I have several unused tanks here. One 40 G, a 29, a 30, a 20 and many tens .
What size would you recommend if I were to try SW? I am not strictly limited to what’s available around the house.
This old guy who owns the LFS said SW is not much more difficult than FW with several SW species. He has a small SW section. I think he was talking fish, not coral or whatever else the reefers do.
I just called the woman who owns a cool SW LFS in town. She has a lovely display next to the cash register with a clown fish that’s jam packed with the coral. It’s only 5 gallons. She said she has a similar 10 G, not a 5 available. And it’s also $100. I asked what was so special about these pricey little tanks & she said nothing. LOL. She said I could just as well use any tank I have sitting around. She said the coral needs a special light & a clean up crew is essential. She was not specific re ongoing maintaining costs. She said a small tank setup, as in her 10 G would run me close to $400, including a fish & coral.
Don’t know of I’ll go this route but it’s something to ponder. I do see used SW setups in the local Facebook groups. The guy who sold me a nice 44 G corner tank was extremely anxious to sell me his SW equipment. I had no interest then. He was more than willing to set everything up for me.
One of the big issues I have with these small " at the register" tanks is the stores like to put popular fish, that grow rather large, in them when they are small. It's equivalent to putting that small feeder comet in a 1 gallon bowl. Can they live in it? Sure, for a short while. But in responsible fish keeping, that would be considered a " No-No".
Here's the downside of small marine tanks: when they go bad, they go bad much faster than a small freshwater tank will. So the suggestion is always go as large as possible that you can properly set up. Skimping on filters and lighting and machinery usually always has a bad ending. Keep in mind also that saltwater is corrosive so you really have to be careful with metals in and around the tanks.
The biological system is similar, bacterially, in SW as in FW only there are a few extra ways of achieving it. i.e. Live rock, no substrate, wet/dry filters, sumps, etc) Fish only tanks should also use a protein skimmer while invertebrate only tanks may be able to get away without one but if there are fish in also, it should have one. Corals need certain elements removed from the water so you are looking at RO or RO-DI water. Then there are the supplements that corals need to survive. Then there's the fish. Some fish kept are actually really small in comparison to how large they really get. Certain popular fish species need really long tanks for swimming even when small or they stress out and get sick. Here's a couple of articles you should read:
https://www.saltwateraquariumblog.com/a-list-of-the-20-most-popular-saltwater-fish/ ( Pay attention to the tank size minimums for the fish. Minimum usually means go larger. )
https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/features/marine-fish-with-character/ ( This will give you a good idea of the necessities for a fish only tank. )
Ideally, you should have a list of fish in your mind that you want to put into the tank so that you can know what sized tank you would need to set up. The reason for this is because there are swimmers, there are schoolers and there are sedentary species. Water volume is second to tank shape for swimmers and most schoolers while sedentary fish don't need a lot of space but the larger water volume is better for the system.
In the final analysis, I've successfully kept SW tanks of 1 gallon to systems as large as 25,000 gallons and I can tell you, the bigger tanks were much easier to deal with. More expensive to keep, but less aggravating.
Thanks for your encouragement & words of wisdom!
