Who's Into Saltwater?

[Tony]

A few years ago the wife and I decided to switch from fresh water to saltwater for our tanks. At this time she was working at petsmart so we could get some discounts on some things. But it was all fresh water. We found a store that specialized in reef tanks and the colors were awesome. I knew I had to get into it.

We took all of the stuff out of the 55 gallon and stuck it in a 20 gallon and purchased the live sand and live rock. Our first fish to help the tank cycle was 4 Blue Devil Damsils. Let me tell you, these fish will cycle your tank quite quickly and are very hard to catch lol. They are pretty aggressive so we had to remove them from our tank to introduce other fish.

We had this tank up and running for two years. I went from HOB (Hang On Back) filters to a full sump system I designed. It was great. However, 2 large pumps, two power heads in teh tank, heaters, and T5 lights takes it's toll on your electricity bill. So we made the decision to sell it.

And now I miss the tank.

I still have a 55 gallon tank out in the cellar and I'm really thinking about setting another one up. I was just wondering if any of you have been interested in saltwater or if you have your own setup in your house or office? If you do, post up some pics, I would like to see it.

also if you know where to get some live rock or live sand, let me know. I want 80lbs of each.

Here are some pics of my old tank. I want more lol.

































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Here is some newer pictures of the tank just before I sold it. These are the pictures I used to actually sell it. I think it looked better when we set it up in the new house lol.

 

[Whirlybird]

Looking to get some sharks??????? RC Sub maybe????????

 

[Lee]

I've always wanted to get a saltwater tank. We had a huge freshwater tank when i was younger. Had more than $1000 of fish in it. Unfortunately we went on holiday to Germany, and when we returned there was nothing in the tank????? Our neighbours had been looking after it and hadn't noticed the temperature dropping on the thermostat. The heater element had broken. All the fish died from the cold, except 1. The ugly catfish. We moved soon after, and left the tank in the old house. I wish i had some pics, as it was sunk into the living room wall flush like a painting, with all the workings in the kitchen next door. My mum could wave through the tank when it was time for dinner LOL

 

[coolgabsi]

Dang that was amazing!!

 

[Tony]

Lee, if/when I get another house, I plan on doing an aquarium that is open on 3 sides (front, back and one side). everything will go though the other side for filtration, dosing and so on. It will take about a month to get everything done if I have it set right in my head. But the overall look of it would be great. Cleaning would suck, but it always does on a saltwater tank with hard Coraline algae. That stuff is like rock and is solid calcium.

Gaba, that tank we had was nothing. It was pretty basic and everything in it was soft corals. I didn't have enough light to do SPS corals (Small Polyp Stoney). They require either intense 3w LED's x50 for a small tank, or Metal Halide's. However when I had mine the LED's were not an option and I was just running T5 lights. I had 6 lights on my tank with parabolic reflectors. Each light was 54w. So that is 324w of power just in lighting. I would have needed 800w of lighting with dual 400w Metal Halide's to do SPS.

Add the lighting wattage then the multiple pumps and skimmers and so on and you can see how this could get expensive in a real hurry. On the new tank, I will be looking to start out with what's called a FOWLR tanks (Fish Only With Live Rock). I can run those with only two T5 lights (one 10k and one Actinic) enough to keep the live rock alive. Once I do that I will start setting up a custom LED setup with 3w LED's. I'm looking for at least 50 if not 100 of them. It should be a very bright tank lol.

I just sent an offer for a 125g setup. Everything is there, I just need to get it for the right price to make it worth it.

 

[callsign4223]

I thought about doing salt water, but never really got past the thought of all the extra work. I have a 55 with 2 local caught sunfish in it. I tossed some local minnows in too, they lasted till the first time I forgot to feed the sunfish :0

I will have to get a couple of pics after I move this weekend and post them up.

 

[Adam]

I gave away a 200 gallon salt water tank with live rock and stand for free didn't want to clean it up and spend that kind of Money lol.

 

[Tony]

There is a 200g on CR for $3500 right now lol. Looks like crap too lmao. I'm looking for something in the 125 range. Just trying to find the right one.

 

[Tony]

Well, I found my 125g setup that is complete with 60lbs of sand (I will need about 70lb's more!) and 115lbs of live rock. The tank is 6 feet long, 18" front to back and about 24" top to bottom. comes with lights, sump, all pumps and everything else, and it's all about half of what it would cost new. However, I would need time to take it down at the current owners house and put it up here. That means I would need enough buckets to hold about 110 gallons of water (the rest would be new water for a water change). That would equate out to about $85 just in 5 gallon buckets... Then I would need two trucks to haul all of it! One truck for the tank and stand, the other just for the water.

