| Depends on what kind of advice you're looking for. You're gear
looks good as far as I can tell.
Basic rules:
- Stock lightly. As a general rule, probably about half what
you'd stock for freshwater, and remember to take into account
the adult size.
- Don't be afraid to do water changes. Good water quality is
essential.
- Carefully watch the salinity! small tanks can fluctuate due
to water evaporation quite quickly. Note that makeup water
for evaporation must be conditioned FRESH water. The salt
stays in the water, so as water evaporates the salinity climbs.
- Make sure your fish are compatible with each other. Marine
fish are often more aggressive then their freshwater counterparts
and stress can be their undoing. My theory is that stress is the
number one fish killer (directly or indirectly).
- Read everything you can get your hands on, and ask lots of
questions. Marine fishkeepers have a lot of differing and strong
opinions. You need to weigh each bit of information and judge
for yourself what will work for you.
Good luck,
Karen.
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30 gallons is a very minimum size for any sort of marine tank. You
have little margin for error compared to larger tanks, because everything
happens so fast. Thus, best to stick to hearty, small critters. Such
as the brightly colored damselfishes, or hermit crabs. Gobies. Urchins.
It can be done, barely.
This is not an appropriate size for big boisterous things, even hearty
ones like tangs. Let alone the daintier butterflies. If you're rich
enough to afford such fishes, you're rich enough to afford a bigger tank.
bb
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| I agree with using small, hearty fish, but the size of his tank
isn't as small as it sounds at first. His tank is in UK gallons,
which I believe are larger by about .2 gallons/gallon than US gallons.
I, personally, like the smaller size to learn on because it takes
smaller buckets of water for changes, etc. My first marine tank was
90 gallons and it was a royal pain to learn with. The mere size of
it was intimidating. And if something goes wrong in a big tank it is
much harder to fix it. That tank is now a georgeous, heavily planted
freshwater tank, and I'm really happy with the change.
Fish that are good in small tanks might include some of the smaller
wrasses (banana wrasse comes to mind), green or blue chromis (which
are less aggressive then many other damsels), common or percula
clownfish, and one of the pygmy angels, such as Herald's, Flame, or
Coral Beauty. Of the pygmy angels listed above, the Flame is the
most expensive, and probably the most likely to show aggression,
according to the literature. But I have a friend who's had two of
them, and also has kept Coral Beauty angels with no problems.
My 20 gallon (US) tank has 3 green chromis and 1 Herald Angel. They
are all healthy and happy. I've had the chromis for 15 months and
the angel for about 8 months.
My 29 gallon (US) tank has one purple tang (recovering from head and
lateral line syndrome) and one common clownfish. If the tang makes it,
I might combine my tanks into one larger one, but I'm not sure yet what
direction I'm going with marine fish. I'm bored with the look of the
fish only tanks, but am not sure I want to invest the money and time in
a reef. I'm trying to decide whether a planted marine tank is a good
compromise. That is, keep Caulerpa and fish, but no live rock, corals
and such.
Karen.
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| re: .3
We are running a 6 gallon and a 10 gallon marine in addition
to 5 other freshwater tanks ranging in size from 10-55 gallons.
The 10 gallon was a case of a free fish who needed living
quarters (there's *always* a spare tank in our house :-),
and the 6 gallon is an experiment which, so far, is doing
pretty well. We run the 6 gallon in a day-light bright room
with two 9 watt flourescents, a heater and a powerhead.
It has about 6 lbs of live rock, a base of live sand and
crushed coral, one pseudo-chromis, one camel shrimp, a
pink-tipped anenome, star polyps, button polyps,
two turbo snails, some hermit crabs, and some corals and two larger
crabs that came in on the rock. We've had
to check salinity regularly, add water daily, change water
monthly. We're getting some silt on the bottom now which
we need to deal with, but other than that it's been going
about 4 months just fine.
The 10 gallon has been going about 6 months, and has
a Coral Beauty, a Goby, a pink-tipped anenome, a sea urchin,
a coral-banded shrimp, two turbo snails, hermit crabs, 3 limpets,
a couple of oysters, star polyps, and a small coral. It has
a Skilter 400, a heater, an Actinic blue florescent and a 9 watt
florescent. Again, we check salinity regularly, add water
daily, change water monthly.
We're planning on a 37 gallon salt water fish tank, and a 65 gallon
and 55 gallon reef tanks in the future (tanks just hang around
our house waiting for uses :-), but we wanted to see if we could
run small salt environments without investing a lot in lighting
and filtration. So far, it's been successful for us and we really
enjoy the tanks.
Mary-Michael
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| Sounds like you're off to a good start.
A couple of recommendations, first, be careful with damsels. I would
stay away from domino's and the 3 and 4 striped damsels. Most of the time
when you get them from the store they are small. They will grow, but the
real problem is they are very aggressive. In most cases they are some of the
first fish you put in the tank because they are very hardy. But they are
also very territorial and will not tolerate fish you add later.
Yellow tailed damsels are a good fish, but the all blue "blue devils"
can live up to their name. Any of the pygmy angels are good, but usually
you can only keep one in a tank of this size. As mentioned clowns are great
fish as are royal grammar's.
The other recommendation (I very strongly recommend this!!) is to
ground your tank! Please see note 1407 for details.
Good luck, Phil
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