[mancity]

Does anybody have a Marine aquarium and if so, do you have any handy tips especially for looking after corals?

Im having a good read about Marine Aquariums before I decide of whether or not to start one and its baffeling to say the least, so I want a very good knowledge before I decide if its for me or not

Cheers

[Stig]

Used to have one very very difficult to keep be warned need an exeptional filter and have to be very careful with salts etc mine was a whole lot of hard work had it for a year - 18months but spent a lot /most of my spare time doing partial water changes and checking ph etc etc All i did it for was because i like clown fish but it was really hard work suppose it would have been easier in a bigger tank but my feeble attempt was in a 30 by12 by 18 and dont think it was big enough.

However things have advanced some what since my short excursion into attempting to keep marine fish and it may be a whole lot easier these days

[Boilie Stop]

Originally Posted by mancity

Does anybody have a Marine aquarium and if so, do you have any handy tips especially for looking after corals?

Im having a good read about Marine Aquariums before I decide of whether or not to start one and its baffeling to say the least, so I want a very good knowledge before I decide if its for me or not

Cheers

Found this link which might have some info that will help Beginning A Marine Reef Aquarium Design, Marine Aquariums and Coral Reef Aquarium Tank, Stand, Canopy, and Aquarium Filter System

[ThunderCat]

I kept marine's for years, if you go down the do-it yourself route { i.e building your own set up} get the biggest tank you can and go the undergravel bio filter route, it takes a while to mature the bacteria but once its there evrything runs pretty smoothly, there are also ready made marine aquariums available these days too, they are really easy to keep on top of and i'm thinking about getting one, there expensive but the simplicity of keeping them soon makes up for it in comparison to DIY jobs, a friend of mine has one and he has the clowns having babies now ......also think very hard about what you want to keep, some fish are really nice and quite hardy little buggers and will take a fair amount of imperfections in the water, others can be extremely sensitive and will drop dead at the slightest imperfection in your water, also bare in mind the expense, EVERYTHING for marine tanks seems to cost a small fortune, especially the fish and also the salt you'll need, and you need flamin TONS of the stuff !

If i was going to do it again i would get little clowns and a few anenamones, keep it simple sort of thing.

When i had my last tank i had a really nice set up all built into the chimney brest it cost me about £1500 in total, i then made a huge mistake (unbeknownst to me at the time) in buying this little puffer fish that grew and grew, its teeth grew and grew too, then it started devouring everything in the tank i used to watch it chewing on the rocks even, eventually it was the only thing left in the whole tank and by this time it was about a foot long and its teeth where bigger than mine...i fed it one day its usual frozen shell fish and it came to the surface for it's feed and proceeded to take the end of my finger off ! 8 stiches later it then went back to the fish shop !! and said tank and set up was flogged for about 300 quid if i remember correctly. so if you do get one keep away from predator fish.

[bumper]

Take a look at mine on the link below, there are also a few archived links at the bottom of the page from 2007 which show the sump set up etc.


My reef Aquarium

Under gravel filters have long been surpassed by skimmers and living rock and new probiotic/uln systems are now being tried out by reef keepers.

They are very high maintenance and cost a fair bit to set up and look after correctly. Fish only systems are the easiest but one you start on invertabrates you have to have an idea of water chemistry and animal husbandry. You need to be 100% committed to the care of all marine life and have lots of knowledge before jumping in at the deep end. The best I can suggest is to look on the forum links at the bottom of my page and ask questions, then ask some more, then read alot

Don't forget if you get things wrong at the start you are not just losing money you could be killing creatures that have been removed from their natural environment from the other side of the world and already are lucky to be alive.

Take a look on reefcove or ultimate reef forum and don't be afraid to ask any questions no matter how daft they seem, we all started somewhere