Pandora said:
I know, I think I'm just gonna haveta settle for a freshwater tank.
Actually...
If you have the time to setup and "do" a marine aquarium they're actually less regular maintenence than freshwater. Getting the tank ready is the hard part though, marine wildlife is much more sensative to water quality than even the most picky of African Cichlids.
Your best bet would be to get a tank, set it up and use some sort of biological filtration unit with a seperate particulate system setup to use activated carbon as well. (yes 2 filters) At least that's what I did and my tank was always clean. I had algae issues because the tank was prime for growth with the ultra bright lights I had, but a magnet thingy on the glass will clear that up for you relatively easily. Not to mention that the fish (and other creatures) will eat the algae off of the glass if you leave it on there long enough.
You're going to need the tank to properly cycle though before you put anything in there that you spent more than $5 on. Damsels are very durable fish that don't much care about water quality so they're a good choice to start the tank cycling. You'll also need to add some "starter" biological agents to your filter box to get the biological system up and running. Then that would need to run with
no wildlife in it for about 3 - 5 weeks. Then you can add maybe 3 - 5 Damsels in there for the next 3 - 5 weeks until the water's correct.
Testing your water is important, monitor it on a weekly basis always and adjust as necessary. After your water is good you can take some of it and begin a quarantine tank (with a seperate filtration system - I recommend an eclipse hood unit for this. A 10 - 20 gallon aquarium would be ideal) with one or two of those damsels (for maybe a week or two). Once the "real" fish go into the quarantine tank (don't ever add petshop water into your water) you'll have to pull the damsels out and flush them as they're agressive and will cause unnecessary stress on your new fish, most likely killing them in a rather short time.
Have fun and good luck, but definately read up on it before you undertake something as finicky as a marine aquarium. There are
really cool fish but they're expensive and don't deal with stress all that well, not to mention that there's many many fish/plants/etc that will eat eachother and in general aren't compatable in a small environment like a home aquarium.
The bottom line is that it's not bad once you get it up and running, but you've definately got to do your reading first. You don't want to spend $200 on a fish and have it die or get eaten by something in a day or two.
(Hermit crabs, while cool to watch, will eat your fish if they're not healthy enough to defend against it. They also are very difficult to kill off.)
-worthy. Slow but still cool. I love it for when I'm in the field
