Wanna Get Into Salt Water

[darksheep]

hi all

Afta along time of keeping tropical fish. and seeing the many beutiful salt water fish. i realy wanna convert one of my 2 main tanks into a salt water tank (keepin the other as a fresh water tank (one tanks is currently on ocupied))

Equipment

the tank im thinking of switching my 37 us gallon tank to marine. It has 4 watt lighting (3 tubes). filter and heater that is suitable for fresh water tank of that size.now i no i would need to purchase a skimmer but would there be anything else that is extremely vitial?? that i should get ( maybe a extra powerfilter or something?) or any links with diagrams would be handy

Basic bottom cover

Can i use sand that comes from the beach? and any Rock that comes from the sea? be nice to get something for free whilst setting it up and with the rock its more fun finding a suitable rock if u go for a walk and find a cool one which seeing its from the sea shouldnt it be considered a LR ??. or would it need to clean it be4 adding it to a tank

Stocking questions.

i wanna beable to put bout 4 or 5 fish into this tank is this possible. the main 2 fish i want are clown fish (nemo looking one) and the blue fish not sure of its name but its colours are electricfing.

also ive read other stickys bout invertabrates that adding them to help make ur tank look better and team with more life like crabs etcs. my main consern is wouldnt the crabs eat the fish if the fish sleep. or maybe the other way the fish eat the crabs. (seeing ive had fresh water fish eat the snails ive had in the tank)

 

[SkiFletch]

Well, you can use the equipment, but you might need to add an extra powerhead or two for more flowrate in the tank. You also may need more powerful lighting if you wish to get into keeping corals.

You can use sand and rocks from the ocean if you're in an un-developed area. If you live in a highly developed area, chances are there will be pollutants and contaminants in your tank that you dont want especially if you take dry beach sand. As for rock, where are you from? Will you be diving to pick it up or just grabbing things near shore?

Stocking, I'm pretty sure the blue fish you're talking about is a Blue Tang or sometimes called a Surgeonfish (Paracanthurus hepatus) whose minimum tank requirements are 75gallons and is disease-prone. As for crabs eating shrimp and vice versa, there are many fish that eat inverts and few inverts that eat fish. When in doubt, research and ask For that matter, never put something in your tank that you haven't first researched independently of the advice your LFS gives you. Marine ecosystems are very complex and it pays to know before you buy.

In the meantime, have a look through the stickies atop this section for some ideas

 

[darksheep]

I live in the country where i was gunna go to get the sand and rock is vertually untouched (no houses or devlopment within bout 10 k's, and its only a litle town thats close) was just gunna grab sand from either a couple steps into the sea or off the beach. as for the rocks i no a place thats untouched and easy accessed by walking along the beach on a LOW tide. u can reach them reasonably easy high tide they are covered in water.

gunna reasearch a a few more fish and get some names and stuff and post up here what im thinking be4 i purchase anything. i wanna do it once and get it correct then running into problems.

Fish im looking at are:

either the Blue Damsel or Yellow Tail Damsel (more likely the yellow tailed)
Amphiprion ocellaris (common names False Percula, False Clownfish, Ocellaris Clownfish, Percula Clownfish)
Dascyllus aruanus (Common Names: Three stripe damselfish ) - not sure on this one-
Centropyge loriculus (Common name: Flame Angelfish)

plus a few inverts to clean maybe crabs or some type of shrimp i dunno i cant seem to find much info bout em atm but im still researchin

 

[SkiFletch]

Cool, one other thing to consider is the legal issues when collecting yourself, make sure you're not breaking any laws by taking things from the beach/ocean, some localities have strict ones. I dont mean to suggest that its wrong to do so, but I also dont want to be the guy that tells you there's no problem and then have something go wrong.

As for your stocking, I wouldn't put damselfish in the tank. They can get exceptionally aggressive and kill fish much larger than they are by basically stressing it to death. I know there are exceptions to the rule, but why risk it IMO. As for shrimp, the common ones are skunk cleaners, blood cleaners, peppermint, camel, and coral banded shrimp. More exotic varieties include pistol shrimp, saron shrimp, and the sexy shrimp (not kidding). Also there are mantis shrimp, but those are all exceptionally aggressive and really should be kept in a species only tank.