65 replies to this topic

[golden_dase]

Its ok mate! We're all here to learn and inspire..

By the way, I'm getting rid of my 5ft cichlid tank... going to turn it into a marine tank... lol

Before anyone asks me how much I want for my cichlids... most of them are pre-sold to a friend on this forum..

Cheers!

Kevin.

[plantnut]

honestly man having corals and no skimmer is a disaster and an expensive 1 at that iv got a fully stocked coral reef n 1 day my skimmer stoped working without me knowing and it whent downhill fast

and skimmers dont take out more good stuff than bad if the stuff so good why is it a brown sluge in the skim cup and anothe bonus with the skimmers is yo can conect an ozoneizer to it wich is a must for most highly stocked marien tanks

coral neeed the most pure water you can give them especialy sps corals they will die with to much nuetriants in the water

Well I can speak only from my personal experience. I have a 85 litre 'nano' tank which has been running for about 3 months now. It is chock a block full with corals - mainly Morphs, Zoas but also LPS. They look great and fully extend everyday and are multipling well. The only filtration I have is a small canister without bio balls and live rock - about 20 kg. I do not use a skimmer and have no intention of doing so. I intend to upgrade to a 220 l tank soon and again feel no need for a skimmer.

On the question of cycling, using good quality cured live rock, my tank cycled in 3 days. With care there should be no spike from the live rock being installed. I had a small spike at day 2 which was gone by day 3. As to water quality, once again from personal experience, I initially was doing 2-3 50% water changes per week but found the corals were not as happy as when I went to the same volume being changed fortnightly. Anecdotal feedback from other reef tank keepers, in this case with all Acros, is that the corals actually improved with the addition of a few fish rather than a coral only tank.

I am not saying that others who have replied to this link are wrong. And I don't intend to buy into an ongoing debate on this issue. I speak from personal experience only and can only tell it as it was for me. I firmly believe that with careful selection of corals and a lot of common sense we tend to overdo the need for all the bells and whistles. All too often people are advised something is essential rather than desirable. The use of MH is a classic case. Many nanos are very successful using good quality T5s

[Ado1968]

I think at the end of the day the whole topic of keeping fish should it be fresh or marine,is,
If it works for you then go for it.
Everybody has their own opinions which more often than not comes from their own experience.
so I say do what ever works for you.
And if it doesn't work then learn from the exercise.

[golden_dase]

I think at the end of the day the whole topic of keeping fish should it be fresh or marine,is,
If it works for you then go for it.
Everybody has their own opinions which more often than not comes from their own experience.
so I say do what ever works for you.
And if it doesn't work then learn from the exercise.

Adrian,

You sound like a preacher mate! lolz

[Ado1968]

Adrian,

You sound like a preacher mate! lolz

Well Kevin,somebody's got to.

[golden_dase]

Sam,

any updates on your marine setup? and pics?

[Iamsam]

Sam,

any updates on your marine setup? and pics?

Umm as for updates, tank is going alond rockingly
Added my first fish on thursday, But i Made my first mistake, i went to a new Lfs North of the river and bought a pair of clowns and i didnt quaretine them yes idiot i know, they got WS but a cleaner shrimp has fixed all that and there dandy, added a few more corals, A pulsing xenia some blue octo's a couple of ric's, and a blue sea rod, worlds nicest coral but modey as, if a clown just swims by it, it retracs and takes for ever to come back out, i have done a few small water changes so now all my a levels are Perfect on zero, oh and my mandarines in my Quaritine tank are going mint, eating pellets and all,very little algea to speak of so far, now im just waiting for the perfect fish, there is a regal angel where i work that im looking at but i want to make sure hes gona be perfect before i buy them as they tend to drop dead for no reason (yes i know my tank will be to small for him but when he gets bigger he can go in the 8x3x3

Will grab some photos tommorow

[golden_dase]

now im just waiting for the perfect fish, there is a regal angel where i work that im looking at but i want to make sure hes gona be perfect before i buy them as they tend to drop dead for no reason (yes i know my tank will be to small for him but when he gets bigger he can go in the 8x3x3

Will grab some photos tommorow

One of the hardest marine fish I've kept are Moorish Idol.. and some butterfly fish... man, talk about high maintenance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Iamsam]

haha yep, wouldnt mind a few of the butterflys but all the ones i like are Know for eating corals, which i want as my "thing", but this regal is eating squid and muscles so i think i might give it a go. a challenge is good

[golden_dase]

haha yep, wouldnt mind a few of the butterflys but all the ones i like are Know for eating corals, which i want as my "thing", but this regal is eating squid and muscles so i think i might give it a go. a challenge is good

In my experience with marine fish, two of the best and most "fun" ones i've kept are lyretail wrasse, also known as lunare wrasse, and the other is the scopas tang! they are two VERY COOL fish!

[Iamsam]

In my experience with marine fish, two of the best and most "fun" ones i've kept are lyretail wrasse, also known as lunare wrasse, and the other is the scopas tang! they are two VERY COOL fish!

lunars are evil tho, i had one in with my predaters and he would give the triggers a hard time,
Convict tangs Would have to top my list of tangs, a nice big school of them would look great, one of the few tangs that will happily school

[golden_dase]

lunars are evil tho, i had one in with my predaters and he would give the triggers a hard time,
Convict tangs Would have to top my list of tangs, a nice big school of them would look great, one of the few tangs that will happily school

Lyretai/Lunar wrasse are extremely hardy! I reckon they are one of the top beginner fish! You need a large tank though, prefebly 4ft or above coz they love to swim alot..

