With that come the vibrant, colourful, delicate creatures, fascinating corals, reef fauna and live rock. Saltwater aquarium in particular can be more expensive. And they are a bit more precarious to maintain than their freshwater counterparts.
They generally require additional equipment, additional work during water changes and also require special lighting. Size and materials obviously make a difference when it comes to price, maintenance and suitability as well. Both saltwater and freshwater aquaria created by Aquarium Architecture are a fabulous conversation piece and make an engaging focal point in any room.
Click here to view more of our saltwater and freshwater aquarium. Make sure you understand the capabilities and limitations of all equipment before you make a purchase. Contrary to what some folks believe, it isn't necessary to have experience with freshwater aquariums before attempting saltwater. Marine aquarium keeping requires a little more patience and a little more money than freshwater, but with proper planning and research, it's something that anyone can do successfully, regardless of previous experience.
Please join our newsletter , connect with us on Facebook or contact us for more information. Read More. Do fish grow to their tank size? Getting started with a saltwater aquarium: While it is true that the marine aquarium hobby is more expensive than freshwater, you can start out with a basic fish-only setup and progress into invertebrates and live corals as your budget and expertise allow.
Buying livestock for saltwater aquariums: When it comes to buying fish and other critters, do your homework! Equipment for saltwater aquariums Start out with the largest aquarium and the best equipment you can afford. How much experience do I need? Popular Blogs. Types of Aquarium Snails Read More. Have some RODI water ready. You can also use distilled water as a substitute in a pinch. The great thing about distilled water is that you can purchase it at grocery stores, which tend to be open late on nights and weekends.
There are a number of cheaper RODI units available these days that work for reef tanks including those made by LiqaGen :. Keep up with your water changes and maintain all your equipment.
Clean out your skimmer, change out your GFO and carbon, keep your water topped off, clean your glass, clean your pumps, have dosing supplies and salt handy so you do not forget. It is really easy to fall behind on maintenance once you stop building your reef up and your tank hits stability. Do not fall into lazy reefers syndrome.
If worse comes to worse — considering hiring a professional to maintain your tank. In general, the first chamber of a sump is for a high quality protein skimmer and the third chamber is for the return pump. This leaves the middle chamber. The refugium chamber of a sump is the most important part of your sump. It can not only be a refugium, which you can use macro algae like cheato to suck up nutrients, but it is also the flex space in your sump. Some hobbyists today use the refugium space to house an algae turf scrubber.
The bigger it is the better. This hobby is all about knowledge and research. If you are about to purchase something whether it is equipment or livestock and you have doubts, do not buy it.
So many unnecessary livestock losses and money wasted on unneeded products can be prevented by using this rule. Recall 6 when I said you will get addicted. This is where things can go wrong. In our circle, we call this multiple tank syndrome. You purchase multiple tanks and try to run them all at the same time. The more tanks you have the less time you have to maintain each one.
This hobby is very addicting, but do not try to make it take over your entire life. I know for some of you reading this — it is probably too late :. Take your time and be set on your decision of your tank location. I cover what to look for when determining your tank location in an another blog post. Having to move a tank after you made your location decision can be fairly painful, but it is nowhere as painful if you are actually needing to move to a new apartment or home.
There are so many steps and factors to consider when you are moving your tank. It describes it in detail could create a blog post as large as this article. It is a complex task and many things need to be setup ahead of time as the clock starts ticking once you pull your inhabitants out of the tank and into storage containers. If you are moving locally, take your time and research this carefully and have as much prepped beforehand.
If you are moving out of state, consider selling your livestock or getting a professional to help and make sure you have references. There are a group of people who cheer for your success in this hobby every day. They are the aquarium clubs and societies located throughout the country. With frequent local meetups, frag swaps, sponsored events, and tank showcases it is the place to go to really build relationships with other hobbyists who share your passion. It is also a great place to be mentored and even a better place to find a reliable tank sitter or someone who can help you drill a tank.
So what are you waiting for? Check out my listing of aquarium clubs throughout the united states and found a local club to join today! Forums are a great place to build up your knowledge, but it is also a great place for bad information. Some forums users will answer a question on a forum trying to be helpful, but they may not know the answer and may just throw one out to be helpful.
In the end, the bad advice may hurt the hobbyist listening to it. So how do you differentiate between the good and bad advice on the forum? There are few things to look for: time on the forum, past posts, do they have pictures of their own tank on the forum, etc.
Most established forums tend to call out bad information. My biggest concern these days are with Facebook groups. I have personally noticed these groups tend to give out more faulty info then forums. Walking into a local fish store without a plan could be the deadliest thing you can do to your tank. Local fish stores promote sales all the time and it is very tempting to overstretch yourself and buy too many fish and corals at once because they have a great deal going on.
Walking in without a plan invites impulse buying and as we learned in tips 1 and 2 knowledge and patience is critical for success. Plan first then go to the store and stick to your plan! Not all local fish stores are created equal. While there are a lot less of them these days because of online stores like us, there are still a number of bad ones out there.
They can give you some pretty bad advice. Until you find a local fish store that you trust — always maintain your skepticism and research yourself before accepting what they tell you. There is an old saying in the saltwater reef tank hobby. Buy cheap pumps, they break and you have to replace them with better ones. Buy a cheap heater, they could explode and you have to replace everything. Buy a cheap lighting fixture without PAR figures or Spectrum stated, end up buying a high quality light to replace it.
