Lords of Death Forums Lords of Death Forums LoD General Discussion Anyone own any Saltwater Aquariums?

ive blown about 200 bucks on my 10 gallon tank, so all i can suggest to you is to set aside 2000 bucks for 100 gallon tank...
but i do hear that its easeir to maintain a bigger tank. doesnt sound right, but its true.

the above is the tank that I have...
I lined the bottom with about 10 lbs of that Coral sand stuff ( you know the shit thats imported from Fiji) and then I put in about 12 lbs of Live rock ( again, fiji live rock).
Its a tiny ass box that pretty much has everything you need... its called a Nanocube, but Noobcube is more like it. Of course, I cant seem to fucking even handle this cube right without killing the inhabitants, so im losing confidence quick-like!
My mushroom coral died on day 1, and some other polyp coral that I had bit the dust on day 2. Now Im combatting an algae problem so I went and bought some queen conch shells, and bought 6 hermit crabs and some other shell fish that I cant remember the name of "aerestas? aeriolas? not sure... but they look like queen conch shells.

they all cleaned my sand up pretty good, but the glass to my noobcube still looks like it got hit with a mudpie.
Do those magfloat things work?

Avoid "petsmart" types of places like the plague.
I've seen them sell 20 tangs to a guy as he was buying his first glass (125 gal). Needless to say he had $600+ worth of floaters in no time.
He was telling the guys at a real fish shop what the petsmart ppl did (he had no clue it was a bad idea), they then gave him some education and explained why that was a failed exercise no matter what.
Best bet is to find a real pet shop (in OC, place like the Zoo at El Toro & I-5, Fish 2000 in Tustin etc...) those guys are a resource.
I never do water changes, if you keep the ecology good then you can avoid that shock. I just replace evaporation.
Biggest thing is patience in salts, and some basic knowledge.
...and a tube of Paragon if they get diseased!

I never have but I have a couple friends that are all about that shit, always bragging about who has the most badass fish.
From what I understand though, the hardest part aside from keeping it clean is the temperature. I think you have to get fish that can live in the same temperature water, because salt water fish are more sensitive to that.
Saltwater fish are sooo much more badass than freshwater imho.

I saw Mustard turn green and pass out! Hell of a sight!

I too had a salt water tank (75 gallons). I had some mixed results, probably because of my noobness. The favorite fish I had was a lion fish (that fish in that movie where the guy is a gigalo and he breaks the tank with the expensive fish in it). That thing was so fucking badass. You'd drop a feeder fish in there and he'd corner it in a corner of the tank, sit still for a second, then you'd see him flinch and the fish would be gone. Pretty cool stuff. He lived a good long time, but he got constipated and was going to die (got advice from a lot of experts) so I had to smash his head in with a hammer <img src="/~stretch/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

laxitives? or no?

what a fucking waste of food!

i can understand why petsmart places would be bad, but I hear they have a 10 day guarantee on their fish? i think the only caveat is that you have to bring in a sample of your water to prove to them you didnt do something retarded like stick them in fresh water, etc.
I buy all my fish from the local aquarium store by my house, and they seem pretty knowledgeable... they never try to make me buy anything I dont need (of course, how the fuck would i know, considering i dont know enough to keep them alive) , and are pretty blunt and straight forward about stuff. which i appreciate...
however, I did see that one of the fish that they had, had "ich", "ick" (sp?) and all the tanks were connected. Does that mean all the fish are now contaminated ? I saw that the really expensive fish werent connceted, but all the gobies and groupers, triggers were connected though...

anything connected to that series of tanks then has ick.