Marine Tank Ideas

Jayarie

Fish Fanatic
Joined
Oct 11, 2008
Messages
64
Reaction score
0
Location
Greater Manchester
Im a noob for marine well i know a little bit and im thinking of buying a tank for christmas :Di need a tank for about £100-150 not including live rock and alll that i want it to be FOWLR i think and some corals has anyone got any ideas i was thinking the JBJ 24 Gallon Nano Cube Aquarium but does that have a protein skimmer? and also has anyone got any website i can buy stuff from i live in the uk.

Jay, Thanks :rolleyes:
 
:hi: to the salty section Jay. The JBJ 24g is a good tank to be sure. Reasonably priced and reasonably functional for Fish and basic softies. To the best of my knowledge it does not include a protein skimmer, but on a tank that small you don't really need one anyways. I would suggest reading through the stickies atop the nano section (any tank <30g is termed "nano") and read a bunch of journals, especially the one Steelhealr who used that exact tank :)
 
Thanks :rolleyes: Hopefully ill get abit of money and will be able to buy decent tank as non of the locals do marine tanks and only one does livestock and its quite pricy :rolleyes: Typicall so cant wait i was thinking an orca 450 or 550 i think its called but i hear that the skimmer is rubbish and fans are loud and as i am only young cannot do no diy lol.

Jay
 
The orca 450 is a nice looking tank. The skimmer is rubbish (take it out and forget about it) and the fans can get loud. The moonlights can also have issues as well (and are on the same circuit as the main lights which makes them next to useless).

All that being said though I liked my Orca 450 and would still recommend it (just the equipment with it is cheap and nasty).

Its doesnt neccersarily have to be a "marine" tank. You can use any tank you want (make sure the glass is at least 5mm thick though). Marine tanks might come with better lighting but if you can pick up a cheap cube from somewhere you can get the lighting seperatly. In my experience most of the cheap "all in one" marine kits have nice tanks but cheap, poor quality, equipment so you are better putting it together yourself. Going for second hand systems and equipment will save you a lot of money as well.

I have the same problem with getting marine livestock as well. The closest fish shop to me with marine stock is a 45 minute drive each way (the second closest is about the same). Both are fairly small so choice is always limited. Unfotunately with marine livestock they are always going to be pricey no matter where you go (around £10-20 per fish/shrimp for common fish/shrimp and £15-40 for common corals), the price goes up rapidly from there the less common they get :)
 
If you mean the LED's have to come on the same time as the lights thats abouloutly rubbish but id get my dad to sort that out he knows a little bit of electriction stuff. But thanks for the input. :good:
 
Sorry I wasnt overly clear :) I meant the LEDS and main lights run off the same power. So if you want to put your main lights on a timer and have your LEDS come on when they go out you cant do it (because you have to manually press the buttons on the top of the tank). You can manually turn the main lights off and put the LED lights on but you dont want to be doing this twice a day, every day at the same time everyday :)

It is easy to mod in a seperate power supply for the LEDS though (or just get an LED strip light and put it in there).
 
Barney means that you can't set a timer for the main light and moonlights separately. I'd always intended having a look at this to see if it can be altered but never bothered. I too really like my Orca and would happily recommend it with the already mentioned caveats. I also had a JBJ but have sold it recently. It suffered the same moonlighting issue as the Orca.

One feature on the JBJ that could be a good thing or a bad thing is that the filter chamber inlet is set towards the top of the waterline. This means that if the inlet gets blocked for any reason (I suffered from hair algae in this tank) then the filter chamber could potentially run dry which could expose the heater therefore damaging it and if the glass of the heater were to crack then it could potentially be a safety issue both for the keeper and the tank occupants. . Mine nearly did an a couple of occasions. This is exacerbated if you are not efficient with your top-ups particularly in high summer. The level of the water in the chambers goes down but the tank level remains constant so you don't necessarily spot it. You just have to make sure the grill is always clear.

Other than that it was similar to my orca but bigger.
 
Yeag I have seen people with JBJ tanks that have modded the rear chamber to have more inlets in it lower down to stop this happening (not something you really want to do to a brand no tank though :) ).

I really like the look of them too though.
 
Was gonna get the JBJ thanks for advice ive never had heat promlems in summer im in greater manchester it rains in winter and summer lol
 
I have a JBJ D&D 24g and they are fabulous tanks for plug and play kits. You have a lot of scope for moding them too if you like that sort of thing. There is space for moding the lights with an additional 24w PC tube and also adding some aqua rays but that can get expensive. Some people mod the middle rear chamber to form a refugium and remove the backing as to allow continous illumination of that chamber. This works really well at stabilising the water chemistry. You don't need a skimmer as the guys say and the surface skimmer is not all that brilliant. You can keep softies and LPS corals in this tank. Clams and SPS are off limits though but some exceptions exist like Montipora capricornus.You can keep about 4 fish around 4 inches each and some crabs, snails etc. I could go on for a lot longer but you would get bored ( that is if you aren't all ready :lol: !!)

Hope this helps

Regards
 
I would never get bored off hearing about tanks i just sit here and read :D and red max is alot off my budget its a brill tank but way overpriced in the uk. Unfortunatly but thanks.
 

Most reactions

Back
Top