Nemo tank help please

[nemo fan]

Hello I am new to this and today I went out and got my first fish tank hooray!

It is a 3 foot tank with an internal filter.

I wish to stock it on a nemo theme so have ordered on line : a clown fish, a yellow tang , a dory, a porcupine puffer and six cleaner shrimps.I know there was only one in nemo but I want to keep the tank clean

Tomorrow I am going to put the water in ,top tip for you guys.I found salt was much cheaper in the supermarket than at the garden centre.

What I neede to know was

1. How much salt to put in?

2.any speacial requirements for keeping corlas? my GF really thinks they are pretty

3.what temperature should the heater be set at?

4.What should I feed the fish and how often

I am so excited about this and can't wait for the kids to see it at spring bank holiday when they come to visit.

Thanks

 

[Navarre]

Are these fish ordred already?
If so then you are in for some major problems.
If you use an internal filter only then the tank is going to take about 6 weeks to cycle. You could of course use liverock but its not cheap. This will cycle the tank immediately and will replace the need for a filter. For a tank roughly 30 gallons you will need 30lbs


Ok now the fish. Sadly the only fish suitable for a tan of this size is your clownfish (nemos) The yellow tang, regal tang and puffer grow very large (especially the puffer) and need very large tanks (100 gallons or more).

If the fish are not ordred yet then let us know and we can help with the stup of the tank. if the fish are already on their way then to keep them alive you are going to eed to find a mature system for them to live in.

 

[littlefishie]

Tomorrow I am going to put the water in ,top tip for you guys.I found salt was much cheaper in the supermarket than at the garden centre.

Um.. you do realize that you need marine salt, right? Not just any old salt you find at the grocery store?

 

[nemo fan]

Thank you,

I have managed to cancel the order fo the fish.I will go to a fish shop tomorrow and ask lots of questions and look into this there.

Thank for telling me I do want to start this hobby but I don't want to do anything that would hurt the fish.

Its disapointing but I would rather get it right

Cheers

 

[Jason213]

Wow, believe it or not, many people in your situation would not have cancled anything, but just wing it. Im glad you decided to wait, it was the responsible thing to do, and im sure that in time you will become an expert.

Good Luck!

 

[Navarre]

Jason is right, when i gave out the advise i really thought that we might have a person who was going to go their own way regardless of our advice. Im vry pleased to see you have listened and are doing the right thing

I did forget to mention about the salt (it was late and i needed my bed! ) ) so thanks littlefishie for highlighting this area also.

I dont know what salt you have got (perhaps you could give the name of it here) but you need salt specifically designed for marine fish. Food salkt or rocksalt ect that you get from supermarkets will kill your fish within 10 minutes.

Setting up marine is not difficult as long as you follow a few simply rules. Im afraid to say that the shop you got your tank from should have dispensed with this advice at the timr but nevermind, no harm has been done. The following few weeks wont be cheap but if you keep us posted on yourt progress then we can certainly save you aot of money by telling you what you need to do next.
Good luck with your project and welcome aboard!

 

[nemo fan]

I got the tank out of the local paper.

I have been to the fish shop today and got lots of help. I am going to plan this from square one, they are going to take me through all the stuff I need to know and help me set this up right.

Thanks to all of you.

 

[littlefishie]

I did forget to mention about the salt (it was late and i needed my bed! ) ) so thanks littlefishie for highlighting this area also.

I figured it was a bit late for you to be posting and you might have missed that. Besides, all the salty and nano talk we do actually sinks in! I remember things, aren't you proud?

..I had a similar run-in with my housemates where they wanted to buy a 2.5 gallon tank, dump in some table salt, and buy a clownfish at the LFS.
So I took them to the LFS and had them tell the employees what they wanted to do, as well as showed them how much a clownfish cost.
They got laughed at for about 20 minutes. ..so at least I remember about salt now.

 

[Chac]

Hey Nemo

Hows the reasearch coming along

Del

 

[maestro]

To be honest I thought this thread was a wind up but im glad you listened to teh advice,

Just to let you know I saw a porc puffer in a lfs the other week, I cannot tell you how big it was, it was HUGE, it was about 2feet long and a round shape, probably about the size of a basketball, it really needs a 12foot tank atleast! it was in a 4 foot tank havign treatment as it was sick and the poor thing could hardly turn around!

I would recomend that you buy 1 or 2 books to start your research, one book i cought which was really good is called Your first Marine Aquarium by John Tullock, only cost £3 but really good