Whenever I talk to a person that I see admiring a marine aquarium I always ask them if they are a hobbyist. The answer that I get most of the time is that they keep a few freshwater fish but wouldn't dare take on the responsibility of a marine aquarium. When asked why they feel this way I always get the same old answer. Those marine animals are just to hard to keep alive, they are too expensive, or the equipment is just to technical for me to understand. The second thing that most people say to me is "A Marine Aquarium, Not Me!".

 

In this article I would like to show people that keeping a marine aquarium is no more difficult than maintaining a freshwater aquarium. You don't have to spend the next 6 months rent money on equipment. I have a 55 gallon marine tank that runs on around $100.00 worth of filtration equipment. Most of the fish in this tank are over 5 years old. Let me tell you about my tank and then I'll explain how you can do the same thing.

 

My 55 gallon aquarium contains very little substrate. Probably not even « of an inch. I did this because I have learned through my years in this hobby that excess substrate just acts as collection site for all the junk that ends up on the floor of your aquarium.

 

This tank is filtered very simply. I use a AquaClear 300 power filter, a Skilter Filter, and two sponge filters. At your local petshop you will find that the AquaClear 300 will cost you around $50.00. In my opinion this is the best filter on the market. The filter chamber holds a large sponge that has plenty of room for your good guy bacteria to grow on. This sponge will last over a year and cleaning it only entails rinsing it out in old aquarium water a couple times a month. This filter also holds a large bag of carbon. There is plenty of carbon to really make a difference in maintaining water quality. With this combination you now have excellent mechanical and chemical filtration. Not bad for $50.00, wouldn't you agree.

 

The Skilter Filter is a new product that is put out by the Danner Mfg. Company. This little unit cost around $40.00 at your locale store. This is the greatest invention since synthetic sea salts. A mechanical power filter is put together with a protein skimmer. A protein skimmer is a device that helps to pull dissolved waste out of your water before it gets broken down to nitrates buy your good guy bacteria. This really helps to keep your water quality in top notch shape. Every marine expert agrees that a protein skimmer is a must for all saltwater aquariums. The trouble is that most protein skimmers cost well over $100.00. This unit works great and will save you a bunch of money.

 

Last but not least we need something to be our biological filter. To put it simply a biological filter is a device that that has lots of surface area that will allow our good guy bacteria to attach to and to make a new home. The more surface area that you have the more bacteria  that will be available to break down dissolved waste, thus the cleaner that your water will be. Most people depend on undergravel filters to act as their biological filter. This works buy installing slotted plates on the floor of your aquarium that are attached to uplift tubes. Water is drawn up the lift tubes either by bubbles or by using a power
head. This causes oxygenated water to be drawn down through the gravel. The gravel in turn act a the biological filter buy having the good guy bacteria attach to them. The clean water flowing through the gravel is a must as our good guy bacteria need oxygen to live.

 

The problem that I have with undergravel filters is that eventually they will clog and you will have to tear your tank down to clean them. Whether it takes 6 months or 6 years it will happen. I once had a 55 gallon marine aquarium that had been running for over 4 years with great success. It used an undergravel filter. I vacuumed the gravel at least twice a month to keep it clean. As time went on I noticed that I was developing a brown algae problem. I also noticed the my anemones were not doing well. These animals had all been fine for over 4 years, what was going on! I finally decided to tear the tank down. Guess what I found? Muck! A ton of it hiding under the filter plate. I couldn't believe my eyes. I changed at least 25% of my water every week while vacuuming the gravel. How could this have happened to me? I'm here to tell you that it's inevitable
whenever an undergravel filter is used. To be fair please keep in mind that this in my personal opinion and there are many aquarist out there that swear by them.

 

I have found a much simpler and cheaper way to biologically filter my aquariums. I use the cheap ole sponge filters. A  sponge filter is a very simple devise that has a million attachment places for our good guy bacteria. It works on a very simple principle. An air pump supplies air that is pumped up an uplift tube of the sponge filter. This causes fresh water to be drawn into the sponge supplying them with their much needed oxygen. To look at a sponge filter you wouldn't believe at first that it could be useful. It consists of a sponge that fits snugly onto an uplift tube. Take some aquarium airline tubing and hook the uplift tube to the air pump. Plug the air pump in and wha-la. A biological filter.

 

There are many things that one can do with a sponge filter that you just can't do with an undergravel. Have you ever needed to set up an emergency aquarium but couldn't figure out what to use for a biological filter. Once a sponge filter has been running in an established aquarium for 3 weeks it now becomes a portable filter. Just pull it out of the old aquarium and drop it into the new one. Instant biological filtration. To clean a sponge filter is very simple. Take it out of the tank and rinse it out in old tank water. That's it! You'll never have to worry about muck build up again.

 

My way of maintaining a marine aquarium is very simple. I vacuum what little substrate that I have every other week. I do 30-50% water changes once a week. I can here the groans now. I know what you've read, forget it! I have found that changing this much water keeps my marine animals thriving. Most of my fishes are well over 5 years old and as healthy as a horse shoe crab. Many of you know that changing lots of water in a freshwater aquarium keeps your animals in tip top shape. Why should a marine aquarium be any different?

