Marine Newbie Needs Coral Ideas For 2 Foot Tank.

[Wills]

Hi Im getting a 2 foot tank - I believe its around 20 gallons its second hand and has sone Xenia? Not sure what that is can someone show me some pics please.

But yeah looking for ideas of corals that are easy to keep and look effective. Not sure of fish I want to keep yet so broad ideas. Also any good resources for fish and or corals would be great as I am struggling I know all the good FW resources but no marine ones lol.

As for lighting it appears to have an LED arm light, if people could give me guidance on what I need etc that would be great.

Thanks Wills

 

[Wills]

*ah right okay so just checked with the seller and its 15 gallons not 20 so need to adapt that.

 

[chr15_8]

Need to know what lighting it is before we can answer. I see you say LED but what types?

depends how many led and what type/brand they are

 

[seffieuk]

Have you actually bought the tank? If not I would suggest getting something a litte larger, any chance? A tank that size is very limiting

Seffie x

ps to the salty side of life

 

[Wills]

Im purley getting this tank because of the bargain aspect. Been to look around LFS today and I have to say we are going to be pretty happy having a very simple coral tank. I was going to try and concentrate on some fish but to be fair it would be so limiting I would rather stick to corals and inverts like starfish and urchins. I know it will be tight but im ready to learn and I love to get my hands wet (in the tank.....not like that)

Lighting wise not sure of the spec, just take it as basic the guy Im buying it off seems to have quite a few marine tanks so I would assume he knows about this kind of stuff to some extent.

Wills

 

[aly_starh]

Mushrooms, Zoanthids and xenias All fine on T8s

LED's are better than T8s so they will be fine

 

[Wills]

Thanks I will start having a look around. Can you tell me what the difference is between LPS and SPS corals? Which ones should I avoid?

 

[AK77]

Personally, as you are just starting out in reef keeping, I'd strongly recommend that you avoid both LPS and SPS until you are keeping soft corals alive successfully for a few months. Leather corals like toadstools and finger corals, mushrooms (discoma, ricordea, etc), zoa's, xenia, kenya tree and green start polyps are all good beginner corals and can be kept successfully under T5 compact lighting.

LPS and SPS require metal halides and much more demanding with regard to water chemistry, than soft corals.

 

[Wills]

Cool thankyou I had started to understand that there seem to be 4 groups of coral, hard, soft, SPS and LPS at the moment am I right in thinking I should just be looking at soft corals?

 

[AK77]

Cool thankyou I had started to understand that there seem to be 4 groups of coral, hard, soft, SPS and LPS at the moment am I right in thinking I should just be looking at soft corals?

Almost got it lol. There are essentially two types of corals, which are hard and soft. Hard corals are ones that form an exo-skeleton from calcium carbonate and have rigid structures (partially or totally). Hard corals are sub-divided into LPS and SPS, the latter probably being the most difficult to keep, in terms of their lighting and environmental requirements. Its these hard corals that build reefs, because when they die, their structures remain, on top of which new corals grow.

Soft corals don't form these rigid skeletons and are usually found at the lower reaches of reefs, in deeper water, where lighting isn't as strong - hence why T5 compacts can be sufficient. LPS/SPS are primarily found at the upper reaches of a reef, in shallow waters, where the lighting is at its most intense, which is needed for the zooxanthellae - an algae that the corals form a symbiotic relationship with.

Since soft corals requirements aren't anywhere near as demanding as LPS/SPS, they are a good place to start. They can tolerate conditons that would otherwise kill hard corals and are much for forgiving to mistakes. They are also generally a lot cheaper too. The best way to start a reef tank for a beginner IMO, is to have a FOWLR (Fish Only With Live Rock) tank. Once you are proficient in keeping them alive and maintaining the water parameters, the next step is soft corals. After that, maybe some LPS and SPS frags, provided you have the right equipment to keep them and fully understand what they require and what you need to do in order to meet those requirements. Its just a learning curve and by taking small steps at a time, you will familiarize and prepare yourself for the next one, should you so choose to do so.

 

[Wills]

Wow thankyou so much that has cleared so much up for me in one post!!

Just been out to pick up some stuff to move the tank home tomorrow. Got some premixed salt water called Nutri-Seaweater as I dont have a refractometer yet. Also got a big water butt for future RO water buying and to transfer as much water back as I can. Got plents of poly boxes for bringing stuff back as well. Got a master test kit as well

Now corals again, first shop I got my stuff from is an MA and have good staff but expensive corals where as a little private LFS about 10 mins ago has almost the same corals but for half the price (pretty much) Ive never bought fish from here but they seem okay and have gotten much much better over the past 6 months. Are there any risks associated with buying corals from slightly unsure sources? And when buying corals what should I look for in a healthy coral?

Thanks Wills.

 

[AK77]

Wow thankyou so much that has cleared so much up for me in one post!!

Just been out to pick up some stuff to move the tank home tomorrow. Got some premixed salt water called Nutri-Seaweater as I dont have a refractometer yet. Also got a big water butt for future RO water buying and to transfer as much water back as I can. Got plents of poly boxes for bringing stuff back as well. Got a master test kit as well

Now corals again, first shop I got my stuff from is an MA and have good staff but expensive corals where as a little private LFS about 10 mins ago has almost the same corals but for half the price (pretty much) Ive never bought fish from here but they seem okay and have gotten much much better over the past 6 months. Are there any risks associated with buying corals from slightly unsure sources? And when buying corals what should I look for in a healthy coral?

Thanks Wills.

Hi Will's

You're welcome. If you're ever unsure of anything, just post in here and people will do their best to help.

