From Brackish To Marine - Clown Fish?

[simonas]

I've kept a 36x16x15 tank with 2 Gymnothorax Tiles morays in and 2 toadfish. Its been running for over a year and I have to confess to being a bit bored with that tank as its like a still life capture of a fish happy in their hiding places!! I have a friend who wants to take those fish off me annd I've always been reluctant to however I was looking at the marine fish in my LFS today... clownfish in particular

My question is with just the external filter that I currently using could I raise the salinity from the 0.018that it currently is to a level that would be suitable for a couple of clownfish. Cliche I know but I;d be looking at the bright orange Nemo fish which would make the kids happy.. and me if I'm honest!!!

Saying I could keep a couple of these and I would only keep them if I could keep them for their life. Would I be able to keep any small tankmates with them be it fish or shrimps?

I wouldn't be prepared to buy any further fancy lighting than whats in their which is bog standard flourescent tuube.

Basically would it be possible for me to keep a couple of clowns in this tank?

thanks

 

[xxBarneyxx]

With regards to the tank size yes you could keep clowns in there no problem. Im not sure about raising the salinity (I dont know if that would work or not). Personally I would recommend cleaning the tank out and using liverock and powerheads as your filtration anyway (I go for around 1kg of LR per 2 gallons of water, you can do ok with slightly less though).

In this size tank you could get at least another 1 or 2 fish (smaller ones say 4 inch max) and there is a large selection of inverts you can get. If you upgrade the lighting and increase the flow even more you could get corals as well. What corals you can keep depends on what lighting you get.

 

[simonas]

cheers Barney

I'll leave the lighting but I do plan to strip the tank its just I meant I'd set up again with higher water than what I run now lol

what is it for full marine again?

And I'd get some live rock also . I'm quite looking forward to it now.

what one or two extra fish could I keep. Despite keeping fish for 17 years I've never had a particular interest in marine species?

 

[Truck]

fire fish, cardinal fish, smaller gobys, small reef safe wrasse.

 

[simonas]

I like the look of the firefish and they are commonly available as well

christ now my wife is tsicking her oar in and she wants a tak just for NEMO in the house!! I'd earmarked a discus tank for the house and was just using my sort of spare tank in garage for this set up!!

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yep all the above are good fish (I like firefish as well). Typically most people run their marine tanks at around 1.025-1.026. For a fish only with live rock (FOWLR) you can drop it lower than that (sorry cant remember what the recommended level is for this off the top of my head).

 

[andywg]

Above 1.018 is usually considered to be marine rather than brackish. Pretty much all SW fish can live for a long time, if not indefinitely, at that level. Taking it up to 1.023 will certainly be fine for the fish.

If you plan to keep inverts then you need to aim towards 1.025 to 1.026 as many are osmoconformists.

To answer a part of your first post, you most definitely can just up the salinity and put the clowns in keeping the same lights and filter. without needing to clean anything at all.

 

[simonas]

Above 1.018 is usually considered to be marine rather than brackish. Pretty much all SW fish can live for a long time, if not indefinitely, at that level. Taking it up to 1.023 will certainly be fine for the fish.

If you plan to keep inverts then you need to aim towards 1.025 to 1.026 as many are osmoconformists.

To answer a part of your first post, you most definitely can just up the salinity and put the clowns in keeping the same lights and filter. without needing to clean anything at all.

cheers Andy

I've always kept the brackish fish in quite a high salinity as I was aware that G Tiles preferred it that way

I love new plans!!!

cheers