Click here. Alison Page has been an avid fish keeper for over 35 years and has owned many different species of freshwater tropical fish including bettas. Currently Alison has two large freshwater tanks. The first tank has two huge fancy goldfish who are almost ten years old and still looking as good as ever.
In the other, she has a happy community of tiger barbs, green tiger barbs, corydoras catfish, platys, and mollies. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Aquarium VS. Table of Contents.
More expensive to set up and stock. Less expensive to set up and stock. More equipment. Less equipment required. You can create some truly beautiful aquascapes in a reef or marine tank. Watching fish swimming in a well-maintained tank is scientifically proven benefits for your mental and physical health.
Unfortunately, the disadvantages of keeping a saltwater tank tend to outweigh the advantages: Saltwater aquariums are generally considered to be unsuitable for beginners. Although very beautiful and fascinating to watch, marine fish are typically much more expensive to buy than freshwater species. You need much more specialist equipment for a marine tank than you do for a freshwater setup, making the initial outlay much greater. A large aquarium must be kept on a purpose-built stand , which will take up a lot of space in your home, not to mention costing more to buy.
A marine tank typically needs more care and maintenance than a freshwater setup. Some saltwater fish species are demanding when it comes to diet, and that often works out quite expensive both in terms of the cost of food and in the time it takes to prepare it. The correct levels of salinity and general water quality are essential for a healthy marine tank setup.
Many species of saltwater fish are delicate and mortality rates can be high, which is particularly gutting given how much the fish cost to replace. Algae is a nuisance in all fish tanks, but saltwater setups tend to grow algae very quickly, simply because there are no live plants to use the nutrients in the water and starve the algae.
Although beautiful, saltwater fish can be more temperamental and difficult to keep than freshwater species. Place a couple of inches of gravel or sand into the tank. Set an upside-down bowl on top of the substrate. Watching fish swimming in a well-maintained tank is scientifically proven to be beneficial for your mental and physical health. Freshwater fish are generally considered to be a better option for beginners and can make excellent low-maintenance pets for kids.
Tropical and coldwater freshwater fish are much cheaper to buy than marine species. The initial cost of setting up a freshwater tank is much lower than that for a saltwater tank because the setup is much more basic.
You can successfully keep many species of nano fish in a very small tank. That means you can still enjoy fishkeeping even if space in your home is limited. Maintenance of a freshwater tank is pretty basic, requiring only weekly water changes and monthly filter maintenance.
All that extra equipment needs extra care to keep it functioning properly. Before you can perform the task of changing water, which with freshwater tanks is fairly simple, you need to let salts dissolve in the water for days beforehand. The salt dissolves slowly and you need to check the salinity with a hydrometer. You could make the process easier by setting up a system where the water is continuously mixed in a large bucket where a heater heats it and a powerhead circulates it, but putting that together takes time and effort as well.
And you can buy saltwater from a supply store, but that also adds cost of saltwater aquarium maintenance. Saltwater fish are also harder to breed , so an inexperienced fish breeder may have trouble getting them to mate than they would with freshwater fish.
In addition to that, you need to keep a closer eye on the more sensitive organisms in a saltwater tank. Some of these can make positive contributions to an evolving tank but require changes in treatment, while other can be harmful and require removal. A freshwater tank rarely has this element of random change, so in that regard as well saltwater aquarium maintenance can be more unpredictable.
Saltwater organisms are generally more sensitive to all sorts of conditions, from water salinity to calcium levels to heat and light levels and more. Breeding fish in captivity is definitely not something a beginner routinely undertakes, however it is a commonly held belief that breeding saltwater fish is as easy as breeding freshwater fish. Freshwater fish are known for breeding in captivity and in fact many beginners report success in breeding their own freshwater fish.
However, saltwater fish have very strict requirements for breeding. They tend to breed during seasonal changes and clearly when in captivity there are no seasonal changes. It is near impossible to create season changes in your aquarium. This is why saltwater fish cost more than freshwater fish. Saltwater fish you buy are generally caught in the wild, whereas freshwater fish have been bred in captivity. In both a freshwater tank, and a saltwater tank, compounds such as ammonia and nitrate are created during the nitrogen cycle ; algae need these compounds to grow.
There is one key difference though with a freshwater and a saltwater environment: plants! In a freshwater aquarium, plants are abundant and they also require the same nutrients as algae to grow. This means that plants, not algae, will consume the nutrients. As a result algae are starved of nutrients and its growth is heavily restricted. Whereas in saltwater aquariums, plants are hard to come by.
You can absolutely keep on top of algae and stop it spoiling your tank; you just need to be diligent with your maintenance. You will need to perform regular water changes and tank cleans, in addition to running a protein skimmer.
However, it is true that saltwater aquariums do tend to grow more algae than freshwater aquariums. Saltwater cannot hold the same amount of oxygen as freshwater. This is why people tend to accept that saltwater aquariums need to be bigger.
I hope this article has helped debunk some of the myths that surround saltwater and freshwater aquariums. They just require a few slight changes and your saltwater aquarium will be up and running. However, you should bear in mind though that it is true saltwater tanks require more maintenance time, so you should plan accordingly. Let us know in the comments section below which one was your favorite myth, or better yet share a new one with us…. Really great article I enjoyed reading it and agree with everything that is stated well written thank you definitely learned some new things.
But thanks heaps for the article, would love to read more, if you could tell me where. This was awesome thank you!
This was awesome to read becuase I have wanted to look into some saltwater tanks. Can you do something on care for seahorses?
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