There are fish in this tank otherwise I would just dump the water down the drain. But with there being some fish (Maroon Clown, Niger Trigger, some Damsel, I think I saw an engineer Goby and some other fish) I would like to keep most of the water so there will not be a cycle in the tank. For those that don't know, every new tank goes through a cycle where the ammonia spikes as things die off from shipment. This is normal but will kill most of the fish and coral. However there are no corals in this tank other than shrooms.

The guy is leaving this Thursday for Vegas and I'm sure that is why he is selling the tank. The thing that sucks is I will not be able to pick it up until next weekend and he won't be there. It will have to be the following weekend when they get back, and it may not be for sale then lol. Ah well, something else will come along someday...

 

[RMB677]

I went the salt water route a good number of years back when we lived in NJ and had access to a good variety of reasonibly priced salt water fish. The shop I dealt with would go to the wholesaler's in NY on Thurs. and I hit there on the way home from work. I did well for a couple of years then I lost the whole tank to a bacteria bloom, cleaned and sterilized every thing and tried again, six months later and it happened again. At that time I felt it was getting too expensive to try again and the prices back then, 1970's, were no where what they are now.

 

[wolfman76]

sweet pics tony i have a 26 gallon bow front i plan on setting up as a saltwater tank but just no room for it right now... but it looked like you had all the fish i want too i the white 1 is a fire tail right??? Oh well as soon as we can buy a house i will make it happen...( patience kyle patience lol)

 

[Tony]

I went the salt water route a good number of years back when we lived in NJ and had access to a good variety of reasonibly priced salt water fish. The shop I dealt with would go to the wholesaler's in NY on Thurs. and I hit there on the way home from work. I did well for a couple of years then I lost the whole tank to a bacteria bloom, cleaned and sterilized every thing and tried again, six months later and it happened again. At that time I felt it was getting too expensive to try again and the prices back then, 1970's, were no where what they are now.

Do you know what bacteria it was? Also back in teh 70's the chemicals were not as good as they are now. I had my old one for a few years and NEVER had an issue that I didn't cause. I had the usual bad worms and such, but that just meant I could by new shrimp that would eat them lmao. Don't be scared of it, everything is MUCH better than it was back then. From LED lighting to dosing pumps, to calcium reactors, you name it, they have it now.

sweet pics tony i have a 26 gallon bow front i plan on setting up as a saltwater tank but just no room for it right now... but it looked like you had all the fish i want too i the white 1 is a fire tail right??? Oh well as soon as we can buy a house i will make it happen...( patience kyle patience lol)

a 26g will be classified as a Nano tank and vs larger tanks, they are harder to run because they are not as stable. You have to stay on top of them. As for your question on the "the white 1". I had a few white fish in my tank. Are you talking about the Fire Fish that is related to a goby or are you talking about my Diamond Goby? I will look through the pics again and see if I can find exactly what fish you are talking about...

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My bad, I didn't get any pics on here of my Diamond Goby, only my Dragon Goby. I'm pretty sure you are talking about the fire fish or fire goby (same fish). They are great fish, love being in schools and if you can afford the purple fire fish, get them. They are much more colorful!

Fire Fish - http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+2971+168&pcatid=168

Purple Fire Fish - http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+2971+173&pcatid=173

 

[wolfman76]

Yeah it was the fire goby... My local guy here at the ark in merrillville said the larger filter i run on it the more fish i can safely have... Although i do plan on getting a bigger tank too.. Buddy i got 26g from had a 250g he had leopard grouper leopard shark lion fish scorpion fish emperor angel i think a parrot or trigger fish not sure which then he sold all the saltwater fish n went freshwater

 

[Tony]

I will never go back to freshwater. It's a hassle out where I live. The well water I use is PERFECT for saltwater. Lots of calcium, high PH, everything they love. I just add salt to bring the salinity up to where it needs to be and call it a day.

And the rule of thumb is one inch of fish per gallon of water. Those Firefish are about 1.5" so you could keep a total of about 14 in there. However that is a lot of fire fish lol. I'm sure you would want some clowns or a Coral Banded Shrimp or something else in there as well. I know I loved my CBS.

