What to add to this setup?

Correct me if I'm wrong here but Pleco's love Worms and you should make it part of their diets with wafers as a added bonus. Mine also loves eating Tetra Granules he gets pretty agro about these when another fish come close while he is eating (I can't remember the name and I can't find it on the Tetra site either) Will check when I get home

 

This is all so true, That is only for the basic set-up after that it gets even more complex with Dosing Pumps, Controllers, chillers, Meters/Probes, R.O units, Auto Top-Up units Testing kits worth 2k, Lighting will put you back another 1500 to 12 000 depending on what you want But if you have a DSB it can come down a bit again but this has to be done right otherwise it doesn't work at all. A 300L se-tup can cost you a good 10K just for a very low-tech system (which is taking a chance).
Marine keeping is no easy task apparently. And when you have your 5k to 15k worth of fish and softies going in some 25k system it can all go terribly wrong in one night and you loses all of it in one go coz Eskom decided your area is next for load shedding.

 

@azurekoi - that's kind of what I thought as well, and was surprised when I came across this article that claimed otherwise. Looks like I'll definitely be sticking to freshwater

 

If you plan it over a year you could pull it off just be sure to buy you skimmer last and the sump must be designed to host it and for any possible upgrades. so if you have a 300L + 200L sump get a skimmer rated for 600L to 1000L to be sure it can handle your bio-load

 

@RFSwanepoel - I'll be sticking to freshwater then! I really don't have that kind of money at all. Article gave the impression that for basic fish-only you could just recycle existing equipment and add a hydrometer. Sounded fishy to me (lol) but I know next to nothing about marine setups so got curious. I would never have tried it without first doing proper research though (I never trust something based on one article), and I would have realised that the article was not a good one. It just sparked my curiousity to know if it was actually possible to do it like that. Guess not!

Also, the plecos get worms just about every day as the reedfish get them with every feeding. I feed my fish Tetra-Bits, maybe that's what you feed them as well. The plecos love those too!

 

Eh, I don't want marines enough to put that kind of money into a setup. I spend enough on my freshwater setups already, and on my other animals and hobbies. Would just have been cool if I could have set it up cheaply and had a low maintenance setup, but I guess that isn't to be used in the same sentence as "marines".

 

It was definitely Granules of some sort just cant remember which ones. It's Tetra Universal something bla bla... And my Pleco Grew quite a bit with me feeding that. I tried to find it again but I couldn't so I went for Sera which my fish all hate the stuff and it ends up floating around for no reason(Granules that float and swell to 10 times the size,NOT COOL)... Also you should Try Sera Fish Vitamins (Fishtamins) this helps a lot with colour and and over all well being of the fish I have seen a huge difference since starting to use this stuff.

 

Thanks, I will look into getting some of that when I'm next at my LFS.

 

I'll get you the name of that food 2 coz it really did work for my Pleco he grew from about 2.5cm to about 6cm on twice a day feeding over a period of a month when I was feeding that stuff and that was all he was getting coz I went on leave and the auto feeder was feeding them, also the Malawi's I had at the time sowed the same viscous growth in that time. But I could not get hold of the food again at my LFS

 

@Zeiphex it's Tetra-Prima Complete food... My pleco loves the stuff

PDF the one on page 13.
It's not made for Pleco's but I have never seen mine get so happy about any other food, not even worms...

 

@RFSwanepoel - thanks Hey, I think that might be exactly what I'm feeding my guys. I buy it at my LFS in clear jars (they obviously buy in bulk and decant it into the jars). They sell it as "Tetra Bits", but I'm 90% sure it's the same stuff, especially because I see that the product name for Tetra-Prima is "Tetra-Prima (Bits)". Looks like LFS is just calling it Tetra-Bits for some reason. I've never seen any of my fish go as crazy for anything as they do for the stuff.

 

Hey guys, it really needn't cost as much to set up a FOWLR (Fish Only With Live Rock) as the numbers bandied about in this thread. for a setup with any corals you could get away with buying a few good pieces of live rock then just getting cured base rock and cycling the rock for a few months in tank to seed and propagate your substrate with the beneficial bacteria.

You can also pick up second hand skimmers suitable for a 150L for a fraction of what was quoted as , again, fish needs are not as demanding as corals. You don't need any supplements either. The only reason why you would need to spend a fortune on supplements etc is if you're going to have SPS corals. A few DIY'd T5's and away you go.

Admittedly live stock is pricey when compared to FW but thats only because they are mostly wildcaught but there are ofter fish coming out of setups being shut down or where specimens are getting too large. I recently picked up an adult Yellow Tang for nearly half the price of a juvenile.

Good luck...

If you join the aquarium for alike R400 p.a. you have access to free water so don't even need to spend cash on salt mix.

 

@Hashiriya™ - thanks for the info! That's encouraging and I'll definitely bear it in mind if I choose to build a marine setup in the future