unbiased beginner info needed.
CompuQuest Staff
I've maintained a tropical fish aquarium for many years and have now
decided to explore a long held desire to develop a marine aquarium.
I've bought a few books on the subject, read them thoroughly, and being
a chemist by trade have absolutely no qualms concerning the extra effort
and dedication that is needed in maintaining the concise chemical
equilibria of the tank itself. What has really been frustrating to this
point has been the contradictory information I've received by salesmen
at the shops themselves concerning necessary equipment and startup
costs, and considering the considerable investment I obviously wish to
minimize mistakes. One vendor says undergravel filters are absolutely
necessary, the other canister filters. And then of course there are
conflicting views on care and fish selection. What I'd like is the
straight dope from an experienced marine aquariast concerning: what
startup equipment to buy, startup/monthly maintenance costs, and maybe
some beginners tips.
Thanx in advance,
Jason
yc...@citenet.net
P.S: I'd prefer an e-mail response since I do not regularly browse this
newsgroup (not yet anyway!). Please type the e-mail address listed
above (personal address), since I'm posting from work and a simple reply
will send it here.
Patrick/Chris George
Jason,
I think we're in the same boat. My marine tank is now six weeks old.
After 15 years of freshwater fish I finally decided to convert to
marine. I'm not an expert and by posting this I'm hoping to get more
advice.
Many of the books I picked up swore by ug filters, but after talking
with several fish shops they all said no. This may have been due to the
age of the books I was reading not taking into account advances made in
filters.
I'm using a 30 gal tank with a Emperor 400 dual bio wheel filter. To
start out this was the only type of filter I used...no ul filter, no air
pump.
For water I use tap that was treated with AmQuel to get rid of the
chlorine. A lot of the info I read told me to cycle the tank for up to
six months using a chunk of shrimp, but the fish stores said don't do
this.
Based on this advice I let the water sit for three days then added two
blue devils and a small maroon clown. I was told these fish are very
hardy.
After six weeks the fish are doing fine.
I'm doing a 30% water change every two weeks and have noticed that the
ammonia levels are very high and nitrate levels very low...I'm guessing
that the bio filter has not kicked in yet...kind of scary.
I put together a simple protein skimmer using one of the tubes from my
old ul filter, the bottom of a plastic pop bottle and a wooden
airstone. To my surprise it works and I'm getting a nice dark brown
gunk from this.
My biggest problem right now is feeding. In all my freshwater tanks the
food was gone two minutes after I added it (I had an oscar that would
even bite my finger is dipped into the water). I'm currently feeding
frozen brine shrimp, twice a day. The fish are eating it but there's a
lot of leftovers (maybe the reason for the high ammonia).
I spent in the neighboorhood of $175 on different books which now sit on
the bookshelf unused.
There's a lot of spam written on marine tanks and most of the info I've
seen in this newsgroup is well worth the time spent reading.
pat