Completely new to salt water tanks and have some questions

[Scinn]

Hey everyone, not really sure where this goes but since I want live rock and coral, I figured this was the best spot for it. I'll introduce myself a bit first, I'm very experienced with fresh water tanks and working an entirely all natural setting. I want the same for a salt water tank, but before I even start worrying putting water in a tank, I've spent the past few months doing some research. Or trying. The problem is that everything on the internet is highly contradictory and I've followed you guys on Facebook for awhile now. I figured I would just go to a place where the information is going to be correct, there's people who vary in levels of experience, and I'm not going to be led astray. These are my requirements for my tank that I know first hand:

1. MUST be captive bred fish. I don't want some poor little guy that someone went diving for and may or may not have had permission to take. I want a fish that was born in a tank and has never known any better. I'll choose different fish if the one I want can't be found captive bred before I take the little guy out of his home. So I want to know how you can tell *for sure* that the fish you are buying is captive bred if you don't have any salt water fish stores within 200 miles of you? It's super easy to slap the words under a picture of a fish, but it doesn't make it true on the internet.

2. I want to have everything natural, from the live sand and rock to the corals and the plants. The only artificial thing in the tank should be the tubes for their air and such. What are some things that I should watch out for with this, any concerns, and what is the best (and legal) corals to do this with? Again, I don't want to go killing anything off just because "I gotta have it". Also, do I need to worry about sellers having chipped a chunk off of an ocean coral or are all corals sold done like the captive bred fish?

3. Going from fresh water to salt water tanks, and having no experience with salt water tanks, what is some advice you would have for me? Keep in mind, I'm not actually planning on even picking out the tank for at least another 6-12 months. I want to have an exact idea of what is going into the tank, research the fish and animals for the tank, make sure everyone is going to like everyone and their living condition requirements/likes/dislikes/enemies/etc. I am not in a rush to do this because I want to make sure I am "measuring twice and cutting once" so to speak.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and if I think of anything else I will post it.

 

[Waters]

Welcome to R2R. To answer your questions, there really isn't a way to tell if a fish is captive bred or not other than going by the word of the seller. Obviously there are quite a fish that simply haven't been bred in captivity yet, so you will know if those show up as "captive bred" fish. As far as coral, there is a HUGE amount of coral available that have been fragged from existing coral already in a tank somewhere (normally sold on frag plugs). That being said, there are still a bunch that have been taken directly from the ocean but you will easily be able to fill an entire tank strictly from frags. As far as advice, I would just continue to read and research. There are a number of good books available as well as sites like R2R. If you are already experienced in freshwater tanks, than saltwater shouldn't be too difficult for you as long as you take things slow and research everything. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask!

 

[Rob.D]

Both O.R.A and Sustainable Aquatics breed dozens of species, they only sell to retailers, so your only option to buy their fish is to get them from a fish store. Live Aquaria has a page just for captive bred fish but it does not represent all available captive breed fish on the market Captive-Bred Fish

If you want corals that aren't fresh off the reef, you have countless options; I would recommend you checking out your local reef club first, then check out vendors like Battle Corals, Unique Corals and your local store for ORA corals. Read up on Maricultured corals, they technically are strait from the ocean but they start out as small frags and are grown in farm like conditions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBM5uAmnJBQ

 

[Scinn]

Welcome to R2R. To answer your questions, there really isn't a way to tell if a fish is captive bred or not other than going by the word of the seller. Obviously there are quite a fish that simply haven't been bred in captivity yet, so you will know if those show up as "captive bred" fish. As far as coral, there is a HUGE amount of coral available that have been fragged from existing coral already in a tank somewhere (normally sold on frag plugs). That being said, there are still a bunch that have been taken directly from the ocean but you will easily be able to fill an entire tank strictly from frags. As far as advice, I would just continue to read and research. There are a number of good books available as well as sites like R2R. If you are already experienced in freshwater tanks, than saltwater shouldn't be too difficult for you as long as you take things slow and research everything. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask!

Thanks Waters! I guess my main concerns are just making sure that I have everything done right for the health of the fish, it's not like with a fresh water tank where I can just do a quick water change and add some chemicals and dechlorinater and it's good to go. It's considerably more tricky than that. And my other concern is impacting the ocean directly so that I can have a pretty tank. I want to have my own little piece of the ocean but not at the cost of the ocean. Know what I mean?

 

[Scinn]

Hello Rob, thank you for the links and the info! It gives me some places to start that are more reliable than a general Google search. lol I'm assuming from your photo you have clowns, is it true that you can't have too many clowns in a tank or they will fight? Or is it species specific? I have really fallen in love with the pandas and would love to have some in my tank, but I was doing some reading and it said that you can't have more than one per like, 20 gallons or something (if I remember correctly...I got kind of sad at that point because I would love to have like 4-6 of them in the 75 gallon I'm going to have). I don't want to wake up to injured, or dead, fish. I'm not looking for a gladiator tank, more like a Zen tank. lol