Salt Water Fish Tank: Make It An Ocean Like Environment

The salt water fish tank is one that closely resembles the environment found in oceans that supports salt water fish as against fresh water fish. The salt water fish tank is thought to be more difficult to upkeep than the freshwater type due to the fact that salt water fish are less tolerant to fluctuations that may happen quickly in the confines of a closed space fish tank. The eco-system in the salt water fish tank should function on a self-supporting basis because every element in it is dependent on every other element for sustaining itself in a stable manner. This means that fish keeping in environments such as salt water fish tanks is a balancing act that involves maintaining specific parameters to ensure that the entire system remains stable. A Large Fish Tank Is Better For the Fish Because the ocean’s environment tends to be generally stable, the importance of recreating this stable environment within the salt water fish tank becomes crucial because the life forms that have evolved in the ocean are not physically able to adjust to the changing conditions present in a salt water fish tank. For example, temperatures tend to rise and fall slowly in the ocean but, a sudden drop in the temperature in the salt water fish tank may result in the fish taking ill, even if the drop is quite small. Besides the temperature, there are certain other factors to consider when thinking about having a salt water fish tank and these include pH, which should be 8.2, nitrates which should be <20ppm in the case of salt water fish and <5ppm in the case of invertebrates, salinity/specific gravity, temperature to be kept at 77F, alkalinity at 3.0 and finally, calcium for reef keepers and invertebrates at 400-450ppm Ca+. Keeping a salt water fish tank may seem quite daunting; it is nevertheless a rewarding experience to recreate the environment of the ocean within the confines of one’s home. For beginners, it may be more prudent to begin with a fresh water fish tank and then gain experience before moving on to salt water fish tanks. However, when keeping a salt water fish tank, make sure that the size of the tank is large enough to support the eco-system and keep it stable. This is necessary because, if using a heater for salt water, a drop in temperature is slower to take effect and so is less dangerous to the fish’s health.

Owning A Tropical Fish Tank

At first, the thought of owning an aquarium full of tropical fish may seem simple and easy but the tropical fish tank is not one that just needs to be filled with water and then simply add some tro. . .

Water change
Just the normal, did 4 buckets of change and swapped the white wool filter at the top, and also one of the fine blue ones. We went to local fish shop the other day and got a batch of the filter media, they commented that we were buying a lot but I didn’t really see [...]

blooming snails
Well I think i’ll have to divert my ranting from algae to snails now. The algae is proving much less of an issue, but the snails have started eating the plants! To recap, we got some snails here: http://www.jammeh.com/fishblog/2005/09/26/woooo/ and some more here: http://www.jammeh.com/fishblog/2005/11/11/more-snails/ and they’re very good in the main, nice colours, shiney etc. I was actually [...]

AquaController Temp Probe Failed.
The temperature probe on the AquaController Pro failed which not only resulting in "low" temperature alerts and engaged the heaters, but it is also the reference probe to the pH controller and conductivity controller.

The loss of the reference to the pH resulted in the calcium reactor being taken off line and tripping an alert of high salinity.

None of these are critical, just had to recheck levels manually with test kits and remove the calcium reactor and heaters from the switch boxes until a replace probe arrives which might take a week or so.