The differences between saltwater and freshwater tank methods?

[PPPPPP42]

So I have a 75 gallon reef tank already.
After seeing this video:

Specifically the shot of his award winning planted jungle tank at 2:20, I had a serious case of "I WANT ONE"
Its just so different from a reef tank and so zen looking.

So went over to that fishlore forum since we don't seem to have any freshwater stuff here at all (did I miss something) and its like everyone is speaking a foreign language.
Did freshwater and saltwater tech and methods evolve totally seperately?

I read something in a thread about seasonal changes to tap water and waiting for chlorine to dissapate (no rodi) and in another thread read about treating ich in tank by cranking the temp to 86 for two weeks and vaccuming the bottom to catch the stuff that falls off which would read like someone was making a joke if it were suggested on here (how would you even do that in a planted tank?).

So for anyone that does both or moved from fresh to salt, What in the heck is going on? Do I have to literally unlearn what I have learned?

 

[Peace River]

Several us maintain both saltwater and freshwater tanks. I have kept planted tanks in the past, but currently all of my FW tanks focused on breeding so any plants are purely functional.

You may be interested in the following freshwater planted build thread:

Build Thread - Something Different... d2's FRESHWATER PLANTED build!

Hi all! After more than a decade and several successful builds in the Saltwater Reef hobby, I've decided to jump ship :eek: (for a little bit) and try my hand at this planted tank thang. I need something new to learn but still need to have a tank in the house, so I figure let's try something a...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[littlefishy]

Nice scape he's got. I've had freshwater for a long time, right now a 75g planted angel tank w co2. The ammonia/nitrate-bb relationship is the same, but the water requirements are almost completely different. I use tap w around 200 tds, rodi is for topoff only. Ph can be radically different for different fw fish, depending on the ground/dirt/minerals their natural water runs through.

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

They are 2 completely separate animals. Ich in freshwater is a completely different parasite than what we call ich in saltwater.There's no freshwater section here because this is Reef2Reef and there are no freshwater reefs.

 

[windemerejack]

fw and planted are totally different to saltwater tanks and in my opinion a true planted tank takes more looking after than a reef tank.
Here is a link to the best planted tank forum on the planet

UK Aquatic Plant Society

One of the world's best online resources for planted aquariums and aquascaping information, we promote all aspects of the aquarium plant hobby, fish keeping, aquarium hardware and art of aquascaping. Avoid algae problems and create beautiful aquariums.

www.ukaps.org

 

[ZipAdeeZoa]

I mean some of those things are a little dated but for the most part you just use tap water and dechlorinate it, seasonal changes affecting the water I believe just applies to people on well water (or if on city water its it happens to a much lesser extent).

I find the biggest difference is that you just don't have to worry about... most things. The plants don't sting each other (though they can over grow other plants), Ammonia is never a good thing but freshwater fish seem to tolerate it much better, temperature can swing multiple degrees in the course of a day and nothing goes belly up. I feed the fish once or twice a week (depends on the fish though- definitely don't need to be fed 6 times a day like anthias).

The cycle is much faster- tanks seem to reach that mature/stable stride way before reef tanks do (6 months on a slow tank).

You can be way more reckless. I recently combined two of my freshwater tanks into one and had no issues, I couldn't imagine how to safely do that with a reef.

fw and planted are totally different to saltwater tanks and in my opinion a true planted tank takes more looking after than a reef tank.
Here is a link to the best planted tank on the planet

UK Aquatic Plant Society

One of the world's best online resources for planted aquariums and aquascaping information, we promote all aspects of the aquarium plant hobby, fish keeping, aquarium hardware and art of aquascaping. Avoid algae problems and create beautiful aquariums.

www.ukaps.org

I agree with this for hi tech planted tanks but If your careful with plant selection its a lot easier than saltwater. This is my planted tank, cheapest LED I've ever used (came with the tank), No Co2, dosing, no planted substrate or anything. just careful plant selection, weekly- monthly 25-50 water changes depending on when I'm free, feed twice a week and trim the plants back once every 6 months or so but I like that wild over grown look. Sorry you can't really see any fish- I mostly keep catfish because they are way better than any other fish but you don't seem them to often- theres 20 some tetras in here as well as the 16 or so South American catfish (1 asian catfish but he's a long story).

 

[windemerejack]

You can say the same about reef tanks, careful choosing of easy corals which require little light and will tolerate not so perfect water can be done on a cheap light and not a lot of maintenance.

 

[ZipAdeeZoa]

You can say the same about reef tanks, careful choosing of easy corals which require little light and will tolerate not so perfect water can be done on a cheap light and not a lot of maintenance.

You can but as someone who only has easy corals and did the same amount of research to make it as low maintenance as possible- still an entirely different league. Sometimes when I"m giving plants away I leave them in damp bag for up to a week before I start to worry about they'll be ok. My light went out on that tank and I didn't get a new one for 2 months, didn't loose a single plant.

 

[windemerejack]

you can run a tank with gsp in it, have a massive nuclear leak, kill everything off and still your gsp will survive and thrive, nothing simpler than that .
I jest, with both set ups you can make it as simple or high tech, cheap or expensive as you like.