Good info for salt water tanks?

I was just wondering if anyone could direct me to a good information source on maintaining a salt water aquarium. My husband was given a 3 gal one and has had it up and cycling with quite a few snails and whatever else in it but all his fish have died. The friend who gave it to him said they are very easy to set up and there should be no problems but somehow I don't seem to think that sounds right.....
Any advice or links would be appreciated, thanks

www.fishlore.com They also have a great forum there.

audrey said:

My husband was given a 3 gal one...

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Hold on, wait a minute. A three gallon salt water aquarium? That's way, way to small for anything besides a small piece of live rock not to mention a single fish. With salt water aquariums, bigger is usually better as less than perfect maintenance won't cause the entire system to crash. There are a lot more parameters that need to be monitored and adjusted for in a salt water system, not to mention the fish often being far more delicate. A majority of salt water fish are wild caught and thus more prone to disease.

If you want to keep a salt water aquarium and you are a beginner I would recommend starting at a minimum of 30 gallons with 40 or 55 being even better. Try to find captive bred stock if at all possible and make sure you are getting them from a dealer you trust. Find a small business that specializes in salt water aquatic life and avoid the big chains. If you want to start smaller a fishless tank with live rock and maybe some small invertebrates would be a much better choice.

Ha ha I was afraid of something like that. The 3 gal aquarium was a gift. My husband and I never wanted nor intended to keep a salt water aquarium. Our friend has a 55 gal and he was just going to but baby fish in ours and when they out grew too big, take them for his tank and give us another small one.
I have no idea how to monitor the water quatility ect. I have obviously worked with fresh water tanks but I had always heard salt water was much harder.
So this tank can't even handle one or two baby fish?

Well, I'm no expert in salt water fish aquaria, but I think it would be awfully hard to keep even baby fish in that tank. This can be easily compounded by the types of food they need to eat. Messy foods and small tanks can be pretty disastrous as I'm sure you can imagine.

Fish are my specialty (I finally feel in place here). That's technically a pico, even smaller then a nano reef. You're probably best off with a piece of live rock, a few low maintenence corals like zoos and mushroom polyps, and a small shrimp. Remember, you're going to need good filtration and you'll need to cycle it.

Hi Audrey,

There are actually quite a few excellent sources for information on reefkeeping out on the web. I tend to prefer to browse forums and learn from the ever changing experiences of other people, so I frequent www.nano-reef.com and www.reefcentral.com. Both of these are exceedingly active forums with lots of well educated and experienced posters (though be warned, some reef keepers tend to be a bit snobby .)

Don't give up on reefkeeping yet! Marine aquaria can be a bit harder to maintain, but compared to the daily dosings, CO2 injection, and frequent water changes I do on my fresh water planted aquaria, keeping a reef is actually quite easy. It's also true that larger tanks are more stable, but my first reef was (is) a ten gallon that is still running, well stocked, and quite healthy nearly two years later.

I agree that you'll need good circulation to keep a healthy reef, but in a tank of that volume, a simple hang on back filter to keep the water moving and clear or a small pump with filter media should suffice. If your friend provided you sand and rock from his established tank, your aquarium should have basically come to you pre-cycled, so perhaps your fish deaths have another source. If, however, the substrate in your reef is new, you should permit about 2-3 weeks before introducing your cleanup crew, and another 2 or so after that before you add fish. Unfortunately, cycling in marine aquaria tends to take a bit longer than in fresh, so patience is key.

While it would be considerably more easy to maintain your tank without the added presence of fish food and wastes, there are some species of vertebrates that can do relatively well in such a small aquarium, but your options are quite limited. At most, I would keep one small species of goby, like Gobiodon okinawae (the clown goby,) but do keep in mind that these are not exactly optimal conditions. In addition, once you get a bit of experience in the hobby, a tank of that size is optimal for keeping dwarf seahorses, Hippocampus zosterae, though these are rather difficult to maintain and are (believe me :wacko quite time consuming.

If you're interested in learning about possible fish for your pico, visit here for the names of species organized by aquarium size.

Good luck with your new acquisition!