

Maintaining a saltwater aquarium requires detailed effort and attention, PATIENCE and lots of knowledge/research. If you have all that, then maintaining the tank isn't that hard.

Initial costs are a lot higher than freshwater in my experience. With the skimmer, power compact lighting, live sand, live rock, test kits, hydrometer, power heads, salt, etc I think my 45-gal salt water setup cost nearly as much as my freshwater 125-gal setup did before I even added the fish! Going saltwater definately requires a sort of commitment.

Answer 5

it can be very expensive and messy. Depending on the marine animals you are going to put in there. But if you can afford salt water animals then I suppose it's probably not an issue. You have to maintain a certain amount of "sea" salt in your aqarium and maintain a certain temperature. In most cases you must change the water at least once a month.

Answer 6

sure they are suitable there are so lots extra parameters to maintain song of and each thing is extra high priced. With saltwater you desire a extensive tank by way of fact the water chemistry will crash speedier in smaller volumes. maximum marine beginners initiate with tanks a hundred and twenty gallons and above. you're finding at some thousand funds to initiate out in marine platforms. you could no longer make saltwater out of straight away faucet water you go with an RO or DI clear out (in the journey that your water is crappy adequate you will choose the two). Marine lighting fixtures is likewise high priced you could no longer purely use any previous gentle source the sunshine must be the right Kelvin and intensity. The water high quality try equipment for a marine gadget is so lots extra in touch and you desire a hydrometer to mixture your saltwater to the right salinity. this would not even scratch the exterior i'd desire to write pages on why that's a bad theory. Do you think of the revenues person needed to screw themselves out of each and all the extra funds a marine sale would generate? No, they do purely no longer choose you to be yet another annoyed customer while $a hundred's of greenbacks incredibly worth of animals die on your tank (they like repeat purchasers).

Answer 7

I would not recommend salt water aquarium to a beginner, They are a lot of work, and are somewhat expensive to maintain !

Answer 8

Very expensive and high maintenance. The fish cost a bunch too.
But , they are truly beautiful to look at. Go to a good pet shop that
specializes in salt water fish and equipment and see what kind of a starter set-up you can get .

Answer 9

YES!~!!!~~!! Go with freshwater. A salt water tank can cost more than 500 dollars a year for every gallon.

Answer 10

YES!!!!!! very expensive!!! you should learn as much as you can before purchasing a saltwater aquarium... whether it is a big purchase or a tiny 2 gallon tank.
PLEASE go read some of the message boards at this site!
www.saltwaterfish.com