What makes you choose/prefer saltwater over freshwater?

[LadyMac]

I have a sw and two fw tanks. I love them all. One fw is just a single platinum betta. But he has some lovely decor. My other is also bettas but pallifina. I love wild types. They have wonderful personalities and I love the colors. I have it planted with emersed plants mostly and just watching the trickle is mesmerizing. On the other hand I really enjoy my clownfishes and the lawnmower blenny. I wouldn’t say I like one over the other as all freshwater setups are just as unique as salt. You couldn’t replicate my tanks no matter how hard you tried, and that’s ok! That’s the beauty of it to me.

I dream of an impossible setup. I want a large tank, with part fresh and part salt. Impossible I’m sure. But would it not be the coolest to see clownfish swimming in an almost ocean, with slightly above it a freshwater stream?

Ah a girl can dream.

 

[Steven777]

I got into the hobby after keeping discus and planted tanks for a couple years. Discus are amazing and a very rewarding fish but I honestly got tired of large wcs every other day in my 75

What I love about sw is we have a lot of equipment and natural ways to do what wcs are needed for in fw

Sure you can keep fw fish that don't need pristine water quality but with discus there is no alternative

Loving the reef world for just over a year now

Sorry for the late reply. The ease of water change is one of the factors that makes me appreciate SW. I don't have discus but I can see how annoying it is to do wc every other day, as I got tired of doing 25% wc in my 75gal planted, and it's not even a discus tank.

 

[Steven777]

I think it was the gear and the tech that got me originally. I have what is basically an ongoing science experiment in my house, it's far more than just a 'fish tank' which was what my freshwater tanks were.

I've also never been able to keep a houseplant alive. Ever. i've killed everything from cacti to ferns to parlor palms. My freshwater plants were doomed the day I got them.

Are you me? I can never grow a houseplant for more than a month. My planted tank looks like crap and I've been trying for 2 years...

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Hi, I'm not sure if this post belongs to the right section, if it isn't please move it.

I've been doing FW for 5 years and recently tried SW. I'm still keeping my FW tank but mainly investing into SW now. For me SW is much more interesting, not only because of the beauty of the animals (which is subjective I guess?), but because how weird and interesting they are, like the clownfish are born male and how they live with the anemones, etc. How often do you see that behavior in FW fish? I feel like most FW fish species that we keep in the aquarium environment mostly swim back and forth and they don't do weird stuff (correct me if I'm wrong). Maybe there's some exceptions like the oscars, but yeah the majority aren't interesting imo.

Also you can keep a lot more species in SW than you can with FW.

Talking about plants vs corals, I've been keeping plants and don't know much about corals. Live plants are very nice to look at, but for me they are too much work. Trimming, CO2, fert, not to mention you have to do 25% water change every week.....



What are your thoughts?

I agree with everything except. .....(doing this to get your attention )

 

[Dan I]

The variety of colorful fish and corals. It can't be beat!

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Meet one of my children of the sea. 1 of 29. Scientific name dendronephthya. Dendro is Greek for tree, in ocean look and grow like a tree. 200+ species.
I'm probably only one with that many trying to cultivate in USA.
But there's more.......

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

There's more just need to Google it.......

 

[Bayareareefer18]

Sorry for the late reply. The ease of water change is one of the factors that makes me appreciate SW. I don't have discus but I can see how annoying it is to do wc every other day, as I got tired of doing 25% wc in my 75gal planted, and it's not even a discus tank.

Ya I was doing about 80% every other day. Takes some of the enjoyment out for sure but the fish were amazing