Thread: Salt Water Tanks! Need some Ideas and Pictures!!!!

Just got the confirmation that I'm getting a new house! Deal finally went through a frigging bidding war to the bitter end..........
Wife told me I get to pick one that can go in the house (She wasn't feeling the 18 yr Russian Super model.). I've always wanted a Salt water tank. Does anyone have one on the 4 who built it? How many gallons? Pics please!!!

Will you be maintaining it or will you contract it out?

Idk I know they are not easy to maintain.

Originally Posted by Forfend

Will you be maintaining it or will you contract it out?

If you want to maintain it, start small&hellip;in the pico size (<10 gallons). Anything larger and I&rsquo;d definitely sub it out. Many small scale marine stores will maintain everything about the tank minus feeding. Even then you can attach an automatic feeder. With the addition of network attached tank controllers you or the service guy can monitor and tweak settings and even see potential problems before they arise.

If you need a dollar amount if you want to setup/maintain you can figure $20/gallon for start up, which includes all the equipment. If you will be doing the maintenance figuring $1-2/gallon per month (chemicals, food, consumable parts, etc etc) is a safe bet. These numbers are based on standard items. Anything custom will drive the price up.

If I could do it again I definitely would go the contracted out method.

I say to start maybe go 20-30 gallons, you have more chances of error. I went from a 12 gal nano, to 30 gal, and now down to a 14gal biocube, maintenance is not that bad, I do my own water changes involving mixing salt with ro/di water, algae scrapping with my magnet scrapper, etc. The saltwater aquarium community is large here in San Diego, heres a link to a local forum, San Diego Reef Forums, there are a lot of build threads, tank pics, and everything under the sun to help with your decision, there are tanks ranging from a 3gal pico to i think someone on there has a 500+gal tank

The larger the system, the more stable it will be once established. DO NOT rush the setup. I have an aquarium business myself and service a lot of saltwater and reef setups. If you really get into the hobby, you can learn to manage your aquarium yourself. If you don't want to do the homework, then do contact one of the more active aquarium maintenance services in NOLA. Google it.

There are many, many websites dealing with marine aquariums. One vendor site has a lot of good information: Aquarium Supplies, Fish Aquarium Tanks, Fish Supplies, Aquarium Lighting and more! If you really want to dream about a huge system, check out the Sea Visions website. They are in Floridia, but they do custom work all over. Bring your Gold Card.

I agree with the others. My friend is a saltwater nut. Go small to start and try to do it yourself, the move up.

I just got a 125 gallon...I will post pics soon.

High maintenance is a bit of a myth. Our girl comes in for a water change twice a month and that's it.

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Originally Posted by JimF355

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In all fairness you have a super basic setup. A fish only tank is not only insanely easy to maintain it&rsquo;s also very inexpensive. When you start adding SPS&rsquo;s, anemones, corals etc you need to start worrying about dosing, intake water quality, CO2 levels, PAR output of your lights, maintaining the growth of pods in your sump, fish load.