I wonder if this will work?

That is very strange...the pic size is just a bit smaller, but it took them.....weird....uh so anyway, that's a pic of my 55g. Hard to see in the pic cause it's so small, but all four fish are there. A black dartfish, clownfish, yellow tang, and a blue damsel. Tank has been up for 3 years now. Here is a pic of a striped mushroom coral.....

It looks good. Is it yours? I would love a marie tank but I don't think I am experienced enough yet and I don't really have loads of time.

When I do, this is what I'll be aiming for -http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2371124833&category=3212

The pics are Bitmap so I'm not going to put them up but the link should work. I think it's wonderful.

This is a close up of a sea cucumber....a brown atlantic cucumber to be exact. These animals are related to starfish and urchins. The cukes come in two different classes...filter feeders (which take tiny food particles directly from the water...these are highly toxic) and sand sifters (which ingest the sand at one end, any food/algae/detrius is removed from the surface of the sand and clean sand is pooped out the other end....these can be toxic too but some species aren't as bad as others). You can see the cukes little "hands" which it uses to grab the sand with, it then licks the sand from it's hand.....weird huh? This particular animal split in my tank but the other half didn't live for long. BTW this one is named Nuke the Cuke.....

Yup, that's my tank! It may not be a wonderful as some, but I sure love it and the fish/corals/inverts are all doing well!!

Here is the same cucumber only farther away so you can see it better. The cuke is draped over the back of a queen conch. Hitching a ride I guess

This is Krusty the ocellaris clownfish (like Nemo)....She was my very first saltwater fish and I love her dearly. How do I know she's female? Because she laid eggs once, in a batch of majano anemones (which I didn't know at the time were pests!).....sorry for the blurry pic of her...she just will not hold still!!!

This is Sunny my yellow tang

Here's the right side of the tank. You can see the skimmer in the corner, that's why there are fake plants in the tank, to try and hide some of the equipement. After the goldies get their new tank, and the danios are moved, then the project after that is to get a new HOB skimmer. Anyway, here goes....

Last one, this is a featherduster. The pic doesn't do the animal justice, the feathers are much more orange!

Okay, so one more this is a featherduster that came attached to a piece of rock...

You have sutch a lovely tropical tank!
and that orange fish is so cute lovely fish too.

What size is your salt tank? It looks like a marine tank with a little live rock? I want to set up my tank as a reef tank but can't afford it right now. Your tank is very nice can you post some info on it like lighting, filteration, type of rock and fish.

Thanks

Oh ya and the other reason I am leaning tword fresh again is because I don't think I have the time it takes to maintain a reef. How much time do you spend on yours?

Wow Watermama, your tank is beautiful!! Great pics. I didnt know about how the sea cucumbers ate—very interesting! I was watching a brittle star eat at work the other day and he caught pellets at the ends of all his arms and slowly moved them in toward his mouth. It was fascinating! Anyway everything looks great and so nice and healthy in there. BTW I especially love the idea of naming the clownfish Krusty!!

Thanks! We love The Simpson's so it only seemed appropriate to name the clown Krusty...too bad we didn't know that the fish was a female! LOL!!

As for info...this tank is 55g and it has a deep sand bed (DSB) and about 50 lbs of live rock (LR). The LR is aquacultured here in Florida, really nice stuff with tons of life on it! Heater set at 80º. Salinity is kept at 1.025. Lighting is 260watts of power compacts (PC). BTW, it's a really nice unit made by Corallife. Filtration is an HOB filter and an in tank skimmer. The skimmer works great, no complaints there, it's just that it takes up room and doesn't look as nice...so eventually it will be replaced. There are also 2 powerheads (PH) in there for water movement. Fish are yellow tang, ocellaris clown, black dartfish, orange tail damsel. Corals include ricordia, pacific frilly mushrooms, green striped mushroom and some large disdormdia sp. (?), there are also 2 colonies of porities corals. Tiny patch of button polyps too. Inverts include numerous small featherdusters, one large carribbean duster. Cucumber, queen conch, olive snail, turbo and astrea snails, keyhole limpets, unknown crab (harmless thank goodness!), porcelin crab, skunk cleaner shrimp, and 3 blue legged hermit crabs.
I have plans to start adding more corals, and I've been thinking about adding a tuxedo urchin but I am unsure if it will eat all my coralline algae (the pink stuff on the glass and rocks).
Maintence is fairly easy.....2x's a week I clean the front glass and add top off water. Once every week to 10 days a water change is made. Filter is cleaned monthly, so are the PH's and skimmer. The cup of the skimmer is emptied as needed, usually 2x's a week.
The hardest part about saltwater is getting through the beginning stage. Salt tanks take longer to stabilize and mature. I don't mean cycling, that's roughly the same, but the tank will often have swings in water parameters. Not unusual to go through bouts of algae problems either, and many have encounters with the dreaded cyanobacteria.
It can be frustrating at first, but definitely worth it!!

Thanks for the info. You have helped me make my decision to turn my large tank back into a fresh tank. Maybe later when I am even older than I am now and have more time I will get into Reefs. I think starting out with a 30g or even 55g will be more cost effective while I am starting out. I have read alot of info on the frustrations of starting out.

Thanks

I don't want to scare you away....it isn't that saltwater is terribly hard, you just have to be prepared for some problems and be determined! Jeez if I can do it, anybody can!!
Was it the 200g you were thinking of using? Have you thought of a Fish Only With Live Rock (FOWLR) tank? If you were to keep only fish, you wouldn't have to upgrade your lighting, you wouldn't need as much LR, etc.....

Just the thought of a 200g is enough to make me drool.....if I had a tank that size, I wouldn't go reef....maybe keep a volitans lionfish, a school of bannerfish, a powder blue tang (they are gorgeous, delicate, but gorgeous), one of the large angels......or maybe go with a tuskfish, maybe some squirrelfish.....oh the choices!!! you could even keep one of the small shark species!!!

I wanted to set it up as a reef and figured it would cost around 9-10 thousand. The one thing that is steering me away is the time I have is kind of limited. I really like inverts and corals. I am afraid I don't have the time though.