Keeping marine fish and corals is fun, with some experience, it can be a truly rewarding hobby and entertaining. Everybody can do it; it is not difficult, less troublesome and not expensive with support of currently available equipment and accessories.
Salt water; it is not difficult now with chemically processed salt. You only need to wash the equipment that the fish tank uses once every few months and do a 25% water change monthly if you maintain a good filtration system. It is slightly expensive than normal freshwater types but the rewards you get are many times entertaining.
The fishes are so rich in colors and you have a piece of the sea in your home/office. Not many people can do that and show it off to their friend.
Marine aquariums setup; follow these basic steps and you will start enjoying your new exciting hobby.
Aquarium Tank
The larger the tank the easier it is to maintain. 2ft tank is recommended for beginners in this new hobby because of cost factors. Tank location should not be exposed to direct sunlight because of unwanted algae and may affect water temperature.
Lighting
For normal practice, T5 Fluorescent is good to show off fish and LPS corals, very economical and provides good illumination. MHL is expensive but necessary when keeping corals, highlights certain spectrum of light to intensify the colors and to aid the photosynthetic process from the zooxanthellae algae living in the corals.
Filtration
Mechanical: traps waste material as it passes through the filter material.
Biological: purifies water by using living organisms such as nitrifying bacteria. Converts toxins such as ammonia and nitrite to less harmful nitrate, most desirable among all aquarium filtration. Introduce live rock on initial setup to seed living organisms is necessary.
Chemical: Using carbon to capture dissolved substances. They control or convert the chemical makeup or characteristics of the aquarium water.
Capacity: Don't save on filters...over-capacity is better than under-capacity. For smaller setup canister filter recommended because it can incorporate all 3 filtration systems.
Protein Skimmer
The heart of the modern reef external filtering system is the protein skimmer. Make sure it is large enough to do the job. In our skimmers, the bubbles are microscopic and the results can only be "seen" after they burst and deposit collected into cup. It is vilest and nastiest looking sludge. The dissolved organic compounds, phenol oils, and other yellowing agents are a nuisance that only active protein skimming can eliminate.
Feeding
Do not feed more than fish can consume in 2 to 3 minutes. Feed only one or 2 times a day. Do not overfeed the fishes and must take out excess food to avoid contaminating the water.
Tank Maintenance
Top up weekly with distilled water mixed with calcium additive (Kalkwasser) because of water evaporation to keep the salinity, pH, KH and Ca level constant. Do not overstock the fish tank with too many fishes.
Test the water every 2 weeks or when necessary with the appropriate test kits. Change 25% of the sal****er at least once a month to remove nitrates from the water or to replace trace element lost in the water. Scrap off all excess algae using magnet cleaner from the tank wall if possible.
Keeping marine fish and corals is fun, with some experience, it can be a truly rewarding hobby.
About the Author Kenron Lim is a hobbyist in sal****er aquarium, maintaining and own a pet discussion web site http://www.petdiscuss.com for bloggers posting articles and share advertisement revenue to bloggers.
