Omg!

[Ace Of Spades]

Hmm... i've just worked it out.

and it will cost about £15 for the live rock and a hydrometer... i already have a huge bag of salt... hmm..

but where would i put the tank?

Mums room IMO

 

[Esfa]

Mums room IMO

nah, she'll look at them and it'll kill them.

 

[OscarWilde]

I've recently broken in to the Marine World very cheaply. I paid £140 for a fully established 15g Nano setup with all the gear, fish and live rock. Have done lots of research through and am spending lots of time checking the water parameters.

Point is it does not need to be all that expensive (though it is much more so than FW).

I sure didnt have £140 when I was 13 though!

 

[shelaghfishface]

I was planning a 10gal saltwater invert tank, and i didnt go through with it because of the expence... the live rock alone would have been £40.

Go buy some portland cement, some crushed oyster shells and a couple of plastic bowls (one large with sand in, one smaller to mix in). Mix 5 parts crushed oyster shell to 1 part cement. Add water until it has the consistency of cottage cheese. Place in shapes you want in the sand (you can use inflated rubber gloves for moulds and to make caves).

After a day or so take out the set pieces and place them in a bowl of water. About once a week or so takes out the water and replace. After about 4-6 weeks the rock should stop sending the pH sky high ((edit - The cistern of your toilet is great for this, so long as you don't have too much in the way of chemicals up there)). You now have DIY live rock. Use as a base rock for between half and 3/4 of the rockwork and you have massively reduced the cost of live rock. I bought a largish bag of crushed oyster shell, but I can make live rock for between 50 and 75p per kilo.

And all the above is without approaching the prospect of just doing a FO, and therefore not needing LR (the fact that you don't need live rock can be quite hard to get across at times...).

wow, thats gonna save these boys a fortune, good on you andy , ( oh and remeber to ask mum if you can have the rubber gloves! )

 

[Mr._Fishy]

Also, the running costs are much greater than a fw tank. That is the main thing that made me leave the sw side of the hobby. Everything seemed much more expensive.

What running costs? If you don't have a reef the only extra running cost is the salt for water changes.

I was thinking he was going to get a reef tank. ime, most people wanting to get into sw (at some point) want a reef tank. I was wrong, he wanted a fowlr. As you said, the only different running cost would be the salt.

Ryan

 

[Proud Texan]

You may think im crazy but i haven't developed a liking for reef tanks i still think FOLWR tanks are cool though i just dont really like how reefs look maybe i like them later on.

and also FOWLR USUALY cost more than fresh take into account

1: Ro units
2: Greater filtration
3: Protein Skimmers
4: More Power-Heads

You may argue that all these are optional. but come on its going to be pretty hard to find a FOWLR without at-least ONE of these.

 

[andywg]

You may think im crazy but i haven't developed a liking for reef tanks i still think FOLWR tanks are cool though i just dont really like how reefs look maybe i like them later on.Good form! Keep it a fish tank

and also FOWLR USUALY cost more than fresh take into account

1: Ro units Not necessary for FOWLR
2: Greater filtration Well, the LR is the filtration (and that can be done cheap, see above)
3: Protein Skimmers Not a necessary item, but it is an up front expense that saves money later on water changes
4: More Power-Heads There will be these, but there won't be a filter. Consider the price of an Eheim external and put it against a Tunze nano stream or Hydor koralia

You may argue that all these are optional. but come on its going to be pretty hard to find a FOWLR without at-least ONE of these.I know people without them just running a standard Eheim filter on a SW tank

They usually cost more because too many people don't understand what is needed, or because they spend more at the start to save later. I spent a lot of money on Tunze powerheads with the knowledge that for 8W I get 4,500 LPh. There are cheaper powerheads, but they cost more to run (much like many FW filters) so it is swings and roundabouts.

 

[Gremily]

Sorry to sort of hijack the thread but why is "live rock" used in saltwater tanks?
Even saltwater sumps seem to use live rock instead of traditional media, why not just use normal filters/media that are used for freshwater setups?

 

[andywg]

Live Rock contains micro-life which exist in the anoxic conditions inside the live rock (tiny organisms that live in an oxygen free environment). These can convert nitrate to nitrite to ammonia to nitrogen gas. By doing so they complete the nitrogen cycle and making water change less frequent.