If you are thinking about going cheaper, consider being patient and saving up see words of wisdom 2 — Be Patient. I have compiled a load of aquarium equipment reviews on this site for you to look at that does a lot of the homework of research for you.
Getting a drilled tank and learning about plumbing can be really intimidating for a newcomer. You might consider going sump less or with a hang-on back overflow. While you can certainly have a successful tank without a sump, you sacrifice a lot of flexibility and storage by skipping out on one. Hang-on back overflows are considered by many hobbyists unreliable do to them siphoning water out in the event of failure.
Learn more about the best overflow boxes readily available to purchase. There are three ways to approach the drill tank issue. You can either purchase a reef ready tank and have the hole pre-made for you.
You can drill yourself, which is actually not as hard as you think and a hobbyist friend may likely do it for you if you ask. Or you can go with an all-in-one aquarium and just have the sump built into the aquarium. Either way, my personal thought is you miss out on too many benefits without drilling a tank and not having a sump.
Most aquarium stands that you can purchase from a local chain store at are going to be less than 30 inches in height. They are designed so you can watch your aquarium while sitting.
If you are a taller person or looking into a more shallow aquarium 24 inches and below , it is a good idea to consider a taller stand. There is a reason why manufacturers who make custom and premium brand aquarium stands start with stand heights at 36 inches and above. Going with the concept of bigger is better — bigger is better, especially down below in the sump.
Not having a big enough sump causes two problems. The first is that it limits the equipment space available for you to add-on. Second, an undersized sump would not hold enough volume to prevent an overflow in the event of a power outage or pump failure. Overlooking sump size can literally cost you hundreds in home repairs. See our Best Aquarium Sump review post for our expert picks. If you want to have a successful reef tank, you need to have a source of high quality water.
You will want water that have 0 total dissolved solids TDS. This prevents any excessive nutrients and toxic chemicals from entering your tank. This is the healthiest water for your fish and prevents nuisance algae growth.
The best way to get this water is to invest in an RODI system. You can purchase RODI water from your local fish or use distilled water in the short term, but long term — a quality RODI unit is an investment that will stay with you throughout your saltwater reef tank hobby journey. While I encourage everyone to purchase high-quality equipment, the fact is that our equipment will eventually break down. Equipment could break down overnight or during the weekend when the local fish is closed or before you can get it delivered from an online store.
A tank can crash quickly if a critical piece of equipment fails and you cannot replace it fast enough. There are three pieces of equipment you will always want to have a backup for:. It is an understatement to say that bad thing can happen quickly during a power outage. It is one of the top three reasons for a tank wipe out and many of us including myself have been a victim of a tank wipe out because of a power outage.
It is a helpless feeling to see your tank and inhabitants degrade quickly and die off — it is one of the worst feelings in the hobby. Literally, in hours a reef tank can go down quickly especially if the temperature is hot outside.
There are two investments you want to make for a power outage — short term and long term. Short term would be a battery backup that you can purchase at an office supply store. Get the biggest one you are comfortable spending for. It needs to be powerful enough to power your heater, a pump, and a fan.
These short term battery backups will last you a few hours. You want to aim for at last hours of backup time. A long term power outage is handled by a gas generator. LEDs have made great strides in the industry and saved reefers a lot of money in electrical cost. However, the top quality LED reef lights are extremely intense. Under full power, they can easily cook corals and raise the temperature of smaller tanks. Sure, it is cool to tell your reefing friends that you have the latest and greatest Radions, but know what you are getting yourself into before you decide to purchase these powerful lights.
Know what your corals require and prepare to lower their intensity. LEDs offer a ton of customization to determine what spectrum you want to set for your tank. Unfortunately, the vast amount of customization can also be a downfall for those new to the hobby. Either go with lights like Kessil who have done the spectrum work for you or start out with tried and true spectrum outputs from manufacturers like ATI. Many hobbyists will tell you that an aquarium controller is the best investment they have ever made.
Reefing is not the same after you setup a controller. It has checks to make sure your tank is operating correctly, automates a bunch of tasks for you, and is a way to monitor your aquarium when you are outside of the home. Not only that, but a controller is scale-able to any aquarium. Once you have one, you can keep it with you if you upgrade and the resell value of well-known controllers like Neptune hold up very well.
Back in the old days, there were two known ways of cycling a tank. Either you would purchase a few very hardy fish like Damels or you would purchase live rock and cycle your tank during the curing process.
The first method was very cruel and the remaining Damels would be hostile to any new additions. The second method was messy, smelly, and could lead to various reef tank pests that you would have to deal with.
These days, there is fishless cycling. Usually, this is done by putting food in the tank and adding bacteria supplements. The shrimp method involves purchasing a jumbo headless shrimp from a grocery store, placing it in the aquarium for 3 days, and removing it. The decaying matter from the shrimp will start your cycle and you just measure levels until you have no ammonia and nitrites.
It is a the simplest, cheapest, and sure fire way of cycling a tank. Your Saltwater Reef Tank is a delicate ecosystem with a bacteria population that can support its current inhabitants.
Every time you add additional bioload to the tank the bacteria in your system needs time to establish the population needed to support them. These means that your tank goes through another cycle. While not as long as your original, this concept is a must to understand and one of the main reasons things can go downhill quickly if you add too much livestock at once. You are going to put your hands in the tank, you may think about washing your hands before doing so.
Conventional soaps contain antibacterial chemicals that can harm your tank. Instead, just rinse your hands and arms up to the length you feel that will be touched by your aquarium water. Just rinse them with fresh water and paper towel dry them.
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