okay lol sorry i didnt quite know how to take the question, some people really are that stupid...

i have only ever owned freshwater but i dream of saltwater one day...

you need so much more for saltwater, it takes roughly two months and more just to cycle the tank, depending on what you want to put in it..

costs alot more for all the equipment (well it does where im from)

clown fish (nemos) are pretty common, damsels, tangs, puffers... they are the ones i seen most here for marine..

as for freshwater, there are heaps of fish!!!

no

to answer your question I would have to say that fresh water is easier and a lot more cheaper I have 3 tanks up and running 2 fresh water 1 salt that I'm going to convert to fresh this week I always thought salt was cool and looked nice but it is very costly and hard to keep up with I have lost 50 dollar fish and several other costly fish so my experience with it is that fresh water cost less even if you do lose fish

Saltwater costs a lot more for sure, and can be harder to maintain and keep fish alive since marine fish and inverts are more sensitive, but then there are many species that are easy to keep. I love saltwater tanks though because they are so much more interesting and diverse. More life in the tanks, like creatures living in the rocks and sand, and corals and anemones ect. There are a few hardy fish though, such as the damsel fish which also consists of the many different types of clownfish. Some gobies can be kind of easy to keep, such as the fire fish goby. There are some hardy wrasses too like the flasher wrasses.

My 40 gal that I have now, has about $800 put into it so far and I don't even have corals yet. That's just with live rock, live sand, lighting fish and inverts. The tank is the hardest to maintain the first year, I think, while it is getting established. After the year then it is a little easier to manage once everything stabilizes.

Some people may say you need to have a sump or protein skimmer and all those other fancy filtration systems but those are optional and mostly for the big reef tanks. If you just want fish and some live rock then you don't need that much more than you would in a freshwater tank.

I consider marine fish to be a lot more intelligent than fresh water which makes them a lot more fun to watch. Here is my tank if you want to take a look:

http://www.yout…

The care for a properly maintained one of either should really be not that much different quite honestly. There seems to be this huge myth going around that salt requires a lot more input to keep functional than freshwater, though for a fish-only saltwater system the care is almost exactly the same. Some aspects are more challenging, yes - fish wastes are more toxic in a saltwater system due to the elevated pH levels and salinity, as well as needing to maintain a balanced salinity and temperature - but overall they really don't require all that much to maintain functionally and properly. Also, if you get hardy, tank-bred fish for saltwater they have just as high likelihood of surviving as their freshwater cousins.

Personally I keep both, and I can say they're a different type of enjoyment from each. Saltwater fish are by and large more attractive and interactive, though definitely a lot more temperamental so seeing them doing well is a buzz. Freshwater fish tend to be more sedate and relaxing to watch (thanks to overall slower flowing bodies of water), and are more forgiving to mistakes.

Common fish I'd recommend to someone beginning in the saltwater scene would be things like tank-bred Ocellaris Clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris) or Percula Clownfish (Amphiprion percula), Green Chromis (Chromis viridis), Magnificent Firefish (Nemateleotris magnifica), Yellowtail Blue Damsels (Chrysiptera parasema), Fridmani Pseudochromis (Pseudochromis fridmani), Bicolor Blennys (Ecsenius bicolor), Pyjama Cardinalfish (Sphaeramia nematoptera)... there are a lot of really beautiful fish which make excellent pets and are fairly resilient towards making beginner mistakes while you learn to maintain water chemistry.


I would say though - if you do decide to pursue a saltwater system, keep it as simple as you possibly can. Adding in superfluous and unnecessary bits will only add another point your system can fail. I've found the best systems use all natural filtration, frequent water changes, rigorous protein skimming, and light stocking. Read up on the topic as much as you can on the forums dedicated to maintaining saltwater tanks (http://reefcent… http://nano-ree… http://3reef.co… to name a few) and see what has proven effective for others.

salt water aquariums are aquariums, where the water is salty and the fish live on salt water. Fresh water aquariums are just fresh. The fish that live in there need fresh water to live.

freshwater - easier to maintain than saltwater.
freshwater has more exotic varieties of fish than saltwater
saltwater food is not easy to get as compared to freshwater