saltwater tank
Submitted by millsy on Fri, 2012-03-23 06:50
hey guys working in the glass industry ive built myself a nice sized tank which i want to but a blue swimmer or bream in just looking for someone advice from anyone that has a saltwater tank as to what gear pumps filters ect i will need and how much id be looking at??
Graeme76
Posts: 287
Date Joined: 03/10/11
Firstly check the legalities
Firstly check the legalities of what you want to do, in many instances it is illegal to transport live fish, even bream, to put in the home aquarium.
As far as the equipment you'll need, I would go with a minimum 6x2x2ft tank for the bream & a 5x3x2ft tank for the crabs. The crabs will need the extra floor space & the two should not be kept together just in case you were thinking of that. I would use canister filters on both tanks but especially the bream tank as they can be quite messy. Two canister filters with each being capable of treating the entire tank volume on it's own is the way to go. Alternate the cleaning of the filters so you always have a good beneficial bacteria population present to process the wastes. Eheim filters are about as good as you can get & I would choose 2 x Eheim Classic 2217's for each of the tank sizes I mentioned. As well as the filters you will need heaters & again Eheim/Jager as as good as you can get. Don't go for cheap heaters, they invariably fail after a year or two. Generally you would have about 1w per litre of water when it comes to your heaters so 2 x 300w heaters for a 600lt tank. Next on your list is a protien skimmer (removes the scum from the surface) & a UV sterilizer (kills off lots of nasties that can kill your fish). There's not that much difference in quality I have found so find something that suits the volume of the tanks & your budget. You will also need a SG (specific gravity) meter, this allows you to test & adjust the salinity of your tank water & the water you will use for water changes. There are also several liquid test kits that you will need & that need to be replaced periodically. These test kits are fairly cheap individually but it can cost about $80 to buy them all to start with. Make sure you have them though as they aer for testing the quality of your tank water & that it vital for your tanks success. Forget the little air pumps everyone thinks are essential unless you actually want bubbles as part of the display. Oxygen enters water through surface disturbance & this is what these air pumps are designed to create. You will find that it is more effective to position the filters outlets so that the exiting water causes surface disturbance. With marine tanks it is vital to cycle the tank properly before introducing fish. I'm not going to go into the details here but it is an absolute MUST DO if you want any chance of your aquatic life surviving so read up on it & do it.
All up for that equipment minus the cost of the tank, your looking at somewhere around $800-1500 depending on what tank size you end up with & therefore what size filters etc you need. Aquariums are not cheap to set up. You might be able to save some $$ by buying filters etc secondhand but be very carefull if you decide to do so. Some viruses & especially parasites can lay dormant in a dried out filter & then come back to haunt you once you get your tank up & running & life in it. Treating viruses & disease can be very frustrating & very epensive sometimes so it's best to avoid them if at all possible. You can sterilise the secondhand equimpent you buy in a 1 part bleach to 19 parts water mixture & then rinse well & allow to air dry. If you do this make sure you use a bleach that DOES NOT contain detergents. Any & all detergents are toxic to fish & they should be avoided in the tank at all costs.
I hope that helps you out a little.
Mr x
Posts: 182
Date Joined: 17/03/09
man saltwater can be alot of
man saltwater can be alot of work and even harder if u are new to keeping fish so have a good look into it first. Also if u just want a bream catch it bring it home in a large easky with one of those portable airater have ur tank set up with water that u have put water conditioner in to take out all the heavy metals and chlorine. Then with the easky just take out one icecream container of the river water and put in the tank water then leave for 30 min do this till u think the water is mostly fresh then if the bream looks good chuck him in and he will have converted to fresh water.
my mate has a 8 ft tank with 6 bream all going fine
Graeme76
Posts: 287
Date Joined: 03/10/11
Not sure I see much point to
Not sure I see much point to your method of acclimating the fish to fresh water Mr X. Fish usually take about 6 weeks to fully acclimate even to fairly minor changes in PH, GH & KH (which you want stable in a sw tank) let alone a change from esturine to full fresh environment. If that's worked for your mate then I have to say it's been more a case of good luck than good management & that he's very lucky the fish didn't die from shock within a day or two. That quick acclimation is usually ok for aquarium bred fish because all tap water is fairly similar in composition (KH, GH & PH) but not a good way to acclimate wild caught fish. To acclimate them properly I'd be wanting the tank full with water taken from where the bream are to be captured & the fish introduced to that. That way the water they go into is exactly the same as the water they came out of. Then just do a 5% water change every 4 days until the water is completely fresh. There's not even any need to go completely fresh anyway, aquarium salt only costs a few dollars per kilo & an sg meter is cheap as well so mixing up brackish water is cheap & easy to do. If I was spending big on setting up a bream tank I wouldn't blow it all at the last stage by trying to rush the acclimation period. Each to thier own though.
Good point about the chiller Turboz, I forgot to mention them. The crab tank in particular would need a chiller as the water in the ocean is actually very stable in temperature & when variations do occur the fish & crustaceans will move to areas that have the temperatures they desire. Chillers are expensive to buy & run though so if you can get away with having the tanks inside with aircon to keep the temp stable then that's the way to go.
Mr x
Posts: 182
Date Joined: 17/03/09
in my time of fishing and
in my time of fishing and owning fish i have had 10 or more bream and done the same as i sed and havent had one die on me never got sick and settle in to eating within a week so i dont think its luck i mean bream can live in a natural fresh water river, stream watever and can take a bit of knocking around have also converted mullet, grunter, a fortescue(small stone fish in river), goby's those small crabs that look like spiders and have had only one goby die so i mean u can do all that work but iv never had any problems with my fish.
Graeme76
Posts: 287
Date Joined: 03/10/11
Your entitled to your opinion
Your entitled to your opinion Mr X however you have been lucky, nothing more than that. I've been keeping fish for almost 20yrs, usually with 20 or more tanks running at any one time & quite frankly if it goes in a tank, I've probably had it. I think I know what I'm talking about. Anyway this isn't a dick measuring contest, (I win, lol), the OP has two different opinions on how to introduce the fish & that's two more than they asked for so I'll leave it at that.
Mr x
Posts: 182
Date Joined: 17/03/09
i know im intitled to an
i know im intitled to an opinion like you are mate but its not luck its just not as hard as u say and i my self dont know heaps on keeping but my brother worked in a fish shop that had i think 120+ tanks and knows his shit and has keept $1000 of dollars worth of fish so my info isent just trail and error so dont belive me if u want but it works
Travisd
Posts: 315
Date Joined: 07/05/11
its all in the protein skimmer
Fish don't produce as much protein as crustaceans but I do not believe salt is any harder than fresh water. I've had bream, whiting, abalone and crayfish in mine in the past for a few many years. The only problem with crays is they get too hot in the summer and much above 25c they don't like it. A chiller would have solved the problem but hey I let him go :)
Freshwater and salt have the same kind of biotics except the protein.. which if you don't get out just blocks up everything and kills ur bacteria_
it's gonna kill me getting rid of mine but u get that
good luck
Baron Sportsman
Just the depth that Varies
Hebbs
Posts: 68
Date Joined: 23/01/12
Have a look at this
Have a look at this site
www.masa.asn.au/phpBB3/
All the info you will ever need to know and more about Salt water tanks.
Cheers
Hebbs
It's not rocket surgery...
millsy
Posts: 108
Date Joined: 04/12/09
cheers for the info lads more
cheers for the info lads more than i though it get much appreciated