From Fresh to Salt - Is Making The Switch That Difficult?

[Eienna]

From Fresh to Salt – Is Making The Switch Really So Difficult?
(Article and Photos by Eienna)

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You feel the beauty and wonder of the ocean, wishing you could bring it into your home – but you're scared. You are a freshwater aquarist with no idea what it means to get into saltwater, and the prospect daunts you. You're wondering if you could ever get into the marine section of the hobby without causing death and destruction. If this is you, read on, because in this article I will attempt to distill the sea of information – and show you how simple it really is to take the plunge!


You're already familiar with the the nitrogen cycle, right? With the aid of bacteria, ammonia turns to nitrite, and the nitrite to nitrate. It's the same in saltwater; you just have to make sure that you avoid spikes in ammonia and nitrite like the plague, which is easy with properly cured live rock and slow stocking, and do your best to keep the nitrate at 5 or less. It sounds impossible to keep your nitrates that low, but there are some really neat new toys to help you out.
These salty toys include the sump, protein skimmer, and powerheads. It's not as complicated as it looks, I promise. The sump is just a big fat filter with room to stash your heater (yay, don't have to look at that any more!) and protein skimmer. The skimmer is another type of filter. Instead of trapping the organic junk but keeping it underwater, it takes the stuff all the way out and dumps it in a cup for you. Yay! Don't you wish freshwater had something like that? Powerheads rock, too – they keep things moving around. They create a current that not only brings food and nutrients to the tank's inhabitants, but also keeps the yucky stuff from settling so that the sump and skimmer can remove it! All this goes a long way toward keeping everything healthy.

You have to keep the other elements stable and in the right range to keep the system healthy, too, but even this is not as hard as it sounds. It's much like taking care of a planted freshwater aquarium; only the exact elements and the speed they're used up at are truly different. There are some toys to help you with this, too.
These aren't particularly complicated, either. Automatic top-offs help combat evaporation, so you don't have to deal with it except to make sure that the source it draws from is full. You can even add supplements to the new water to replace what the corals and animals deplete. Dosing pumps also add supplements, but at a more steady rate, dripping it in throughout the day. Make sure this is full, and you don't have to remember to dose it yourself! Sounds good to me!

Speaking of things sounding good, there is the matter of feeding. Now, this can be a little more complicated in saltwater. The main issue would be the sheer variety of organisms to be fed. Next is the fact that many of them do not recognize pellets as food, especially in the case of corals and wild-caught fish. Most invertebrates will scavenge whatever they can find, but even they need certain foods. However, live and frozen foods are far easier to get ahold of (and cheaper!) than they used to be, so you just have to make sure you have enough of what your particular setup needs. This can take some trial-and-error, and you will have to provide some variety, but there's plenty of information out there to help you make the right choices.

Now, there is one thing much more important in saltwater than in freshwater, and this is PATIENCE. You can get away with a lot in freshwater; living in smaller bodies of water, they are more adapted to relatively swift changes. Not so with saltwater. The ocean is huge, so if things change, they usually do so slowly – and when they don't, it usually causes major harm. Temperature, salinity, even the levels of calcium and other elements MUST be adjusted slowly. Even stocking needs to be done with extreme caution, doing your research before purchase, waiting for healthy stock to come in, quarantining for the full month, and waiting for the tank and its cycle to catch up between additions. With a reef, this is even more important. If you introduce a pathogen or parasite into a reef tank, even the common ich parasite, it becomes extremely difficult to get rid of without killing everything else.
If you are the impulsive sort, do yourself a favor and either work on thinking before you leap, or avoid saltwater entirely. If you are patient, or can at least force yourself to be when it comes to your tank, you'll do okay. Remember, too, that patience is a learned skill. Even if you are not patient now, you could practice that, and take up saltwater in the future.

It's a big blue world out there, but there is information, information everywhere! Just as in freshwater, there is far more information available on keeping a saltwater aquarium than there ever was before. Saltwater is no longer the completely enigmatic beast it used to be, so the statement that it's extremely difficult is somewhat outdated. Yes, you will lose a few; even expert aquarists do. That's just what happens. If you understand the nitrogen cycle, have the budget, and have the time, patience and dedication to devote to it, it's time to quit building sandcastles and go play in Atlantis.

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[SeahorseKeeper]

Great job!!

 

[Eienna]

Why thank you <3