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Just a quick question, I have some sea water stored in a 5L styrofoam drink container and some other bottles at home for hatching brine shrimp in, just wondering how long the water will be ok to use without any filteration etc I live right on the beach but i cant always get the water from the beach as on some days it is very dirty from rain etc and we are near the mouth of a river so the tides also effect the water quality.
Also when setting up a salt water aquarium (i would like to catch some of the local fish, maybe bream, and try and keep them) would i be able to use the water and sand from the beach?

Thanks,

Mick.

You could definately use sea water and sand from the beach for setting up a tank it would save a bundle... I think I would still recommend mix your own salt water though since you know what is going in it and you dont have to lug hundreds of gallons of sea water up to your house, salt is really pretty cheap when you break it down anyway. I would think that as long as you keep a powerhead in the salt water and keep it cool and dark so that algea doesnt grow you could keep it indefinately... so long as it doesnt get stagnant (that is what the PH is for)you will be safe. A conservitive estimate would be 2-3 weeks I think though.

Being that you are in OZ you could keep local species just fine alot of the fish we get here are species that live in and around Austro-Asia. You would just have to worry about collection laws there. Try and stay away from inter-tidal species though they need the rough motion of the surf and the constant ebb and flow of the tide to survive and that is nearly impossible to recreate in the home aquarium.

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Adam

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