New to hobby

WYA123

WYA123

New member
Hello everyone:wavehand:,
I have been keeping freshwater tanks for 3 years now and i have decided to take a plunge into the saltwater world. I will be getting the new tank at the end of this year. I have read about saltwater tanks and fish during my free time so i feel like I am ready, but since I am new to this hobby and freshwater and saltwater is quite different, I came here to ask you guys :).
The tank will be a 90cm by 90cm by 45cm acrylic tank. It will be placed directly on the floor in my living room, so no stand, but it will be on an aquarium mat.
The sump will be a 90cm by 45cm by 50cm acrylic tank and iw will be placed directly behind the display tank. Water will be pumped into the sump by pumps and into the sump and then will flow out of the sump into the display tank through holes that will be drilled. I will not be having skimmers and will only have two media reactors most likely filled with carbon. The water from the display tank will go through the reactors before going into the sump, which will have a deep sand bed with live rock and macroalgae.There will be adequate light for the algae. Is this a good idea?
For the stocking, I want unique fishes that are not usually safe with corals as I will not be keeping any corals. Some of the fish i have in mind are angels, butterfly fishes, puffers and boxfish, especially the spotted blue boxfish, but i am open to any suggestions.
Finally, I still haven't decide on the aquascape as I feel that it is highly dependent on the fish chosen, but there will be no corals and will have only macroalgae, so i need cuc that is macroalgae safe. It will have a deep sand bed as well(arnd 5").
Thank you in advance :)
 
You really need to look at the specific fish you want and check their minimum recommend tank sizes before doing anything..
A boxfish needs a bigger tank.. 180G (680L) minimum.. They can get up to 10"(25cm) long... Many butterflyfish need a larger tank too..
Sounds like your tank will be too small in the long run for most of the fish you want..
 
How about the smaller species of boxfish,like thornback cowfish that grows only to 4"? If a boxfish is not possible, what fish would you recommend that is unique? I was thinking like a harem tank, like maybe 3 harems of three species(too much?) as I see a lot of tanks that have so many species and rarely a harem tank.
 
Just so you know if you have puffers they will most likely eat anything you put in the tank as cuc.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
 
Oh if it is possible i would like a fish that is rare(like people don't see them in home aquariums often). I would also like to add that i would like fishes that would thrive(not just survive) in my tank for its entire life as I don't see an upgrade any time soon. Thanks :)
 
ahuaia said:
Just so you know if you have puffers they will most likely eat anything you put in the tank as cuc.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
I have read about that. Is there any larger or harder to eat species available? I have seen hermit crabs that put anemone on their shells to prevent predators like octopus. Is that possible in the home aquarium? If not then it's just elbow grease for me.
 
I would assume the pom pom crab would also get eaten but if you provide hiding places they may live a bit longer. Also most of the pom pom crab anemones die in transit but if you look around you might find one that still has them.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
 
I see. How about normal hermits? I have seen documentaries where they carry anemones on their back and even an octopus couldn’t eat them. If no cuc possible then it’s just elbow grease for me unless i don’t choose the puffer.
 
Would adding a large hermit and maybe large turbo snails be possible? If not the i will look at other possible choices of fish other than puffer. If no other fish that i want comes(unlikely cuz i am sure there are other options),then puffer it is, along with more elbow grease. Any fish that are ok as harem/group?
 
Your tank dimensions basically equate to roughly 95 gallons, so you're a bit limited in the kind of fish you can get.

Large angels are pretty much out but you could get a dwarf angel if you happen to like those. I'm not sure a 95 is big enough to handle 2 dwarfs but if you add them at the same time and have enough hiding spots then you could probably get away with it.

as far as puffers go, you'll be limited to the smaller sharp nose puffers like the Valentini, don't be fooled by their small size. They have just as much personality as their larger counterparts. pretty much any snails would be food for the puffer, larger hermit crabs like really large might be ok but for what you're talking about good ole fashioned elbow grease would be your best bet.

If you want to do a unique harem tank, you could consider going with dwarf lionfish, perhaps 3 fuzzy dwarf lions (1 male 2 female) 3 Zebra dwarf lions (1male 2 female) just bare in mind that dwarf lions can be a bit difficult to get eating prepared foods. I had one a long time ago and could not get it switch over to prepared foods and had to feed it live food.

I've never seen or heard of a hermit crab putting an anemone on its shell, its possible I suppose that aiptasia was growing its shell but I'll let someone with a bit more experience chime in on that one.
 
I like the lionfish idea :), but how about dwarf angel harem? Is that possible? For the anemone on hermit it is mostly in the wild and the anemone is quite small. Its symbiosis, another one of nature’s masterpiece. Here is a page about it http://animals.mom.me/relationship-between-hermit-crabs-sea-anemones-1857.html. Would butterflyfish be possible in my tank? Also for puffer a harem of puffer would be nice, but will they fight?(I love puffers btw,I have a 40 gallon freshwater tank with 2 avocado puffers) Thanks :)
 
a dwarf angel harem would be near impossible to pull off as it's very hard to tell the difference between male and female, there are no definitive markings.

you could do certain types of butterfly such as the pearlscale butterfly but bare in mind that they finicky eaters and are tough to get eating in an aquarium.

a nice tool that I use when looking for fish is go to liveaquaria.com and go to marine fish, then select the fish you're interested in such as puffers then on the right hand side select the minimum tank size. for you I'd select 90 gallons as there is no 95 gallon option. this will then show you all the fish in that species that will be a good fit for your tank.

Just keep in mind even though it says its a good fit for your tank, you want to consider aggression and the size the fish will get when full grown which LA also tells you when you click on a specific fish under general information.
 
Oh ok, thanks :). The pearlscale is nice, can i keep a harem of them? Thanks for the liveaquaria suggestion :)
 
I'm honestly not that familiar with butterfly fish, I'm fairly certain that they are hard to sex as well but I'll let someone with a bit more experience with butterflies chime in.
 
I read that no matter the sex, butterfly fish tend to get along together as a pair, especially the chaetodon. But I am not very sure about harems tho.
 
Can i get a group of pearlscale butterfly fish, a group of cardinal fish and maybe a group of goby?
 
sure, you could probably get away with 3 or 4 pearlscales and maybe 4 or 5 cardinals along with a few gobies

I have to warn though, as you are new to the hobby, pearlscales and most butterflies in general are difficult to get eating in captivity which is why LA marks them as moderately difficult to keep. you want to make sure you do as much research as you can on them so you are as prepared as possible to care for them
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

JW Frink
New and researching
Replies
17
Views
310
JW Frink
JW Frink
S
Newbie trying to get into the hobby
Replies
2
Views
67
reefing102
reefing102
P
New to aquariums
Replies
15
Views
242
reefing102
reefing102
B
New-ish to the hobby!
Replies
4
Views
112
burntricer
B
H
From pro to hobby
Replies
7
Views
130
kfisc
kfisc
Back
Top