My Newest Project

[golsama]

So I've been interested in saltwater for a long time but haven't taken the plunge until now. A couple weeks ago I finally set up a 20 long sw tank with black sand and 15lbs of live rock with purple corraline algae. It will be ready for inverts by the end of the week so I'll be picking up my cleanup crew. After a couple more weeks I should be ready for fish. I'm going to do a pair of ocellaris clowns and a watchman goby/pistol shrimp combo. I'm extremely excited and enjoying this whole process. I even got my specific gravity perfect on the first try!

I'll post pics up of the tank after I get my inverts and again after I add the fish.

Anyone else keep saltwater tanks?

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[jonclark96]

I've always wanted to try a saltwater tank but never have. Keep us posted with updates!

 

[Andrewtfw]

I used to have an aquapod that was set up salt. I could not keep the temps down and so many corals died. I had a female blue spot jawfish. She was awesome.

 

[chriscoli]

Very awesome! Bruce and I had discussed doing a saltwater setup a while back, but our power went out so often during the year, I was afraid to do it. Now that we have the generator, maybe it's a more doable project.

Can't wait for pics!

 

[JasonC]

Would love to someday do a salt tank...but I am on thin ice as it its with my better half... She straight up threatened my life last time I mentioned doing a salt tank ;p

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[golsama]

The first picture is my tank thus far. No inverts or fish yet. I also still need to apply the blue background, but just had surgery on my left wrist so that'll have to wait a bit longer. You can't really see it in the picture but there are lots of crevices and hiding spots within the rocks. I left open sand space for the goby/pistol shrimp to burrow and open water for the clowns to swim. I'm pretty happy with it so far.


And the second is a close up of one of the live rocks with the purple corraline algae.

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[lewrosa]

That looks really cool so far! Can't wait to see it finished

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[daninmd]

Samantha, I had a 30g cube setup until about 6 months ago. it was a very interesting tank to watch, especially once its established and you have tons of critters in there. I would definitely add some more live rock. 15lbs in a 20g tank is not a lot, especially with the amount of fish you are putting in there. I would go with probably double that at least.

also wouldn't use the filter for any type of biological filter, you just want to use the live rock for that. you can actually do that tank without the filter and just use some powerheads. the liverock and livesand is all the filter you need.

what kind of sand is that? the pistol and goby will appreciate a finer sand, but I cant tell just by looking at it.

what type of lights are you running?

also, I would join WAMAS.org if you haven't already...great group of people over there. basically the saltwater version of CCA

feel free to ask me any questions, I have already gone thru all the learning curves!

 

[YSS]

Good start! I second the motion on adding more liverocks. I started with a 20GH and then upgraded to a 36G BF. When the 36G sprung a leak, I got a 56G column tank. I only have 6 fish in there: a pair of false clowns, royal gramma (from Tony), and 3 pajama cardinals. I have a few soft corals as well and of course whole bunch of known and unknown critters and hitch hikers. Love the hitch hikers. Good luck with the set up.

 

[golsama]

I heeded your advice and got some more live rock today. It looks so much better now and I still have a small open sandy area on one side of the tank. There is more rock behind what can be seen in the picture as well.

The sand is Nature's Ocean black reef sand. It is fine grained.

The light is a Coralife dual fixture with one 10,000k bulb and one blue actinic bulb.

I'm running the filter purely for mechanical filtration and water movement. The live rock and live sand are the bio filtration.

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[daninmd]

looks much better, good job. you don't need much open sand area...the goby will stick right next to the burrow that the pistol will occupy. I would recommend a candy stripe pistol instead of a tiger pistol. they are smaller, more colorful, and don't re-arrange as much sand as the tigers.

 

[golsama]

Thanks! I'm definitely doing a candy-stripe pistol and I'm leaning towards a Wheeler's watchman goby.

What inverts (clean up crew) would you suggest?

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[daninmd]

For cleanup crew go to reefcleaners.org and order one of the packages for your size tank. I would go with a snail only package. He has great prices. You can get hermit crabs locally. Add a turbo snail too


Once you are setup, Make sure to get a Pom Pom crab, they are amazing creatures.

 

[YSS]

Make sure the tank is fully cycled before you add any critters. Looking good.

 

[zackcrack00]

Are SW fish "breedable"?

 

[daninmd]

Are SW fish "breedable"?

a few of them are, such as clownfish, cardinalfish, etc but its not easy. it requires quite a bit of work to try and raise fry. you have to raise food for them to eat and its a lot of work. you have to maintain a system to provide green/algae water, which is then a food source to raise rotifers, which then are used to feed the fry. and a LOT of it is needed. its a lot of work and success rates are not that great. we definitely have it made with cichlids.

Not many aquarists successfully breed SW fish at home, its mostly larger commercial operations. Even shrimp, etc are hard to raise from fry.

 

[verbal]

a few of them are, such as clownfish, cardinalfish, etc but its not easy. it requires quite a bit of work to try and raise fry. you have to raise food for them to eat and its a lot of work. you have to maintain a system to provide green/algae water, which is then a food source to raise rotifers, which then are used to feed the fry. and a LOT of it is needed. its a lot of work and success rates are not that great. we definitely have it made with cichlids.

Not many aquarists successfully breed SW fish at home, its mostly larger commercial operations. Even shrimp, etc are hard to raise from fry.

From what I have heard the easiest home set-up for "breeding" in SW is coral fragging.

Zack if your goal is to breed SW fish, the first step is working on maintaining live food cultures. For Cichlids live foods are generally used for conditioning. However what you learn and the processes you develop should be somewhat transferrable. Learning on FW is a lot easier and cheaper.

 

[YSS]

My clown pair has spawned many times in my tank, but never made to the wriggler stage.

 

[daninmd]

My clown pair has spawned many times in my tank, but never made to the wriggler stage.

yes, they are prolific breeders...once mature a clown pair can lay eggs about every 2-3 weeks in some cases...but we cannot provide the habitat and food needed to raise fry in our home aquariums

 

[daninmd]

From what I have heard the easiest home set-up for "breeding" in SW is coral fragging.

Zack if your goal is to breed SW fish, the first step is working on maintaining live food cultures. For Cichlids live foods are generally used for conditioning. However what you learn and the processes you develop should be somewhat transferrable. Learning on FW is a lot easier and cheaper.

yep. growing and fragging corals is pretty easy. I bought a bunch of corals, grew them all out and was able to sell them for 2-3 times more than what I bought them for. fish on the other hand is a big headache.