Fresh or Salt?

The eternal question when setting up your tank, fresh or salt water. There are many misconceptions when it come to both. Honestly for me it just comes down to the initial monetary investment and total time devotion that helps chose the direction to go. While apples to apples a fresh water basic setup and salt water basic setup aren't very far apart in cost, basically the salt, the fresh water aquarium doesn't change much level to level. Where as the salt water system gets more expensive quickly based on water volume, light exposure, water parameters, quantity of fish, food types and type of fish. If you only want a little "Nemo" fish and a couple colorful damsels with fake corals then a salt water setup is fine for even a beginner. Other people believe that if you want real eye popping color you have to go salt water. This is also very incorrect! There are lots of extremely colorful cichlids, discus, apistos, and others. There is also a large variety of oddballs with several types of fresh water puffer fish, stingrays, and some serious predatory fish.