Also, Live Rock requires far less maintenance than FW filters (hence why Sw tanks can be easier than FW; fewer water changes and less maintenance).

 

[pastabake]

You mean de nitrification surely? N03 - N20 - N2

That aside you're really selling the idea ... I'd always thought it was difficult and costly, but now I'm thinking it might be worth a go.

 

[Gremily]

Ok, thanks, but why is live rock filtration not used in freshwater tanks?

 

[gaz gun man]

I was planning a 10gal saltwater invert tank, and i didnt go through with it because of the expence... the live rock alone would have been £40.

Go buy some portland cement, some crushed oyster shells and a couple of plastic bowls (one large with sand in, one smaller to mix in). Mix 5 parts crushed oyster shell to 1 part cement. Add water until it has the consistency of cottage cheese. Place in shapes you want in the sand (you can use inflated rubber gloves for moulds and to make caves).

After a day or so take out the set pieces and place them in a bowl of water. About once a week or so takes out the water and replace. After about 4-6 weeks the rock should stop sending the pH sky high ((edit - The cistern of your toilet is great for this, so long as you don't have too much in the way of chemicals up there)). You now have DIY live rock. Use as a base rock for between half and 3/4 of the rockwork and you have massively reduced the cost of live rock. I bought a largish bag of crushed oyster shell, but I can make live rock for between 50 and 75p per kilo.

And all the above is without approaching the prospect of just doing a FO, and therefore not needing LR (the fact that you don't need live rock can be quite hard to get across at times...).

Can I just say, if anyone does go down this route, to wear protective gloves. Cement is an alkali and will easily burn your skin! Trust me on this, I used to work as a concrete technician.

Andy - any reason why portland should be used, and not any other kind of cement? Jut curious

 

[andywg]

Ok, thanks, but why is live rock filtration not used in freshwater tanks?

Because the life on it cannot osmoregulate, so putting it in FW will kill it all. You can certainly create anoxic conditions (such as a deep sand bed, or a nitrate filter) to lower nitrates, but when water changes are so cheap and easy as in FW (and you are mostly just keeping fish which have a safe upper limit of around 400 ppm nitrates) it just isn't really worth the outlay and hassle getting it set up right.

Can I just say, if anyone does go down this route, to wear protective gloves. Cement is an alkali and will easily burn your skin! Trust me on this, I used to work as a concrete technician.

Andy - any reason why portland should be used, and not any other kind of cement? Jut curious

Indeed, gloves are a good idea, my bad for leaving that out. The Portland is just what I always call it. Basically you want just cement, so not a mix where you only have to add water. I must admit I didn't buy cement labelled up as portland, I just looked for general purpose cement that told me I had to add sand to mix.

Some people will also tell you that you need to add salt/pasta to the mix (which will dissolve over time) to make the rock more porous, however the above recipe makes it more than porous enough. If you want to create more branchlike (or stronger) structures then you can add sand to the mix, but this will reduce its efficiency with filtration.

Glad to see some people considering SW. If you are patient and read up you can get a SW tank going quite cheaply, especially if you avoid sessile invertebrates (corals and anemones and such) and focus on fish. I would feel more than happy with a tank that has 1/4 "real" LR and 3/4 DIY, just stock slower to start with. You could in theory have 100% DIY live rock, but then you would have to cycle the tank more akin to FW (ammonia or just dumping a prawn in there to rot) rather than just letting any die off from Live Rock cure itself and get the tank ready (or even just buy cured live rock meaning you can stok the tank straight away).

One word of warning: I started with one small SW tank for a frogfish and spend almost every day working out how to get rid of my FW stock to convert more tanks to SW. I just can't get excited by FW anymore, not when the huge variety of life on offer from SW fish is there for you.

Edit

Gaz: Concrete Technician? Aren't they usually called Brickies?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Gaz: Concrete Technician? Aren't they usually called Brickies?

Ian's a thermo-acoustic engineer...... otherwise knows as dry lining nad ceiling fixing

 

[gaz gun man]

Gaz: Concrete Technician? Aren't they usually called Brickies?

lol no I was quality control (both wet and dry) for a large concrete firm.

Basically I had to know the different types of cement, aggregate, admixtures, water ratio, strength development etc.