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Old July 4th, 2007, 12:04 AM
MyBirdIsEvil's Avatar
MyBirdIsEvil MyBirdIsEvil is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Missouri
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I will agree that getting to know FW first helps with certain things with keep saltwater, but it's definately not a prerequisite.
I know several people who started out with saltwater and I actually had to give them information and help them with setting up freshwater tanks, even though they were extremely knowledgeable about saltwater and had kept saltwater tanks for years.

When setting up saltwater, especially a reef, there is so much new knowledge you have to learn that knowledge about FW isn't as much help as you would think. It does help somewhat to generally understand how to care for fish in general, whether FW or SW, but having a vast knowledge of FW will be little help in actually setting up a SW tank, especially a reef.
I think it's a bit of a misconception. FW is easier so doing that first means SW won't be as hard, not necessarily true IMO.
Most of the knowledgeable SW people I had help me with my tank setup knew little or nothing about keeping FW fish, though they had BEAUTIFUL SW tanks and very healthy fish/inverts/corals etc.

Starting with FW will help you understand FW and very little else. Until you actually decide to start learning about and setting up a SW tank your prior FW experience isn't going to be as useful as you think.
I had the same misconception about SW when we first started "Oh, I'm so good at keeping FW that now I'm ready for SW". Well after talking to tons of SW people and actually setting up a tank I came to realize that many people do just as well if not better going with SW first instead of trying to learn about FW first because then you're not trying to apply FW tactics with your SW tanks. If you go with SW first you're starting with a clean slate instead of asking people "well this is how it is with FW why is it different in SW?", and that can be very frustrating to yourself and the SW people you're trying to get information from.
No matter which you go with first you're going to have to gather a pretty large amount of information and actually keep a tank before you gain experience. Set up as many FW tanks as you want and it's not going to give you anymore experience keeping SW than if you set up no FW tanks and learn about SW and set up a SW tank instead. I have 10 FW tanks and have helped several people set up large FW tanks, but going to SW made me feel out of my element, so someone is going to feel a bit overwhelmed at first no matter how much FW they've kept. Just IMO. Or maybe I'm just not putting myself in a newbie's shoes because I have so many FW tanks already and I'm used to fishkeeping? I don't think so though, all my fav. saltwater people have never kept a fw tank or are just now doing so.

Hey, not that I'm trying to deter anyone from freshwater, that's still my favorite type
There are TONS of interesting FW, and oftentimes it's so much cheaper to keep FW (Unless you're like me and start falling in love with rare and expensive fish). FW can also be MUCH more of a challenge and very rewarding if you start keeping sensitive/rare fish, or decide to try and breed a fish that has yet to or rarely been bred in captivity.

BTW, I agree with the discus comment. Nice, healthy captivebred discus from a good breeder should be pretty hardy just like a lot of other cichlids.
I think the misconception of them being sensitive comes from 1. As you said, wildcaught discus. and 2. People end up buying poorly bred and kept discus from a pet store or something then wonder why they have trouble keeping them alive. I could start naming off several common fish that are more sensitive to water quality than captivebred discus.

P.S, Where have you been? Seems I've been doing most of the posting around here lately

Last edited by MyBirdIsEvil; July 4th, 2007 at 12:53 AM.
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