A tip for you with regard to mixing up salt water. If you get a set of pocket electronic scales (which you can pick up very cheaply on eBay) you can accurately make up your saltwater by doing the following. For every litre of RO water, add in 35g of salt. This should give you an SG of 1.026. I use an empty 5L mineral water container to measure the water and simply add 175g of salt to it (5x35g). It saves a huge amount of time when mixing the water up and takes out all the guess work. The scales are probably the best thing I ever bought for my tank and they cost under £10 too lol.

With regard to the corals, provided they look healthy in the tanks at your LFS, there should be no problem at all. Some places have bigger overheads, which is why their livestock is more expensive and others are just greedy. At my own LFS the prices went up roughly £5-£10 a coral and you rarely get a freebie. I remember buying a leather coral and because there was one single zoa polyp on the revese of the rock, the cheeky sod of an assistant was going to charge me to it! Fortunately I knew the manage who was on that day and he told the assistant to ignore it but in general I find my LFS likes to squeeze every penny they can out of you!

With regard to buying fish, I always follow a few steps when choosing. Look at the fish you want and check for visible signs of disease or infection/injury. Look at how active the fish is (if its a bottom dweller like a goby, this can be a bit more difficult, but in general, ensure the fish is active although not swimming erratically). Try and pick the plumpest one with the most vibrant colours (good sign of a healthy fish). Look at other fish in the same tank. If there are any dead fish, or sick looking fish, then I generally don't buy anything. The one exception was when I saved a little ranchu from a tank with 4 dead fish in it from my local Petsathome. I brought him home and he was living in my water butt outside until recently, when he was moved into my brothers fish tank.

Once you have your fish, its always a good idea to quarantine it in a temporary hospital tank for a week. This will allow you to monitor the fish futher. Any diseases the fish is carrying should have raised their ugly heads in that time, allowing you to treat it in isolation and it also means if the fish is infected with whitespot, you will notice the parasite before it has a chance to infect your main tank and the rest of the fish in it.

 

[Wills]

Ah cool pretty much the same as FW then, Im pretty good on FW just noob to salt didnt know anything about them till about a week ago but picking bits up now, not enough to give out advice but happy for me to start.

Could you help me pick a suitable stock list as I am really stugling. I really like green clown gobies and would really like one of them. But what else fish and invert wise could I go with? A few people on an other forum have suggested a cherub angel to me? But I am not sure if it would get too big for my tank. If you could throw a few stock lists together for me I would really really appreciate it

Thanks Wills

 

[AK77]

Ah cool pretty much the same as FW then, Im pretty good on FW just noob to salt didnt know anything about them till about a week ago but picking bits up now, not enough to give out advice but happy for me to start.

Could you help me pick a suitable stock list as I am really stugling. I really like green clown gobies and would really like one of them. But what else fish and invert wise could I go with? A few people on an other forum have suggested a cherub angel to me? But I am not sure if it would get too big for my tank. If you could throw a few stock lists together for me I would really really appreciate it

Thanks Wills

Hi Wills,

You could keep a cherub for a while, but it would probably get a bit too big for the tank. The recommended minimum size for any of the dwarf angel species on www.liveaquaria.com, is 30 gallons. They also can be coral nippers too, so are better suited to a 3ft, FOWLR tank. There are still quite a few stocking options available to you though. Clownfish are probably the most common and popular fish for beginners. They are pretty hardy fish and very easy to keep. If you wanted to be a bit different, you could look for the black and white ocellaris clowns. You could also keep a goby too. There are a lot of species of goby suitable to nano tanks. As you have corals and assume you are looking to go for a reef tank eventually, I wouldn't push the envelope beyond 3 fish.

The reason being is that the fish waste will produce nitrates and phosphates, both of which corals are sensitive too, so rather than struggle with them, you'd be better off keeping just 3 small fish and filling up the rest of the tank with lots of coral eye candy!

If it were me I'd go for the following:

2 x Black and White Ocellaris Clownfish (They really make a nice contrast with the colours of the rocks and coral)
1 x Yellow Watchman Goby with a species of Pistol Shrimp (watch the video - very cool! The shrimp and the goby have a symbiotic relationship and live together in a burrow. The yellow of the goby will contrast nicely with the black and white clowns)

Clean up Crew:

5 bumble bee nassarius snails (Black and yellow striped snails that grow to a max of about 15mm in size. They will primarily clean your rock work but will sometimes venture onto the glass and sand bed)
2 Astrea/trochus/turban snails (These tend to favour cleaning the algae off your glass although will move to rock work also)
2 x Scarlet leg hermit crabs (Reefsafe, peaceful, crabs that will feed on fish poop and algae, keeping your rockwork clean
1 x Orange Lipped Conch (This will need target feeding if the tank hasn't be established very long. Algae waffers or pellet food are ideal until enough algae and fish waste is in the tank for it to consume. Probably the best at cleaning the sandbed)

 

[Wills]

THANKYOU SO SO SO MUCH!!! Ive been posting on an other forum and getting someone to make a list like that has been just impossible

I was thinking about the BW clowns but I dont know if I want clowns just because a lot of people will have them, and if people come round and see Nemo in my tank it would upset me

The two fish I am most keen on at the moment are the Green clown goby and Court jester goby. Can you think of a third fish that could go with them maybe?

For the CUC, I was thinking of getting halloween hermits? I like the stripey legs but are these expensive? Also would turbo snails be any better than the bumblebee snails? And also I was thinking of some porcelain crabs?

Thanks again you really have helped me loadss
Wills