Freshwater Planted Fish Tank
Are you looking for a fish tank? Are you still considering if a fish tank is right for you? Well here are a few things to consider before diving into a commitment with an aquarium. When you go into the local pet store I’m almost 100% positive that they will not tell you all of the work that goes into a fish tank. Now I have not seen a self sufficient fish tank to this day, so this means that it will require your attention in order for it to stay looking good.
The first thing to note is that one needs to consider whether to go freshwater or saltwater. Now if just starting with the hobby, I would recommend going freshwater. I say this for a few reasons. The first is that when the fish get sick (and they all get sick) it usually is easier to treat a freshwater tank than it is a saltwater tank. It seems that disease in a saltwater tank spreads faster and requires quicker reaction time when it comes to medicating the tank. That is not to say in a freshwater tank you should wait until they start dying before medicating, but generally you do have more time to medicate before things get really bad.
Secondly keeping the water levels correct in a freshwater tank is easier to maintain than that of a saltwater tank. A saltwater tank needs to have the correct level of salt, so one needs to constantly refill the water level of the tank with freshwater to make up for the evaporation. With busy schedules, family, and friends not many people just getting into the hobby really want to commit to something like that. Routine water changes are necessary for both fresh and saltwater tanks, but on a saltwater tank if the water is not changed on a regular basis the nitrates will begin to rise, the pH will fall, and that is not good. A freshwater tank gives you more leeway, and you can typically get away with longer periods of time between water changes.
Finally the cost of all of this is a lot less when comparing a freshwater setup to a saltwater tank setup. For a typical saltwater aquarium setup be prepared to spend roughly $50 per gallon. This is because you need to buy the lights, filter, protein skimmer, chiller (if necessary), live rock, and sand. A freshwater setup is a lot less expensive because you don’t need the live rock, chiller, high intensity lighting, or protein skimmer. Also, when you do maintenance you don’t need to add saltwater (which costs money), as do the buffers it takes to maintain the proper water quality.
So for those just getting into fishkeeping, I recommend freshwater to start. See if you like it. If so, then make the investment into saltwater. That is what I did, and it seemed to work. I learned a lot by doing freshwater first. Looking back, if I started with saltwater (like some of my friends did) I don’t know if I you would be reading this blog.
Love Your Fish.
