Saltwater Tanks

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

[Saphire]

I'v been considering a Saltwater Aquarium for some time and have been looking on the internet for a while.
Does anybody here have a saltwater tank that can give me some tips/help on getting started?

[Agent|Austin]

I was going to have one, but got in a fight with my brother and my mom hauled us out of there, I was like 10... I even found some awesome neon fish!

But anyway, search google, there are probably some aquarium forums that can get you started.

[Minime]

we have two, not sure how big they are, but there are lot of very small fish in it.
But aint very easy, you have to clean them and that kind of stuff. And that takes time. First you have to get all the fishes in another container. And remember the water must have the correct heat and everything. But if you change the water often, it won't get dirty so soon and that makes it much easier.

[Ballast]

Have you experience with tropical freshwater tanks Saphire? To get the saltlevel right with a saltwater tank, is pretty tricky. With no experience it's maybe better to get a tropical freshwater tank to gain experience. You have pretty cool fish for that too!

I had a tropical freshwater tank too (54 liter capacity), including a small co2 generator to keep the plants nice. Best thing to do is when you get a new tank is to buildt it up, fill it, put the plants in it and everything and buy 1 or 2 weeks later the fish so the plants can calm down and the water can acclamatise.

[Saphire]

Thanks for the advice everyone but the reason I was thinking of a saltwater tank was that my father and I both Fish for Crabs and Lobsters and it would be nice to have a tank with a few of them in it. As for getting the salt levels right I can just get a drum and next time I'm out fishing fill it with seawater and just put that in the tank. To tell you the truth I wouldn't realy like a tank with fish in it.

[Agent|Austin]

Sorry to tell you but a crab is considered a fish.

[mvsmith]

Sorry to tell you but a crab is considered a fish.

Maybe to the Department of Fish and Game, but it is really a marine invertebrate of the phylum Arthropoda.
Fish belong to the phylum Chordata.

[Agent|Austin]

They both have phylum in the name.

[firestar12]

Maybe to the Department of Fish and Game, but it is really a marine invertebrate of the phylum Arthropoda.
Fish belong to the phylum Chordata.

Because they have a vertebrate right?

[mvsmith]

Fish are vertebrates, crabs are invertebrates. They do not have "phylum" in their names. They belong to two different phyla.

[Saphire]

So a Crab isnt a Fish then?  Or is it?

[kuusuru]

So a Crab isnt a Fish then?  Or is it?

Zoologically a crab is not a fish (noun), but you fish (verb) for crab.

Government departments which regulate fishing tend to call anything which is caught by commercial fishermen as a "fish":

http://www2.dpi.qld.gov.au/fishweb/2428.html (http://www2.dpi.qld.gov.au/fishweb/2428.html)  "This is a regulated fish".

Interestingly, "fish" and "crab" are extremely old words, recognisable all the way back through Old English, Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse, and so this is probably an extremely old argument, too 

[Saphire]

Thanks for that, but was kind of jokeing when I said that.

[TerryRussell]

Interestingly, "fish" and "crab" are extremely old words, recognisable all the way back through Old English, Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse, and so this is probably an extremely old argument, too 

Being an old English Anglo-Saxon Norse, I do know that phylum means a major grouping within a kingdom. So crabs and fish both belong to teh animal kingdom. But after that, they split off into different phyla.

You and your cat and/or your dog and/or your pet killer whale and/or your pet gibbon (if you have one) both belong to the same Kingdom and the same phylum. But your pet ants belong to another phylum.

PS, I think old English (being the older Celtic language) did not include the words crab or fish. Middle English (being old German, via the Saxons) did, though.

[kuusuru]

PS, I think old English (being the older Celtic language) did not include the words crab or fish. Middle English (being old German, via the Saxons) did, though.

Old English was never a Celtic language  .  I think you must look to Cornish and Welsh for Celtic etymologies, but I'm a student of Germanic, not Celtic, history so I don't know how applicable they are.

Depending on who you talk to, Old English was either an immediate development from Anglo-Saxon or refers to the Anglo-Saxon language itself; and my dictionary of Anglo-Saxon includes "fisc" and "crabbe" for fish and crab.

Middle English is actually less of a Germanic language than Old English, because it includes the huge influx of Norman and French following the conquest.