I really want to make this deal on this 125g, I just don't know when I can get it, UGH! I know my wife can go get it, but we need a place to put the fish while the tank is being setup. I guess I could get a fast quarantine tank setup and heated in about an hour of them getting here. It will stress the fish out, but there is only one that I want, the rest will be traded off or sold if they don't die. We will just have to see what happens. If I get it, you can bet I will have pictures on here of the setup and it running. Also updates.

 

[wolfman76]

Cant wait till i can setup my tank

 

[Tony]

well unfortunately I can't get the tank. Can't do it during the week when I work, he will be gone this weekend as well as next week and he said he can't do it the weekend after because he will be at the OU/Texas game in Dallas. I told him that if he really wanted to sell it, he would make time on one of these weekends. I guess that pissed him off lmao. Oh well, I will just wait.

 

[Tony]

Just got off the phone with a lady down south that has a 100g for half the price of the 125. Pics were small so she will be emailing me new ones tomorrow. It's a 100g tank with a 30g sump. I also found a 30g cube with overflow that I'm thinking about getting for a refugium. Those that don't know what those are for, it's a place for little copepods and worms to grow without any fish to eat them. Some will get sucked up into the sump then blown into the main tank for the fish to feed on. And all of this is still cheaper than the 125, yet I will have more gallons lol. However it's a longer drive, about 79 miles or so.

The best thing about this, the cost to buy this tank is about the same as it would cost me to setup my 55g. Almost a no brainer lol.

 

[murankar]

Hopefully the tanks are in good shape. Good luck with the purchase.

 

[Tony]

I think the wife an I have decided not to do this at all. well I made the decision. We just have too much going on right now and I don't have time to keep the tank up right now. I would only be awake when the lights are out, so I can't do anything with it, and the wife will either be working or in school so she can't do it. Much like RC, it's being pushed to the side. Sucks.

 

[Tony]

I think the wife vetoed this for me... I told her that I didn't want to do a tank right now and she told me "we don't want the tank, we NEED the tank". Her reasoning being they are calming to look at. And she is right. When I would get stressed before, I would just pull up a chair and watch my tang play peek-a-boo lol. IT's relaxing.

So with that in mind, I have started looking again. I love being over ruled on something...

There are just so many options out there.

I have a lead on a 100g setup with a single overflow that has some stock in it. Some rock, some fish, a large anemone and some corals. I really like this tank and it's priced right. However, it's 75 miles from my house and we are getting colder. We would need to pack everything up in buckets and hope like hell it makes it back and doesn't get too cold. If it gets too cold, things will die. Adn in all honesty, I probably could care less if things to die, then I can set it up my way lol. This tank also has what's called Aptasia which is a pest anemone and is a pain in the ass to get rid of. The fish that eat them also eat corals, but it may be worth is because I love the fish that eat them. It has a 30g sump and the tank is up and running now. It's the trip that I'm worried about. And setting them up once we get back in a decent amount of time.

Here are some pics of the 100g aquarium. Some pictures are quite small and this is the way they are on the CL site. There is one in there that shows the tank with teh overflow in the left side.

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The other tank I'm looking at is a 120g tank with dual over flows. This tank is 4' long and 24" high and deep. It's a beautiful tank to say the least. The sump is a cheap POS though and the lighting is lacking at best. There is nothing in the tank so the move would be easier. Just load it up in the truck and go. I would be able to set this up in my own time frame which means I can take things slow. The issue is, rock is about $3.50lb. Adn this tank would need at least 100lbs of it. And that is cheap ass rock. I would have to let is cycle for a good few weeks before it's ready for fish. However, this tank is about $250 less than the other one. Yes, I'm getting more bang for my buck with teh above tank, but if things start to die, then I'm losing money big time.

Here is A picture of this tank. I think this one looks much better but I will have more money in it.

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There are other tanks out there such as the 150 stated earlier that is fully stocked and about $1300 but I would not be able to even see this one until two weeks from now. It's a lot of money that I don't have, but I'm sure the wife will find a way to make it work lol.

So if you had to set up an aquarium, how would you do it? Would you use craigslist to get it, or would you purchase new? Just FYI, new is more than double what you would pay for a new one. The one for $1300 was close to $3500 to set up to start with. But, when you set up a NEW tank, you know the tank is good, you are getting every thing new (like a new car that depreciates the second you drive it off the lot lol) and you can go at your own pace to get it just the way you want it. Or would you get used, with all of the issues (Aptasia, slime algae and some scratches on the tank)? I would like to hear your opinions.