I would like to buy a salt water fish tank for my app. What do i need to get started? Essentials? Price?

Question

My dog destroyed my appartment, so I had to leave her at my mothers house. I would still like a pet, so I've decided to get a saltwater fish tank. I went to a pet shop yesterday and they weren''t too helpful. I'm turning to the world for some helpful advice. How much should I put aside to get started? I think a 30 to 40 Gallon tank is a good size. I guess what I really want is to build a nice ecosystem for about 5 to 6 fish, some anemonies, and a coral shrimp or two. Is 30 to 40 too much?

Answer 1

Wow, you made life easier by saying what you want in the tank. Anemones require bright light and good water movement but they can be kept with florescent lights rather then high output or metal halide. The trick is to replace the bulbs every six months (one florescent at least 10,000K and one actinic). You would also need a filter with biowheel (and skimmer would be nice too) that moves 450 to 600 gallons per hour depending on wether you go with a thirty of forty gallon. If your filter has no skimmer, you should invest in one. You will also need a marine test kit, hydrometer, heater, salt, a good supply of RO water (tap won't suffice for a marine tank), three inches of aragonite, and thirty to forty pounds of live rock. Your tank needs to cycle for a while before you can add any fish, invertibrate or anemones. Anemones are notoriously short lived in tanks so I would reccomend you wait for a least six months for your tank to mature a bit before buying any (this actually takes up to two years although it is hard to make anyone understand this until after they have had their tanks for two years). I cannot give you exact prices as I have no idea where you live, but I think this info will give you the ability to go to the local stores and price them out yourself. You could also scan the net for used established tanks as marine enthusiasts are always moving up in tank size but cannot afford to own more then one tank.
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Answer 2

Saltwater creatures are very delicate and a healthy saltwater ecosystem is very complicated. I say this because a 30 - 40 gallon tank is too small. Many recommend that a saltwater tank should be absolutely no less than 55 gallons, 75 recommended. I had a 55 and found that organisms I wanted to put into my tank needed lots more room. There is a lot to consider: the brown algae that grows very quickly. The expensive and very territorial fish. But if you must have one, you'll need: a 55 gallon tank with hood/light combo, crushed coral topped with sand to cover, as much live rock as you can afford, salt (from the pet store), hydrometer (to measure safe salt levels) and a filter. Let the tank run for about two weeks before adding fish. Ocean aquariums are an expensive hobby that takes a lot of dedication. In the pet store, they should have intro books for getting set-up. Good luck.

Answer 3

If you are doing saltwater, I would recommend getting as large a tank as you can afford. The glass part of the tank is cheap. So is the special salt that you must buy at a pet store to make up the salt water. But just about everything else is expensive. Saltwater fish live in the ocean where there is very little pollution. If your tank is dirty at all, your fish will not survive. To get this almost perfect water quality you need a filtration system that really does the job. Personally I use a pound of live rock for every gallon of water. At $3-6 per pound that adds up quick. You also need a lot of current to circulate the water thru the porous live rock. I use two Magnum 350's. They run about $200 a piece. Then you need lighting. This is especially important if you will have corals in the tank. Corals are living animals. They live on reefs near the equator in direct sunlight. Your lighting system will have to duplicate that. Plan on another $400-$500 for that.

Now when you go to buy fish, you will find the pet store will charge you $10 for the inexpensive saltwater ones but you could easily drop $50-100 on one fish. Then you find that the pet store offers no guarentee on salt water fish! If it dies, you are out a lot of money.

With all this said, I love my saltwater tanks and I would highly recommend this as a hobby for an experienced person. It is not for someone replacing a dog.

If you still want to move in this direction, try keeping a tank full of discus. They are freshwater but also have special requirements like saltwater fish do.

Answer 4

Now I am not that familar with salt water aquariums but from what I do know 30 to 40 is not too much maybe even a bare minimum. If you have never had salt water aquarium read up on it very well. Find some discussion threads on line and be prepared to spend money (lots of money) salt water fish and equipment is not cheap. Find the fish you like and want and research them extensively. Sorry I cant be more help but if you would consider freshwater maybe even an afican cichlid tank I can be of much further help. African Cichlids are very colorful and very active fish. I personally would choose a cichlid tank over a marine tank anyday. Good Luck.

Answer 5

There are three types of saltwater aquariums.

1. Fish only aquarium: This is the cheapest set up. What is essential for this aquarium is a decent sized aquarium- 55 gallon for example (100 bucks or less for aquarium with lights), salt water mix (Kent or Oceanic or any good brand)(20 bucks for 2 months supply), a instrument to measure salinity (16 bucks), a bucket to mix water (5 bucks), a heater (15 bucks), lights- 24 bucks (prdinary lights), a filter - 45 bucks but preferably a skimmer (80 bucks). Testing kit- 24 bucks.

Total- about 300-350 bucks. Fish can be as less as 3-5 bucks for chromis or damsels to upto 1500 for a mystery wrasse. A 30 gallon can accomodate about 3 small fish only. 55 will accomodate more. With a skimmer, you can keep more but the less you keep, the easier the maintainence of fish.

2. What you describe is a reef tank and costs zoom up because of the above cosst plus few more components.

Live rock is one which can range from 5-12 bucks a pound and you will need about 1.5 to 2 pounds per gallon in your tank. Add to this 4 inches of live sand at 15 bucks a bag (you will need four) and costs go up.

The second component is a good skimmer- which can range from 80-300 bucks depending on model and flow. For corals you will also need pumps for water circulation- such that the entire contents of the tank are circulated 6-10 times an hour- or four 12 buck ones.

It gets more expensive. Lighting. You may pick between metal halides, Power Compacts or Compact fluorescent all ranging from 300-1500 depending on how handy you are with retrofitting.

Corals themselves are more expensive. I have seen good SPS corals go for 100 bucks a frag! And they are addictive!! My coral habit is worse than a crack habit. Metal halides are best if you want to keep light loving corals but you could get away with mushrooms or ricordia with lower lighting. Aim for 10 watts per gallon for light loving corals, and about half that for lower light species. Also plan on keeping about 25 bucks aside for the book "Conscientious Aquarists by R. Fenner" which is the best book for a reefkeeper I have met. Or hit someone who owns the book on the head and pry it from their fingers.

So for a decent reef aquarium, plan on spending atleast 1300 bucks. The bare minimum.
Anemones are very risky. They require pristine water conditions and high lights, but if you want to keep 5-6 fish, and a few shrimp (how many depends on the shrimp- you can have maybe 1 per 10 gallons of water if they are peppermints- but skunks are huuge), I'd advice a larger tank like a 55 gallon.

Good luck!! It is a wonderful hobby.

Answer 6

Be careful when choosing a salt water tank. I had one and it cost me more money to keep it up than anything. I spent over $100 with repairs and replacing fish. You use different kinds of filters with salt water so they are more expensive as well. If you stick with a smaller one, you may have more luck, but it's still going to cost you almost 100 just to get started. The fish even cost more

Answer 7

Try these forums. Salt water tanks are gorgeous, but very costly to start up and maintain. Tank is probably the cheapest part of it lol. You'll need live rock (about 5-10 a lb.) 1 lb rock for every gallon, protein skimmer, filter, heater, test kits, salt, etc.

http://www.aquariacentral.com/

http://www.aquariumboard.com/forums/home.php

Answer 8

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