Question for those of you that have marine and fresh tanks

mamasky

mamasky

AC Members
Dec 9, 2005
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Reading, Pa.
I inherited a 10g freshwater tank today. My neighbros are leaving for florida tomorrow and they knew their fish would be taken care of with me.
Anyways, it's nothing fancy. Mostly tetras (bloodfin, serpae, 1 black neon, and regular neons) 1 male guppy, and one cory cat. I know it's overstocked but everything has been in there for quite some time and he said it does great.

My question is...do you have separate stuff for different tanks? I mean, I have a gravel vac that we use for the 90 reef but I wouldn't want to use that in the freshwater tank...right?? Same goes with any algae scrubbers or anything else that goes used for maintenence.

Maybe I should have posted this in the freshwater forums?? If so, I'm sorry.
 
The gravel vac, algae scrubber and other maintenance equipment would be fine for either aquarium, just make sure you clean the equipment in boiling hot water to kill any bacteria and prevent the passing of bacteria between aquariums.
 
Boiling hot water will ruin many a gravel vac, if you are worried about cross contamination, you could use a dilute potassium permangenate dip, followed by a FW dip for everything.

Chances of passing things back and forth are remote... there aren't too many things that can deal w/ the osmotic shock of a quick 20-30% change in SG.
 
Squawkbert said:
Boiling hot water will ruin many a gravel vac, if you are worried about cross contamination, you could use a dilute potassium permangenate dip, followed by a FW dip for everything.

Chances of passing things back and forth are remote... there aren't too many things that can deal w/ the osmotic shock of a quick 20-30% change in SG.
Click to expand...

That's true, I didn't think about it like that.
 
To answer your question I do have separate equipment for my fresh and saltwater tanks- separate nets, algae magnets, buckets, etc. I use the same Python though.

However I think it was mostly out of convenience so I could keep that stuff in the same room and cabinet below the tanks. I don't think it's completely necessary.
 
when you use something in your saltwater tank make sure to wash it off with freshwater after. I rinse my siphons etc after use.

This will ensure that you can use it in your freshwater tank and also because freshwater helps stop the salt from slowly eating away at your equipment.
 
i change out the end of the python and use the same discard buckets. for both.
nets are kept seperate fill buckets only used for marine..use the same container for top offs (since it's all ro/di)
 
Having separate items is more of a convenience thing, like 5vexy said. I wouldn't be concerned going back and forth between them for above reasons relating to osmotic pressure. I prefer bleach over KMnO4, since it is far less toxic and easily dealt with. Not to mention cheaper.
 
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