 

How many people out there buy extra additives to add to there marine aquariums? Instead of buying costly supplements
buy salt. When you do a water change you automatically  add these supplements along with your new water, it's already in
the synthetic sea salts. I know that asking you to do that many water changes seems like a hassle. But let me ask you
this, do you want to keep your animals in a perfect environment or would you just want to them keep alive in a so-so environment. If you can't change this much water then at least increase your water changes, your fish will love you for it.
    
The five checks that need to be done on your aquarium are pH, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, and the specific gravity. Ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates are all results of your biological filter. Ammonia is produced by all living organisms. It's a by product of an animals metabolism. Ammonia also appears as a result of over feeding, dead fish in the aquarium, or any other decaying matter that it can use as a food source. The problem with ammonia is that it's very poisonous to all living
things. Thankfully God in his great wisdom arranged to have a good guy bacteria around called Nitrosomus that just loves
to eat ammonia. Nitrosomus bacteria is the first step in our biological filter. You must always keep an eye on the ammonia level in your aquarium. Inexpensive test kits are available at the pet stores. Your goal would be to maintain a 0 reading of ammonia in your aquarium.

 

Nitrites is the second phase of the biological process that is taking place within your aquarium. Nitrites are the waste product of the Nitrosomus bacteria. Unfortunately this is also poisonous to our aquatic friends. Thank goodness that another good guy bacteria called Nitrobacter comes along and just loves to dine on nitrites. Again the ultimate goal is to maintain nitrites at a 0 reading. This test kit is also available at your local store very reasonably priced.

 

The third and final phase of the biological process is nitrates. This stuff is the waste product the Nitrobacter bacteria. Fortunately this isn't poisonous to our fishes at moderate concentrations. Nitrates hasn't been proved to cause direct damage to our animals but it has been shown cause stress along with the buildup of other waste that naturally takes place within the aquarium. Unfortunately there is no proven way to take care of nitrates naturally in  our aquarium. This is where water changes comes into play. By changing water on a regular basis you are keeping all 3 of the above waste products in check. The more water that you change the less of a buildup of these waste products is taking place. It certainly makes common sense when you think about it.

 

A test kit that we must buy is a pH test kit. These kites are also available at the local pet store at a reasonable price. pH is a measurement of whether the water in your aquarium is either acidic or alkaline. Anything below a pH of 7 is considered acidic while anything above 7 is alkaline. A pH of 7 is considered neutral. You want to keep the pH of your marine aquarium between 8.0 and 8.4. As you can tell this is very alkaline. Letting the pH drop lower than my recommendations will stress and eventually kill all of your animals. There are assorted chemicals at the pet store that will help to maintain your pH. But here also is another reason for doing lots of water changes. The pH will stay stabilized with frequent water changes. Why buy chemicals when buying new salt does the same thing but is so much better for our fish and inverts.

 

The specific gravity is just a fancy term for how much dissolved solids,(salt),that we have in our water. Natural seawater has a specific gravity, depending in what part of the world you are in, that varies from 10.20-10.24. I keep my animals at 10.22. This seems to make them very happy. A simple device called a hydrometer will measure the salinity,(specific gravity), for you. All that you need to do is to follow the directions on the particular brand of synthetic sea salts that you are going to use.
 
When feeding marine animals you must provide them with a high quality varied diet. Alternate between frozen, freeze dried, and prepared foods that are made just for marine animals. Whenever you are food shopping for your fish make sure that you know what your particular animals eat in nature. This will help you to provide proper diets. Some animals are strictly vegetarians, others eat small planktonic plants and animals while others still eat only other large prey items such as other fishes. I hope you can see why it is important to know what your animal eats in order to provide it with the best diet possible.

 

When you want to go out and buy animals for your aquarium please take a little extra time to do a little research on the particular animal that you want. Not all animals are compatible together. If you see a nice animal that you want to purchase ask the clerk to help you look them up in one of the reference books that a store with any credibility will have on hand. If you do at least this much research then you have some idea of the particular needs of this animal.

 

Keeping a marine aquarium is a wonderful experience. With it though does come a little responsibility. You see, 99% of all the marine fishes and inverts that are available to us are caught directly from the wild. There are numerous environmentalist that would just love a chance to prove that we are not responsible in our marine keeping. If they see that we constantly buy
animals, kill them, and just replace them without a thought then they can say that we don't really care about our animals. On the other hand if more and more aquarist are keeping there charges alive for years and teaching what they have learned about the animals to other hobbyist then they can only say good things about us. We can even boast that buy keeping these animals in captivity we are helping the scientific community to learn about their lifestyles, reproduction, and all the other secrets that has of yet need to be unearthed. Make no mistake about it. Many nations have closed their reefs to marine animal collecting. If more responsibility isn't shown buy us hobbyist then the reefs will be closed to us and the marine hobby lost to us forever.