are reef tanks more rewarding than fowlr

[tuffers]

reef sound much more fun and interesting.I know that marine tanks involve alot of maintainence . i am looking for a smallish setup that requires about an hours maintainence every morning and another hour at night. (this is just the spare time i have every day. will the tank require more maintainence than that?)
what sort of daily maintainence tasks are required?
Thanks everyone

 

[ade]

IMO well-kept tanks shouldn't require 2 hrs/day maintenance. But of course, I'm only just getting started in this myself. But I'm certainly not planning on spending that sort of time each day to keep it running well. And IMO, reef tanks are far nicer, but my personal preference is to have tanks looking as "natural" as possible given the constraints. Hence, I prefer reef, and hate those stone skulls/ships etc that people put in tanks - all my personal opinion of course...

 

[Stryker]

Another point on saltwater tanks is go large as pos. There are many people here who run 29gal reef tanks, but I feel they are both well skilled and probably lucky

A larger tank is a little easier to keep, esp for a beginner.

An alternative to full marine is brackish water. There are some really, really intereting brackish water fish. As they live in estuaries are hardy or even prefer some extent of salinity variation.

I recently started a brackish tank and I was suprised by all the little caviates I've learned with regards to dealing with salt tanks. I'd much rather learn with my brackish tank than a marine tank with very expensive stock.

Just my thoughts, only trying to save you any disapointments in the future

 

[untilitsleeps]

Bigger the better with Marines as already said above, the bigger your tank the easier it is too look after, ive had my salt water tank 18 months, feeding takes about 5 mins everyday, and water changes are every 6 weeks which is a lot less effort than my freshwater tanks (i use a big skimmer and live rock so water is always top)

 

[leanne]

I'm at the other end. I have a 20 gal FOWLR and some leather corals and mushrooms. I seem to be doing ok and I like the balance that the hardier not-photosynthetic-bacteria-carrying corals give. They make it look reef without it actually being reef. I have a leather coral that has "tentacles" that my clown fish is convinced makes it an anenome (cute eh?). Time wise - I do a 10% water change every 2nd, 2nd and then 3rd day (ie 3 times a week). This seems to be overkill as since I've added my fish the nitrates haven't gone above 5 (only 2 weeks though). Twice a week would probably be enough. I measure out all my food and make up my salt water in vats so they're ready when I need them. All in all I spend about 15 minutes a day when I am just doing tests and feeds and 30 minutes (tops) when I do w/c. I am still testing every day as I am paranoid...

 

[dvinn]

Maintenance on a reef tank is subject to the time, effort, design and setup. If you take your time and research before you build, you can create a tank with less of a maintenance schedule. I have a 125g with a 55g refugium. 15% water change once every two weeks (30 mins). Smaller fish are fed twice a day (10 mins x2). Eels and Loinfish fed every other day (30 mins). Scrap the walls once a week (60 minutes). I also build a rhythm with my maintenance schedule and after a few weeks it did not even seem like work.