By the way, they're not evil.. they similiar in nature to Oscars... want everything for themselves and hate newcomers... LOL!

[Neakit]

95% of all wrasses are evil, it just doesn't show up when you have hundreds of fish.......

[Iamsam]

Image links have died so i have taken this post down

[golden_dase]

Sam

Any updates? pics?

Cheers.

[Iamsam]

umm not much has happend i am a bit broke atm, been spending all my money on other projects, but i have added a hob refugium, its just a large aquaclear hob filter with all the media taken out and replaced with caleper (thats spelt wrong but i dont know the correct spelling), i do plan on buying either a Marine Betta (Calloplesiops altivelis) or some Decora firefish goby both which are absolutly gawjuss fish, i had seen Decora firefish goby online before and had'nt though much of them untill we got some in at work and they are the most gawjuss fish ever. apart from that my lovely pulsing xenia decide it didnt like life and fell on a tracaphila of mine and got stung and unfortanitly has not recoverd,

[golden_dase]

umm not much has happend i am a bit broke atm, been spending all my money on other projects, but i have added a hob refugium, its just a large aquaclear hob filter with all the media taken out and replaced with caleper (thats spelt wrong but i dont know the correct spelling), i do plan on buying either a Marine Betta (Calloplesiops altivelis) or some Decora firefish goby both which are absolutly gawjuss fish, i had seen Decora firefish goby online before and had'nt though much of them untill we got some in at work and they are the most gawjuss fish ever. apart from that my lovely pulsing xenia decide it didnt like life and fell on a tracaphila of mine and got stung and unfortanitly has not recoverd,

Sorry to hear that mate..
Anyways, i'll post pics of my set-up tomorrow if i have time.

My current fish:

4 blue-green chromis
2 tomato/cinnamon clowns
1 scopas tang
1 coral beauty
1 bi-colour blenny
2 scooter blennies
1 sea urchin
some hermit crabs
some snails
1 little white prawn that hides all the time.. lol

i've put my 2 blue damsels into my 2fter together with some liverock.... giving it to a friend..

and 3 soft coral which i dont know the names for! (buying more tomorrow!)

My tank is doing quite well though! mostly thanks to dazzabozza and his "genuine" great advice!

Cheers!
Kevin

[aqua86]

Well after removing all my old tanks I have finally got a new one,
it’s a juwel vision 180 as can be seen here http://www.juwel-aqu...sion.htm?cat=10.
my purpose behind this thread is to try show other people that setting up a marine tank is not that much work and not that expensive, thus I will include rough prices (cant rember exact), its going to be a bit of experimental tank, I don’t plan on using any mechanical chemical or biological(bar live rock) filtration I also wont use a skimmer

well I got the tank and stand on Tuesday, added lime sand as a substrate (15$ for a 20kg bag only needed half)
as I am using a metal halide I have pulled the whole top off, including the t5s it comes with, I bought the MH second hand so there were pretty cheap, But to buy brand new they would defiantly have been the killer of this set up.

I filled it up Wednesday night with tap water and synthetic salts, at 70$ for a bucket that does 240L, I also added 2 eheim aquaball pumps (60 each), each rated at 650l/h plus the jewel tank that comes with the filter which is another 600l giving me 1900l/h so just over 10 the tank volume an hour, i am planning on adding a couple more power heads for water movement

and tonight I brought the live rock home, now this was the expensive bit, with live rock retailing at 14$ a kg and i ended up adding 30kgs, you can do the maths but its all now in place.
its still cloudy but here’s some pictures,

well my photobucket account just died so i shall add the photos tommorow
will keep u updated

hey what are the dimensions of your tank

[Iamsam]

hey what are the dimensions of your tank

101 x 41 x 50 cm

also just an FYI;
currently in the tank i have
1 pair of marron clowns (that look like there about to spawn)
1 cleaner shrimp
1 nox angel
1 pair of mandarins
and 2 Decora firefish goby
and a long spined urchin
and that is all the fish im keeping,

my refugium is going great with all my basic levels at 0 (ammonia nitrite nitrate).
the only problem i am having is phosphates which is from my tap water, but i have added some phosphate removal granulas and has seent to fixed it, as for additives i am addin purple up, iodine,calcium,strontium,and a few other trace element mixes when needed as indicated through testkits ,and the corals are getting a few diffrent sorts of foods also,but should have a coral shipment in at work 2morrow and i plan on grabbing a few nice bits for my tank the only thing i am worried about is becouse i have 0 algea in my tank the urchin really only has corraline algea to munch on and i dont want him to destroy it all

[Iamsam]

well, my tank has been a bit neglected (other things on my mind), but a quick update; ive removed the female clown as she keep't clearing away sand in front of her anemone as she was prepare to spawn which was cool but she was throwing the sand all over my tank and rocks(some can still be seen in these pic) im just trying to find some nice corals, well heres some new shots and yes i know that there not all that great but i keep fish not take photos, and the tank isnt as dirty as it looks except the back wall i am trying to get algea to grow (cheaper than buying a back ground but it dosent want to play my game

My cleaner shrimp


















and my hang on back refugium


comments and suggestions welcome