Fresh Or Seahorse

i would say do a fresh planted tank. IMO one saltwater is enough unless you plumb it to the main system for ease of maitnence, also i dislike seahorses.

however a lionfish tank would be cool also.

 

Seahorses!!!!

 

i say try a horse of course....

 

I'm leaning towards Horses, but i'm also considering a nano or dwarf lionfish.

 

Could a full grown maroon clownfish live in a 36? Also, as to the cleanup crew, I know many people who happily keep Cleaner Shrimp and Peppermint Shrimp in horse tanks. They would pick up a lot of uneaten food.

 

the idea that FW is easy is such a strong understatement!! Try setting up a FW planted tank with high intensity lighting (like you would have with a reef tank) and without the proper substrate, co2 supply, and ferts then come back and tell us how easy the FW tank is. Then when you do have it setup correctly and your plants are growing 100 times faster than your corals to the point where you have to prune almost every week and tell me the maintenance on a reef isnt easier with a proper setup than a FW planted tank.
Now dont get me wrong... both are great and very enjoyable but i wouldnt make a decision on which is easier or harder to maintain because both are equally labor intensive. Personally i keep both and in my experiece the FW tank is proving to be much more labor intensive than the reef...and to be quite honest i prefer my FW planted tank any day over my reef tank!

 

Well, the bare minimum of freshwater tanks, compared to the bare minimum of saltwater tanks, is laughable. You can setup a freshwater Tetra tank for under $100 for the system, plus fish, and all you really have to do is feed the fish and use a gravel vac to clean up and do a water change every 3 months, and everything will be happy and healthy. Where a bare minimum in a saltwater tank requires much more money and maintenance to keep things alive, even in a FOWLR setup.

However, to almost every rule there is an exception. Planted tanks with intense light, CO2 injectors, and the constant maintenance can own the face off of certain SW setups. But a beastly FW and a beastly SW still have their pros and cons of each. We're pretty much comparing apples to oranges here. They're both fruit, they both taste good, but everything else is different.

I would go with a horse setup. It would be pretty awesome to have if you're up to it (sounds like you are). I say go for it! I've always wanted a horse...in the water or otherwise...

 

I should have been more clear with what I was saying That Guy. I'm not trying to take anything away from planted tanks that are just as difficult as reefs from my understanding. I was referring to the average set up that most people who want a fish tank but don't want to do much maintenance have, which is a tank with plastic plants and a few tetras, danios and livebearers. I'm now deciding between Seahorses, Dwarf Lionfish, and a Planted Freshwater, leaning towards Lionfish or Seahorses. Any more opinions would be appreciated as I like to hear what others have to say.

 

My vote goes to seahorses if you have the time and money......

There are those that say that skimmers on a seahorse tank without a sump can be a recipe for disaster. They say this because they feel that skimmers can be a contributing factor in seahorses getting gas bubble disease, weather this is true or not I don't know but I have never run a skimmer on my 56 gallon, I just do water changes.

As far as not being able to have crabs and snails, this is wrong you can have both. I have about 50 snails most of which are Nassarius Snail and around 25 or so hermit crabs. Some of my hermits are around 3/4 of an inch or bugger and as they get to this size I do remove them to my Reef tanks and replace them with smaller ones.

I also have a Emerald crab in the tank with my seahorses, the seahorses seem to be fascinated with him and get close up to see what he is doing all the time and he never so much a looks at them. I also have two Black or Rock urchins in the same tank.

As far as no flow this is false also, sea horse like flow, you just wont want to have as much as you would in a reef tank. I use 2 Maxi Jet 600's with a Hydor FLO Rotating Deflector on them plus I use a Top Skimming HOB filter rated for up to 100 gallon tank. Most of the day the larger seahorses can be found "playing" in the currents created by the HOB filter or one of the Maxi Jets. I know several others that have the same type of set up and they agree that you have to have a decent amount of flow.

What I do agree with is the fact that they can be messy eaters but I have found a way to get around allot of that. I feed mysis and I only put 3 or 4 of them in at a time. then a few minutes later I put a few more in. By doing this I find that there is less missing and the few that are missed are quickly devoured by the crabs and Nassarius Snail. Although I will admit it takes me about 30 minutes to feed them, but thats fine with me becasue I like to watch them.

As far as seahorses eating frozen then not eating anything but live this can be a problem with wild caught horses but I wouldn't recommend anyone that has never kept sawhorse's mess with wild caught especially since there so many tank breed varieties available now. Tank breed have only seen live food for a couple of weeks right after they were born so most of them shy away from live foods.

 

You gotta a problem wid dat? we've had a 10g Tetra tank, the SAME tank (same filter, rock in the middle, and glass w/ top and lights) running for 10 years now. All we've changed are the fish as they die, the heater was upgraded to a Stealth heater cause the old one broke, and some more little plants. Those are amazing tanks to setup for someone who cares about doing nothing