Fish Only Setup

[johny73]

hi all
im new to marine setups total novice ,
iv been hovering around this site a while reading up on marine setups ,
i got myselt a 80ltr tank today of a friend and brought it home took it apart and washed it all out and cleaned it ,
iv got crushed coral to put in bottom of tank and mix my marine water up and new filter to go in im not using live rock for a while or corals till i get used to mixing salt water iv got a hydrometer to test salinity of water,
im only looking 2 clown fish to keep in tank and artifical rocks and things ,

iv a big tropical tank which i might convert some time but il see how i go with this for now ,

any advice welcomed

 

[Aquascaper]

What were you planning on using for filtration?

 

[johny73]

the existing filter in tank its a juwel ,and i just orderd 2kg of live rock im not getting fish for a while jut getting tank set up and running

 

[crazyforcordoras]

Start a joirnal? Pictures? Do you know if you want just standard clowns or designer clowns?

 

[johny73]

im looking standard clowns just

 

[crazyforcordoras]

How bout this? A pair of clowns, 1 designer, 1 standard? Im doing that in my reef.

 

[Donya]

Just a word of caution on the "designer" clowns since that has been brought up: these are varieties that have been heavily inbred to select for their unusual colorations. I can't speak for the state of the stock on the other side of the pond, but, in my area at least, the deformity rate is noticeable in stock that arrives at stores and I haven't been too impressed. It's usually small stuff like an overbite or underbite, but more serious things also seem to get shipped out from suppliers (which doesn't make the receiving stores too thrilled!) and the abnormalities are overall more frequent than in the captive-bred regular versions that I see. While I haven't kept any special-colored clowns myself, they don't seem as hardy as regular clowns and seem to pick up illnesses at stores a lot more than the regulars. They just don't seem like great starter fish to me and I don't think I'd ever try one without a ready-to-go QT tank because of the apparent disease susceptibility.

the existing filter in tank its a juwel

Do you have a flow rate on this? Freshwater filters don't tend to provide enough flow for marine without help from other pumps. Most people aim for 20x turnover in a marine tank, so unless you have a very beefy filter, you will probably need a powerhead to supplement the flow.

 

[Aquascaper]

The Juwel will be a maximum of 1000lph I think which, as Donya says, is too low on its own.

I would be looking to get much more LR as soon as possible as that is your primary filtration system. Around 9kg - 10kg would be ok for a FOWLR tank and use the Juwel filter for chemical filtration rather than biological.