marine

When setting up your reef aquarium, we'll help take you through the following process:
Obtaining the right salinity
The purchasing of a good quality ocean mix is essential.
Cycling your tank
This is a painful 4-5 week wait... no fish allowed! This is perhaps the most important stage of your set up, especially if it's a reef tank. Your aquarium will go through a toxic stage as the tiny organisms in your live rock start to break down. Put simply, your tank will come to life and an explosion of biological changes will take place. Even this stage of the process is fascinating, you'll find yourself glued to the tank, each day noticing a new little creature or growth sprouting from your live rock.
Once this period is over, you can start to slowly introduce live corals and fish.

Welcome to our brand new section!.. we're still building this one... so stick with us!

Marine fish and Reef aquariums simply look sensational.
Corals, white sand, starfish, sea cucumbers and crazy looking fish can easily be enjoyed by even the least experienced fish keeper.

At Collins Aquariums, we'll take you through the process step by step and ensure you're up to speed on what it takes to keep a healthy marine aquarium. Recently the movie 'Finding Nemo' caused a boom in people wanting to keep the cute Clown fish as a pet, sadly a lot of people didn't do the appropriate research, hence their newly purchased little Nemo didn't survive!

Essentially, there are two types of salt water aquariums:
Marine; aquarium with salt water and the colourful fish
Reef Tank; same as above but with live rock and living corals.

How much is a Reef tank going to cost me?
Of course, this depends on the size of your proposed reef tank.
Many of you may already have some of the equipment needed if you're upgrading... and some of you will be starting from scratch. There are however, two areas that when setting up a salt water system.. you just can't afford to skimp on and thats filtration and lighting.

Reef systems based upon us building you a slimline aquarium at 800 x 210 x 450mm: the total cost including filters, dual lighting, skimmers, salt mix, set amount of live rock, heating, substrate, reef construction and aquascaping would be around $1,110

Marine systems based upon the above minus the live rock and reef construction would be priced at around $910.
These prices are variable based upon your geographical location and whether or not you'd require us to build you an aquarium. However, if you were to start from scratch, that's what you'd expect to pay to get you going!
We're in the process of bringing you our own fantastic photos to our website and we'll be offering detailed instructions on how to set it all up. For now, feel free to contact us if you're interested!

Despite a slightly higher initial set up cost, keeping your salt water aquarium healthy doesn't differ too much from the basics of fresh water. Water changes, regular testing and good filtration will do the trick! In Melbourne, the number of aquarium shops that sell marine fish, corals and the relevant equipment are limited. We have good contacts in our industry and we'll gladly do the running around for you... whether you're city or country. (charges may apply)

So why not give it a go.. contact us and we'll tailor a package to suit your budget!

Live Rock