WTF was that guy thinking? :facepalm: It's a good thing you were able to save some of them, at least. Only $15 for a 40g?! DAMN! Nice job!

So, let me get this straight... you have 8 tanks, 2 betta tanks, and 1 frog tank? :eek: GAH!!

I said it was ridiculous...We have a 55 with a geophagis (Jeff), bristlenose pleco, chinese algae eater, 3 black fin tetras, a molly and a crawdad. The 49 has an orange gourami, a dwarf gourami, a yoyo loach, a leopard cory, a few swords, zebra danios and harlequin rasboras and a silver dollar that is at least 6 years old. A 29 with guppies, an oto and a spotted cory plus a bazillion ramshorn snails. A 15 with a crawdad, a 20 with emperor, rummy nose and red fins tetras. Then we set up a cool cichlid tank in a 40g breeder tank with 7 cichlids and a pleco. The other 29 had the goldfish in it over the winter and we were planning on using that as a housing tank while we did some deep cleaning on the other tanks but these cichlids showed up so there are 4 in there and the 40 that I got (which is only 30) I put the other 4 cichlids and the ropefish in. The Bettas are in little 1 gals and the frog is in a 2 gal. No fancy hard to care for fish but still lots of water and filter changes.

That is absolutely amazing, Smitty! :) I hope your new additions do ok. Is the frog an African Dwarf?

Anyone want any mystery snails? Free of charge. I have about . . . 1,000.

I'd take some. Just gotta get up your way.

So, I bought a 5 stage RODI system (Reverse Osmosis De-Ionization) when I thought I was going saltwater. It produces 75g/day of filtered water, and comes with a reservoir that is heated and has a powerhead for circulation. Comes with all the attachments you'd need to hook it up to a hose, faucet, or directly to your home's plumbing.

Since I'm not going saltwater anymore (can't afford to salt out a 125g tank), I am getting rid of the system.

$175 takes it.

$160 takes the RODI system.

I got another 10g setup going. Not sure why. Boredom, I suppose. Went to Petco for the dollar a gallon sale, and ended up finding some Blue Coral Hifin Platys that I've never seen before anywhere. So, I grabbed those and three Julii cory cats. They're all in the 10g with my betta. Lots of plants and snails, too. Interesting little things. I'm hoping I got a male and a female hifin, as I want to try and breed them.

Platies are in the same group as Mollies and Guppies. This means two things:

1) They're super-easy to sex. You can tell if it's a male by the anal fin - it's long, thin, and straight and runs parallel to their body. A female's looks more like a normal fin - triangular in shape and rounded at the tip.

2) If you have a male and a female they WILL breed, PROLIFEROUSLY. In fact, 3 weeks from now you might be wishing you had all females. :D They can have 30-40 babies at a time as often as once a month.

Pretty sure one of our fish will be dead when I get home. Lost it's color and looks like skin is hanging like a former fat man and was hanging at the top nose up this morning.

Still not into this fish thing. This fad may be coming to an end soon if the kids don't flip out.

Well, looks like I got two males. Oh well. Will the platys interbreed between hifins and regulars?

Yep.

We just bought a house and I will be wanting to set up an aquarium again. I have everything a person could possibly need for freshwater aquariums, including an abundance of nice size aquariums to choose from.

We are debating whether to go with freshwater or saltwater so I have some questions for anyone with experience with saltwater or both.

How much extra product do I need to have saltwater instead of freshwater? Can I simply use the freshwater pumps, heaters, etc.?

Do regular aquariums work for saltwater? I know that in the stores the saltwater tanks all have some different looking features to them as far as their setup and suppport systems.

Are the freshwater acccessories such as plants and rock okay?

Also, how are the prices for fish? I know they are a little more pricey, but what would I be looking at to have a nice full 65 gallon aquarium? And along those lines, do you need a quarantine tank?

Any help would be much appreciated.

I'm certainly not a saltwater expert.

Most of the extra products you'll need are due to the difference in water chemistry. You'll need a source of calcium and you'll probably need a protein skimmer. You'll also need test kits specific to saltwater chemistry.

I don't think there's any difference, no.

I would think artificial ornaments are fine either way. Beware of actual rocks, for both fresh and saltwater. They can leech into the water, changing the chemistry.

My experiense is that saltwater fish are MUCH more expensive and for that reason alone, you absolutely must have a quarantine tank.

Heaters can work, but a good saltwater tank is going to need quite a bit more water flow to keep the algae down. And no, you don't want to use the plants and rock because it is unlikely to be a healthy setup.

A healthy saltwater tank needs to have a great deal of live rock (porous rock) to allow bacteria, etc... to grow and certain types of algae for most attractive reef fish to graze on. If you don't have good water flow, that algae will get a little out of hand (as will things like cyanobacteria).

Freshwater can be done pretty well with a couple of Penguin bio-wheel pumps and little else. For saltwater you're going to probably want a sump setup to allow for plenty of water movement and a haven for bacteria. You'll definitely need a protein skimmer as well; it's the most critical element of a decent saltwater setup.

Oh, and the light is absolutely critical in a saltwater setup whereas I never noticed a huge difference with my cichlid tanks.

A slightly cheaper marine setup would be a FOWLR setup (fish only with live rock). You don't need the high intensity lights because you aren't growing corals. You can have some of the larger angel-fish and more predatory fish like puffers, etc..., but you can't have most of those little reef fish that look so pretty in the fish store. And ultimately the reef tanks are just more attractive than the FOWLR setups.

Your question is a little too broad to give you the best advise, but ultimately I wouldn't use any of the rock from a freshwater setup because it's not going to be porous enough to act as good seed rock. Frankly, you'll want to go to a store and buy 'live rock' first anyway...lots of it; in a 65 gallon tank I'd go with about 100 lbs of live rock and a deep sand bottom. Alternatively, get 10 lbs of live rock and 90 lbs of good, porous seed rock and the seed rock will eventually go 'live' when the critters living in the live rock move in. Don't use the plants because they look tacky in a marine aquarium, IMO. But hey, that's ultimately your call.

The fish are much more expensive. A 'cheap' saltwater fish that's not an evil-ass damsel is going to cost you $20; something like a Royal Gramma or a clown (though a clown is a damsel, so realize that it might turn into an asshole). A 'normal' priced fish like a Coral Beauty or a Foxface would be in the 30-40 range. A mid-range fish like nice hippo or Kole tang would be 40-60. The most I've ever spent on a fish was $80 on a big Naso and about the same on a tiny little mystery wrasse when they were damn expensive.

Something like a Hawaiin black tang or an achilles tang can run you in the $300+ range. At 65 gallons, they aren't a good idea.

A saltwater tank requires some homework that a freshwater doesn't. You need to know more about how big the fish will get because they're much more likely to outgrow the tank. They are more prone to stress-related diseases if you don't have a decent sized tank as well.

If you want to go saltwater, do it right. I wouldn't recommend anything less than a 90 and ultimately I think a 125 or better is the way to go because that's when you get to the 6 foot wide tanks that give ample swimming room. Moreover, the more tank volume you have, the less prone the tank is to spikes in levels and therefore the more healthy it is.

As I went back to see if I was just repeating myself in here (hint: I was), came across this one.

The tank is still sitting drained in my office a year later. I did throw the rock away and still haven't replaced it with sand. I did decide to get a blue-jaw trigger some months ago, though he had such a high metabolism that I couldn't keep him fed and he eventually lost enough weight to get sick and die on me.

Funny how often we know how our plans will actually work out ahead of time...