Aquarium baws..hobby or hard work?

Salt is way more expensive

I had a 45 gal fresh. I found it a lot of messy work.

I had a 100 gallon aquarium at one point and got rid of it when I moved. After that experience I told myself never again.

Saltwater is huge step up in terms of cost and time. It's way harder to get the saltwater take just right and to keep it just right. However, once you get that hang of it, corals and other saltwater plants/fish are awesome.

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cassopher

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So, just can’t buy an aquarium, fill it, stock it…will have dead everything. It can get expensive if you don’t do homework. Gotta establish a nitrogen/ bacteria cycle before stocking it, putting the right mix of inhabitants together, etc…

Start with a good substrate, good filter, and real plants then go from there..

Have a neocardinia shrimp tank…just love watching these little guys do their thing. Once you get the right parameters and stop chasing parameters, it’s been fun watching them grow . Can spend hours watching them go to work…going to a local fish store today to buy more to add different colors

Another tank with glofish and albino catfish. Catfish started breeding so working to figure out how to be successful at this

Last thing good and bad…one tank has two assassin snails in it…they’re badasses..will eat all other snails and don’t give a frick so need to be careful..suggest not getting these unless you love carnage because you need certain fish and snails to help keep the aquarium clean…carnivores so they’ll eat fish eggs too

Go saltwater so you can rescue a lobster, like Leon the Lobster, from the grocery store.

Don't listen to all these Negga Tards. Been having aquariums since 1968. Here's what you do---

1st thing--go bigger, The smaller the aquarium the harder it is to maintain. Water balance can get out of whack much easier. Go at least 30 gallon. My preference and go to is 55 Gallon cause of the number of fish it will keep. But depends on your budget. 30 is just fine too.

2nd big mistake--too many fish. People get a 10 or 20 and cram it full of fish, over feed em, then wonder why it's always going to shite so fast. So they give it up. I'd say no more than 10 fish in a 30.

Feed only 2 times a day. Don't over feed --Rule of thumb, if it ain't all gone in a minute it's more than they need. Most people say a few minutes, but most people fight to maintain their water quality. The fish will be fine. I've never lost a fish to underfeeding. Plus colors stay much better living in quality water environment so they for sure healthier.

I haven't done a water quality chem test in decades. Follow my advice and you don't need to . The 20 year old "expert" at the Pet store insisting you need to "condition" the water for 10 days and bring back samples for them to test before you can start putting fish and do all these things differently than I do, don't know jack. I don't add any chems or treatments at all, except for when I add fresh water--

Every couple of months do a "partial;' change out no more or no less than 1/4 to 1/3 of the tank water. Be sure to use water conditioner whenever you add fresh water cause the chlorine in tap water is bad news.

Get a sucker fish ( plecostomus) to keep the glass clean of algae. Best $3.50 you'll ever spend.

Change your pump filter every 1-2 months. More frequent changes are also over rated

Enjoy.

I'll post a couple of pics of mine later

ETA: Stay the hell away from Salt Water till you get Fresh Water down-- whole different ballgame. Big Money, Big work , And 1 day away from things going to shite


ETA: be sure to use water conditioner on your first fresh tank.

And the only down side to a sucker fish is they live forever and eventually get too big for the tank

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no carnivorous fish until you are certain you want an aquarium and have a big enough tank. Oscars for example are cool to watch and complete badasses but they will foul a tank quickly and the constant running to the pet store for feeder fish is a chore.

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Yep. For sure. good add. Oscars are fun , but they get way too damn big and will eat anything in sight.

I had 7 going at once for a few years, 2 of them salt. It can be both satisfying and frustrating. And salt tanks without a good wallet are damn near impossible to get right. I have 3 outdoor goldfish ponds and a 125 wirh creek chubs and 32 cent goldfish in it. They're indestructible. Go big as you can. And get as badass a filtration system as you can get. The extra water volume really helps keep the parameter battle easier.

Had one for the kids. I found it to be a pain in the arse. All of the fish went belly up when we lost power after Hurricane Gustav and took the opportunity to put it on the curb.