Want Saltwater Tank

[puddle_inc]

Ok, i'm going to try to get atleast a 50 gallon tank. i'm going to get 10 blue leg hermit crabs and 1 horsechoecrab (as a pet). and i'm hoping to breed the hermit crabs. the horseshoe crab and hermit crabs alone are going to cost $68.66 with the shipping. i'm going to check out my local lfs to see if i can get anything there. they have lots of saltwater things. i may sometime get a goby too.

anyway, will be this be worth all the money? i will eventually get more tanks for them and new things to breed like conchs.

with the price of the crabs, a 50 gallon tank, and salt, how much do you think this will be? and how much money worth of salt would i go through per month with a 50 gal?

thanks in advance!

 

[Pheonix]

anyway, will be this be worth all the money?

thats down to you! its not cheap to keep marines but u get what u pay for and the rewards in my opionion outweight the cost!

with the price of the crabs, a 50 gallon tank, and salt, how much do you think this will be?

depends if you go for a second hand or new tank, second hand $100 upwards, new $200 upwards

and how much money worth of salt would i go through per month with a 50 gal?

i asume your talking us gal as ur prices are in us i have 100gal and doin a water change ever other week i go through 3.2kg a month so you can asume somewhere around half that.

and i'm hoping to breed the hermit crabs

how much experience do you have with marines? unless you are some kind of hermit crab god u are unlikely to get these to bred in a home aquarium? the fry are a nightmare to raise! just a heads up for ya

hope this helps! good luck!

 

[steelhealr]

I think it's unusual..or...let's just say uncommon to start up a SW tank to breed hermits, which, on the whole, have territory issued. However, have you ever seen a horseshoe crab shell on the beach? They are huge and much too big to put in a 50G tank. SH

 

[ReefBuzz.com]

Hermits don't breed very quickly. And the ones that people are selling are for the most part, wild collected. The most expensive part you will find is the lighting for the tank. PC's for a 55gal will run about $130 for a minimal setup. Metal Halides with run around $200-300. The additives you will need to maintain the tank are quite costly also.

I would read up a lot before you dive right in. You may find that propagating coral will be more interesting and profitable.

 

[Opcn]

There is no way to raise the Hermits past the first two molts without a Kriesel Tank. They rely on the water currents to keep them off the glass, if they get stuck on the glass they die.

 

[puddle_inc]

ok, well there goes the hermit crab plan...

i'm gonna keep looking for some small invert to breed that won't be too awful hard.

btw, the horseshoecrab i'm going to buy is only 1-2 inches big. and once he gets bigger, too big for the 50 gal, i would of already had a bigger tank.

anyone know a small fun thign to breed in a saltwater tank? i'm not wanting to do any saltwater fish, i don't have the money to breed expensive fish, even though it will bring back more money.

thanks for all the replies!

 

[puddle_inc]

i know it would be very very very very very hard and time consuming. but i supose breeding seahorses isn't impossible? since there are actually breeding guides online. i'm going to start breeding something new in late spring and early summer. by then i should be done with my (saltwater aquariums for dummies) book and i am always reading about breeding whatever i breed. so do you think that is enough time to read and prepair to breed seahorses? they have always been some of my favorite fish. and they are awesome. i'd read tons about them. do you think thats enough time?

if i were to do this, it would be the black ones.

 

[Javeo]

Breeding marines of anykind is difficult, be they crabs, fish or coral. Ive had numerous shrimps and crabs spawn in my reef but they are very hard to rear, very few even bother trying. fish that are easier to breed than most marines are either seahorses (but you will need ongoing cultures of baby brine shrimp to feed the newborns) or bangaii cardinals, these are mouth brooding fish that sell for decent money. Maybe you should try for a tank with lots of live rock and a small shoal of cardinals, you wont need bright lighting for them so a couple of normal tubes will do. If you keep them well they will produce easy to rear fry for you.

DOnt keep a horseshoe crab, they get huge and need lots of open sand. Im sure even a small one your considering wont have enough space. and unless your going to upgrade to a public aquarium size tank then you wont have enough space for it ever. They will also eat and small fish they can catch, so not a good idea if your trying to breed anything.

 

[puddle_inc]

like i said, it's a 50 gallon, the crab is only 1-2 INCHES long. and you don't need a public sized aquarium to keep one of the adults.

and also, another thing you said that isn't very correct, is that brine shrimp is one of the worst foods for seahorses. they have very bad food nutritians and if they are feed to them like 2 hours after they were born they have a little bit of foodd quality in them. copepods are what i will mainly have. brine shrimp will not be a very big amount of room in my seahorses foodgroup.

 

[Lynden]

You are correct in that Copepods are probably a better first food, but newly hatched brine shrimp are also effective for raising baby animals. But better than both of those are Rotifers, who (if I remeber correctly) are in a phylum of their own.

Unfortunately, a 50 gallon is far too small for a Horseshoe Crab, like Javeo said. A tank would need to be at least 8' by 4' to house an adult comfortably, which is about 1, 2, 3, 4,... 8 times the size of an average 55 gallon tank. Do you got a 500 gallon tank ready in the garage?

Why don't you try fragmenting Corals? It is very easy to do, and can profit wildly. It also (if done on a large scale) reduces the pressure on wild reefs, which is worth unlimited dollars to anyone who cares about the issue.

-Lynden

 

[Mr Miagi]

Copepods eat baby SH's, so you dont want to feed your babies them. For adults they are fine, I here they can eat up to 3000 per day in the wild! You are correct SH's have poor dietary conditions, I think its internal issues/absence, so regular feedings are neccessary. seahorse.org is the best place to read about SH breeding, they have many logs. Very friendly bunch.

What about breeding an ornamnetal shrimp species?

 

[dixaisy930]

Actually, I think copeopods are ok, even for baby SH. It's isopods, I believe, that are a threat to the little guys. I think most adult SH ignore copeopods (except dwarf SH), because the copepods are so small.

I agree with the shrimp suggestion!

 

[Mr Miagi]

Sorry, I meant Amphipods! I have a disfunctional brain!