What do you think?

[TBLightningFan]

Oh yeah you can do a reef really cheap if you are very good at putting together the perfect balance where you can begin to eliminate some equipment. It only gets expensive if you dont do it right the first time.

I pick marines because i feel it is such a big reward in the end to see all the life living together on the live rock and elsewhere. Kinda gives you a tingly feeling because you know you can tell yourself "I put that together". Theres so much to learn and so many directions to go in this part of the hobby.

I know this is not a reason to choose one or the other... but marine tanks catch a your guests attention in a flash!!! And can be such a great converstion starter too! Everytime I have family or friends over... I may as well set up viewing seats for the tank... thats the first place everyone goes and stares for well over an hour while asking questions about everything...especially while looking at the Live Rock.

I dunno why... but I have tried freshwater before and found it rather boring. After this last year with SW aquariums. I have no desire to even look at a freshwater fish again.

 

[FrAnK3333]

Probaly what is the cheapest is just having a tank for SW. Say I was to convert all the money I have spent for freshwater has become useless. Personally I dont think Sw isnt that expensive, it may be a bit more but look at what you get. The thing that is expensive about SW is the corals.

 

[yossie_ika]

SW...of course....but...high maintenance...

 

[Fishy411]

Well Fish Only Would still cost a lot becuase without Live rock you Need an Excellent Skimmer. Plus if you compare the ongoing Price I am sure That you will Notice a margin that gets ever bigger between the salt and freshwater tanks. I too Enjoy saltwater Tanks And am Switching to salt in the Future but If you arent Very COmmitted You preobly Wont be successfull

WHy do you think that there is such a need for live rock? Live rock does a good job of denitrification, but so does a DSB. There are many people that are simply uninformed, as you have stated that a skimmer does the same work as live rock...this is totally wrong. A skimmer takes out organic matter from the water column, the live rock is simply a place where denitrification can take place. Proper tank vaccuming and water changes can elilminate the need for a skimmer (though I would still recommend one, I have seen quite a few successful tanks without one) A fish only tank can handle high nitrates a lot better than a reef tank, so you can even get away with being a little bit lazy on the water changes. If you put a cheaply priced hang on back refugium on the back of the tank with macoralgae and mangroves, you can even go longer between water changes because of the exportation of nitrates taking place in teh refugium. There are very cheap ways of going about fish only saltwater, and even reef tanks, you just have to be willing to study the different ways of going about setting up one in an inexpensive manner, and then be willing to execute the correct steps in taking care of it.

thats true. Unfortunately Most people who start a sw tank dont do that much research but i agree that you can do it cheap but i still think in the long run sw will become ever more expensive as you pay for salt and A variety of foods each month

 

[superman]

food can be had for cheap, just go to the grocery store and you can pick up a ton of stuff that you only have to blend together and wahlah, you have cheap good food for your inhabitants. Salt is not very expensive at all, expecially if you buy it in larger quantities. I pay $38 for a 200 gallon bucket of salt, that is pretty cheap if you are keeping a tank under 100 gallons. It does get a little bit more spendy for those of us that have large tanks though.