Salt water tanks.....

[Mugwump]

I think for the time and money I would rather get some nice discus. That way I could keep some cool fish without the cost of saltwater. I already have a full plate with breeding the angels. And I could see it getting out of control. I would start with a 40 gallon breeder and it would end up a 200 gallon reef tank. that's how it started with the angels I started with a 29 gallon now I'm breeding them and have a fish room.

[b125killer]

You know Jon some could say that it all started with you and your beautiful Pb clown pearl scale that I got a few years back. She is still one of my favorite angels. She has been with me on this journey from the start and one of my best fish friend. she will even let me pet her.   

[BillT]

I had a small budget salt water tank with my kids for about 12 years.

I guess it was a fowlr type. it was quite simple and for a small tank seemed pretty stable. Not a breeding set-up but fine for watching.

I was given a 10 G tank by a graduate student that was moving to the East coast.
It had aragonite sand, live rock, two or three kinds of polyps, clown fish, a couple of bottom fish, and some hermit crabs.
It also had a less aggressive form of calurpula and some kind of macroalgae.
I diversified its ecosystem by adding substrate samples from the tanks of several friends who had salt water tanks. This added things like small brittle stars that when through the substrate and turned things over.

It had a powerhead moving the water around and a heater. Lighting was a single fluorescent tube in a 10 G hood.
This worked out pretty well. It did not require lots of water changes (good for kids). We kept it going until the last fish (a clown fish) jumped out for some reason.

I have not bred anything salt water, but I have sold a few local people rotifers, mostly for clown fish they have bred.


Tangent:
I have just returned from a week in Hawaii, on the big island (large island but only about 200,000 people).

We were visiting some friends who lived about two blocks from the ocean. They had a brackish pond (about 10' x 30' x 3-5' deep). Its depth went up and down with the tides since the ground is all porous volcanic rock there.
The pond has a well established population mosquito fish and Tilapia. They were interested in getting more colorful fish in there. I was thinking some nice mollies, platies and swordtails.

Went looking for fish stores there. Several were listed, but most in the phone book seemed to have gone out of business.
The one I found was pretty skanky. Old dirty looking store, very limited selection, sick fish.
On the other hand being there the ocean is better than a fish tank there if you go snorkling.
I am afraid that there is little market for good fish stores on that island.
i am not sure if it would be easy or difficult to get fish into Hawaii from online sources like aquabid. They seem to be very careful about introducing more animals into the state now.

[Mugwump]

You might have tried reaching these folks...

http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/aqauriumclubs/p/Hawaii-Aquarium-Clubs.htm

http://www.honoluluaquariumsociety.org/

[BillT]

Thanks Mug. I'll have to check that out for possible orders.

That would have been nice, but we were at the edge of cyber civilization. The internet was intermittent and then went out completely.
Cell phone contact was very poor.

Also we were on the big island. Honolulu is on Oahu and has the most people. I would not be surprised if they have nice aquarium stores there.
I am pretty sure there is a guy that does artificial fertilization of fancy swordtails there.

[Mugwump]

Neil Oyama's over there, but he's notorious for being a bit of a recluse, I'm told....an exception angel breeder tho, and I'm sure he dabbles in other species too....