Dipping My Toes In Saltwater

[BigC]

Hi, this is my first post in the marine section and i would like some help from the experts.
I am currently changing over to a marine setup of which I have very limited knowledge even though I have been keeping, breeding and showing tropicals for over 25 years. (Killifish)
I only have a small tank 30"x12"x18". I know the purists are going to frown on this as a marine tank. (but it's all I have room for in the hallway). I was hoping to keep a couple of clown fish along with living rock and an anemone with crushed coral or shell as a substrate.
Could the membership please advise me on basic equipment as I dont want to spend a fortune setting this up.
Help on such topics as mixing the salt, hydrometers, lighting and filtration would be greatly appreciated.
Regards
BigC

 

[Aquascaper]

Worth a good read

 

[SkiFletch]

Are you planning on doing reef or fish only? And, do you have room underneath your stand for a sump?

 

[Navarre]

The size of tank is ok, my wife has exactly the same size as this and its turining out really nice. A couple of clowns will easily live in a tank of this size but i would recomend against the anenome. By adding this your expensie will grow considerably as you have to increase lighting to halides. Not only this but anenomes have very poor records in captivity and need expert care for them to thrive. Usuaully the ones that are hosts for clowns tend to be the most demanding also. THe easier ones such as the condyclactus are not natural hosts of clowns.

Having said this, there is still no gaurentee that a clown will host an anenome. They are fickle and are just as prone to ignoring your attempt to provide them with a home. I would recomend a sarcophyton leather as these prove very good as hosts and are far far less demadning for you to keep. I have a sarcophyton in my large reef and it has hosted a pair of perc clowns and a maroon clown in its lifetime. I now have a new pair of perc and a pair of skunks in my reef and these have all totally ignored the sarcophyton, the bubbletip anenome and my latest malu anenome for hosts.

As for setting up...

I advise only using RO/Di water as tis will stop alot of headaches in the months ahead. use aragonite sand for hte base and dont go deeper than 2 inches. aim for liverock to the ratio of 1kg per 2 gallons as a filtration method. Try and acheieve a minimum of 10x tank volume in turnover per hour with powerheads etc.

PH should be within 8.0 - 8.4
SG should be around 1.022 - 1.025

 

[Aquascaper]

Just an example of my clowns that have stuck with their Sacrophyton through thick and thin

 

[SkiFletch]

Color me confused, but that "looks" like an anemone to me...

 

[Aquascaper]

It's just a long tentacled sacrophyton

Cost me £20 about 18 months ago and it's about 7" in diameter when fully extended with 1" tentacles. It's fragged itself a few times in my large tank and I still have a few of these which i'm hoping to grow a bit and sell on. The Clowns love it and you can even pick the Sacro up and move it round the tank and they will follow it despite my hand holding it (makes them very easy to catch and I can hand feed them sometimes too). At night the Sacro will retract its tentacles and the clowns either swim under or just above it, in the morning when the lights come on they rub against it to get it to extend it's tentacles again.......very cool to watch.

Old shot of my second reef tank showing how big it can extend:

Clowns in tentacles:

 

[Navarre]

Nope! Thats a leather toadstool coral! Many people would never know the difference if the were to casually glance at it with clowns hosting. Far far easier to keep too.


Here are some photos of mine in their sarcophyton....

Exactly the same coral.

And here it is in my tank now with 2 pairs of clowns and nonw of them are remotely interested!

 

[SkiFletch]

Wow, cool. Would a Sacrophyton be a good choice for a first coral?

Btw, sorry BigC for sidetracking your thread

 

[Aquascaper]

They're good beginner corals but can get huge so you need to be prepared to frag them if they outgrow the tank. Fragging is not advisable in a Nano as it can lead to some of the coral dying which can result in spikes in parameters, saying that setting up a small tank to frag them is not that hard

 

[steelhealr]

Welcome aboard BigC ...sounds like your 'goin' nano'. Great choice. SH

 

[BigC]

Many thanks guys for your replies, I was expecting a lot of flack on the subject of tank size. But it seems that I can get by with this. The stocking I have suggested seems to be alright going by your replies. Interesting to note that clowns sometimes do not take to anemones with any degree of certainty. So that I have taken onboard.
I can also see from your replies that I will have to learn a whole new latin vocabulary. (freshwater fish and aquatic plants I can handle but the marine dictionary is all new to me)
Again many thanks, much appreciated.
Regards
BigC

 

[SkiFletch]

Lol, yeah, it is a whole different language around here BigC. Also wanted to say thanks for your advice in helping me setup my freshwater tank over the summer. Some of your advice was greatly appreciated back then and I hope I can return the favor here now