Switching to fresh ~ maybe....

[Kevin]

I think I'd like to switch my 75 gallon over to fresh.
Can I use some of the same equipment? Do you still use
a protein skimmer with fresh? What about my sump with
the blue bio balls? Or my UV sanitizer? I know the water
pumps and heaters can still be used. Would it be more
economical to just purchase new sand?

And one for the road....are freshwater aquariums a bit
more forgiving than salt? Thanks in advance for your help.

[Runner]

"Kevin" > wrote in message
.. .
> I think I'd like to switch my 75 gallon over to fresh.
> Can I use some of the same equipment? Do you still use
> a protein skimmer with fresh? What about my sump with
> the blue bio balls? Or my UV sanitizer? I know the water
> pumps and heaters can still be used. Would it be more
> economical to just purchase new sand?

The protein skimmer is not needed and would not work, anyway. Well, it
would, but your fish would be dead before it reached the level of polution
where it starts to work. Get some plants to help reduce nitrates. Either
that or plan on regular water changes. The standard deep sand bed and
skimmer method doesn't work to reduce nitrates for freshwater.

The sump and bio balls would work great. So would the UV.

The sand (and aragonite rock, if you have it) should be replaced --
especially if it is aragonite Aragonite sand would buffer the pH high and
make the water hard -- good for rift lake cichilds and live bearers, but not
good for most other fish. You would have a lot of critters and small life
die-off and make the sand bed a problem for a freshwater tank. Also, a DSB
(if you have one) would be too deep for a freshwater tank and require a lot
of regular sifting to keep it from going anaerobic. Anaerobic is very bad
in freshwater tanks.

Also, the lights would be a different color -- around 6500K instead of
10000K to 20000K.

> And one for the road....are freshwater aquariums a bit
> more forgiving than salt? Thanks in advance for your help.

Most are. You don't have to worry about regular water top-offs because you
don't have to worry about salinity. You can find some fish that are more
sensitive to surrounding conditions than many sal****er fish (like discus).
You can allow nitrates to go rather high without affecting most fish.

One thing to keep in mind is that tropical freshwater fish have many a wide
range of pH and temperature requirements, while most available sal****er
fish need roughly the same water parameters. Pick you fish to match your
local water parameters (or buffer your water parameters to the desired
levels).

-Scott