I am seriously considering a putting together a Marine tank, been keeping tropical for a while now.

Other than cost, does anyone know how hard it is?

For UK stuff?
We’ve got one at work, needs cooling alot, gets lots of algae and only anemones, prawns and hermit crabs seems to get on with it. Oh, and topshells.
Shore crabs just trash it, blennies look suicidal and the different stuff like squat lobsters, pipe fish and starfish bury themselves and can’t be seen.
To be honest it’s not worth it, unless like us, you show it to school kids after they have failed to catch anything themselves!

Yes – a right-royal PITA. Just last weekend I was talking to someone who has one (fitted 6 months ago) and is already considering getting rid of it.

But if you are used to trops then a marine tank is small learning curve – you would just need advice about the extra kit you will need (protein skimmer etc).

But they do need more regular maintenance and are more susceptible to implosion if not looked after well. And new corals/fish are much more expensive to replace too.

I’ve just closed down my Marine tank. The secret is to have as much water volume as you possibly can, so that changes to the water chemistry don’t happen too quickly.

I had a 30″ cube in the office, with pipes running through the wall and two 72″ sump tanks in the garage.

The biggest cost isn’t the fish, it’s the electricity. If you’re going to have coral then you need a high turnover of water (big pumps) and a LOT of light (Metal Halides).

When the tank was running my electricity bill was £220 a month, now it’s less than £90. Having said that, my set up was very power hungry, as I had a closed loop in the tank as well as the sump drains and returns.

With so much water volume I had to do very little maintenance to the tank, just a 10% water change every couple of months.

I only closed it down because I will be awa a lot more with work this year.

Kept a tang and a trigger fish in a 6th tank

Biggest expense – chemicals and marine grade salt
Cost me a bomb

Great fun but very sensitive to change or contamination from bleach on hands , cleaners etc

Better off buying a fish tank DVD
And spend on the bike

I’ve had marine tanks – fish only once and then a reef set-up that looked stunning. The bigger the tank the better as your basically looking after the water and when that’s spot on then th fish/corals/sponges etc will thrive. But costs are high with a marine tank and not just live-stock but also running costs. Now trust me on this but if you want a tank of very colourful fish, lots of them and great characters then set a Rift Lake tank up – Malawis cichlids. They are very very colourful, you have to over-stock them to reduce aggresion and because they’re mouth-brooders they will easily breed and they’re amazing to watch. In a 4 foot tank you can have loads of fish and in a bigger tank it’s a huge amount of numbers. I’ve kept all types offish, from discus to marines and specimen fish and Malawi’s are by far and away the best and easiset to keep. And they don’t cost the earth and running costs are cheap too.