Anyone into salt water aquariums?

In reply to Steve_Jones :

Nice red starfish! I like the variety of your tank. I had a saltwater tank as a kid, so this brings back good memories. I remember getting the chemistry right to be a challenge. Nice tips from folks on how to prep a tank - that's key.

I had a Starfire 240 Peninsula back in the day, that was a beautiful piece.  Mixed reef with a separate Frag tank/sump underneath... I had it operating for 3 years when we got hit with the Ice Storm of 2008.  We went 6 days without power.  I ran a generator to limp the heaters and pumps along, but it wasn't enough, and the ecosystem never recovered.  I rehomed the fish in an emergency situation to local reefers, but 3 years of grown hard and soft corals, sand, and livestock were nuked.  I lost my taste for a very long time after that. 

Now that we are in our 'forever home' with a permanent standby automatic generator, I'm thinking of doing a little 60 cube as a real-time science project with my daughter, but I'll never go big again.  Losing the tank ripped my heart out... slowly watching things degrade and die off helplessly.  It still kinda hurts. 

Bringing this back up, rescued a few big fish that outgrew their tanks. Sailfin Tang, and Niger Trigger. It's tough to get good photos with the reflections, but figured I'd try. To give you an idea of size, the yellow one is an adult Tang. 

Those look awesome. 

Do you have to deal with a lot of evaporation? And if so, what is the process of topping up a salt water aquarium?

Slippery said:

Those look awesome. 

Do you have to deal with a lot of evaporation? And if so, what is the process of topping up a salt water aquarium?

If you look on the last page there's a post on it. This one is automatically topped up as it evaporates. On a smaller tank, you can add water similar to a fresh water tank every week or so. 

Figured I would do an update.  It's been stable for a few months now, all with reef safe fish, so we started adding and growing different types of corals. 

Gorgeous!

In reply to Steve_Jones:

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your amazing tank Steve!

I ran salt in a tiny little 21 gallon hex when I was a kid...I got pretty good at maintaining the balance but if I get back into it, I'll go 65+ gallons.

Thanks again,

Brett

That's so amazing, love it.

I appreciate the compliments, it's been a fun time, really enjoy having it around. I think it's coming together well. 

Figured I'd update. When starting the build the "must have" fish was a yellow dog faced puffer. This proved pretty hard to do, but this guy took a plane ride Today and is now in quarantine for a few weeks up the street. I'll update after he's in the tank. 
 

That fish is a banana. 

I snuck home from work early today to kick off my four-day weekend (been in the office since 6:00 so low to nonexistent guilt) and had a chance to resolve one of my greatest mysteries..."what do my fish do all day".

Welp, they berk...eggs stuck all over the place, snails entwined in their mating practice...if it's alive, it's shagging.

So I thought I'd asked, but I guess I didn't. 

Would 2 separate 20 gallon aquariums, one tall one long, be a good size to get started with salt water or would it not be worth the hassle?

Since our axolotls died I've just been staring at the tanks trying to figure out what to do, and while fresh water and river fish would be the easy button, I've always liked saltwater stuff. 

In reply to RevRico :

I think any would be worth it, but the tank size isn't the real issue, the equipment cost can hurt more. Equipment for a small setup isn't much cheaper than equipment for a big setup. That being said, there are plenty of great saltwater fish/plants/etc. for smaller tanks. I'd be tempted to do a seahorse tank with the tall one. 
 

Look for used equipment, can be pennies on the dollar.