How Long ... ?

[Grant R]

Looking back to day one when I first purchased my aquarium, I remember the bloke saying that you need to keep tropical fish and maintain them and the tank in the right manner for at least a year - to give you a proper understanding of fishkeeping etc.

Would others agree this is the right amount of time ?
How long into F/W did others then move on to S/W ??

 

[Bang Guy]

I believe the differences between keeping freshwater fish and saltwater fish are so great as to make the hobbies unrelated. I do not feel that keeping saltwater fish can prepare you for keeing freshwater nor visa-versa.

I believe research (like what you are now doing) and a very good, modern book on Saltwater Aquariums is a must for a successful venture into Saltwater.

Questions:

Are you wanting to convert your freshwater setup to saltwater or are you wanting to start up a new aquarium?

Are you wanting to keep Fish (FO) or Fish and Corals (Reef)?

If you are already set up please ignore my questions... I vaguely remember some of your posts, but my memory fails me when trying to remember their content.

Guy

 

[BrianH]

IMHO having some experience keeping FW fish does give you some advantages over a complete fish keeping newbie. For instance, you are already experienced with tanks, filters, and possibly sumps or wet/dry. You should understand the nitrogen cycle. You should have some experience performing water tests. Just remember that many things with SW are different. For example, your main filtration in a reef tank is just live rock(1 to 1.5 lbs per gallon) and a DSB (Deep Sand Bed) of 4" - 6". The only other mechanical device used in todays reef tanks are a protein skimmer.
I would not say that you "need to keep FW fish" far any certain period of time. I just think have some(not a lot) FW experience will help.

JMHO

Brian

 

[Grant R]

Cheers people. I should of made my question a bit clearer though. The guy basically said it'd be an advantage keepinf f/w tropical fish for at least a year before moving on to s/w.
I'm not looking to keep s/w / marine fish yet, but will do around this time next year probably.
Can't wait to be honest , although I love my tropical fish to bits !!

 

[reefrunner69]

To answer the question in the post , I never owned a F/W fish until I had been maintaining S/W tanks for about 7 years, and Reefs for about 2 years. I agree whole hearted ly with both Guy and Brian, but I think the experience with filters water changes, heaters, etc...is not hard to learn. I believe most would be more successful at keeping S/W fish, if they had never owned a F/W tank, or are able to discern that they are to totally different animals. Lot's of S/W tragedies happen because an experience F/W aquarist, applied F/W aquarium keeping rules to S/W.

 

[Grant R]

Oh dear
Hopefully not everyone though. :?

 

[reefrunner69]

Oh dear
Hopefully not everyone though.

Of course not I was speaking in sweeping generalities, and of course opinion.

 

[Hara]

What owning a freshwater tank first, will do for you, is get you used to the routine of doing aquarium "work". By doing this with freshwater, you will find out if the aquarium hobby itself is your thing *before* you spend a whole lot of money on saltwater. Yes, the details are different as far as some things go, but things like scraping algae, cleaning tank parts, feeding fish, changing water, all this is work that is done on both types of tanks. Alot of people get bored with the mundane and quit. Saltwater would be kind of an expensive "toy" to get bored with.

 

[michealprater]

there is no rule for when you can get into saltwater. if you think your disaplined enough and can afford it, go for it

 

[Grant R]

Thanks everyone, definitely made things clearer.

 

[Jacob Morgan]

IMO Saltwater is not THAT hard..



If you have the mindset of you have to do water changes you have to do this and you have to do that. Its not really that hard and kind of gets in your routine. I started with a 10 gallon (that lasted like a wk ten i found a leak and had to go to a 15 long). Then I went to a 29 then back to a 15(for lighting). I had owned F/w in the past but it wsa when I was younger (I think 10ish maybe not sure).

Good Luck, Just research and you should be fine.




Jacob