Stocking, equipment, and invert questions!

[Mr Worley]

Hello everyone, I was planning on doing a 125g saltwater reef in the future and wanted to have everything planned. I had a few questions about stock recommendations and some other stuff.

Would I need a heater and a chiller? I live in Windsor Ontario.

What are some good, hardy corals for beginners?

Now on to stock. Would this be full? If not do you guys have any recommendations for what to add?

1x or 2x green chromi
1x mccoskers flasher wrasse
1x yellowhead jawfish
1x redhead solon fairy wrasse
2x ocellaris clown fish
1x firefish
1x Foxface one spot

+ my invert CUC which id like to feature a long spine sea urchin, some pistol and cleaner shrimp, brittle stars, and some crabs or snails.

 

[CuzzA]

Heater, yes. You won't need a chiller unless you use metal halides and/or have too many pumps or don't have a/c and your house gets too hot.

That stocking will be fine. Cover the top of your tank to prevent jumping. 2 Chromis will likely become one. You could add a few more fish. I like to add fish that will help me out. For example a diamond watchman goby to clean my sand.

As for corals it's best to decide what type of tank you want first and research what will be necessary from you to keep it alive. Your options are basically a soft coral tank, LPS reef, SPS reef, non photsynthetic reef, or a mixed reef. So for example, if you don't want to dose calcium and alkalinity then you should avoid SPS and most LPS corals. If you don't want to feed your corals all the time then stay away from NPS corals. If you want a no fuss easy to keep reef then I would stick with softies. More insight from you will allow for more information.

 

[Mr Worley]

I'll drop it to one chromi and add the goby, Would a small school (3-4) of cardinalfish work in this mix? I think id like to try a mixed reef to get a lot of variety, but I definitely need to do some more looking into the coral types and their needs to be sure. Thanks for your help!

 

[Shawn O]

Sand sifters can, over time, deplete the sand bed of valuable microfauna (from what I've gathered). Determine what sand-sifters you are considering eat before adding. Things that sift for bacteria or algae are beneficial, things that eat the micro-crustaceans and worms can eventually kill your sand bed. No guarantee this will happen but have heard of instances where it has.

A (m-f) pair of jawfish would be interesting to watch. Should work in your tank if they can keep a couple of feet distance between. Pairs of cardinals like Pajamas or Ganggai's are popular. I love the looks of Anthias, a pair should fare ok in that sized tank. It all comes down to preference, do you like larger fish or small fish? There are dozens of small Goby species that are quite beautiful and interesting to watch.

Pistol shrimp aren't necessarily tank cleaners. Cleaner shrimp will be more for entertainment purposes than parasite cleaning since the goal is to prevent parasites from getting into our tanks. Some brittle stars can be predatory, I understand that serpent stars make acceptable CUC members, though. Lots of snails, and possibly a few hermits to do the heavy work. Three or four dozen mix of Nassarius, Dwarf Cerith, Trochus, Astraea and Turbos. Micro-brittle stars, spaghetti worms and bristle worms are beneficial, best to not kill or remove them if you're able to get them in on your rock.

Good luck, I hope to see lots of pics as you progress, as I'm sure many others here do as well.

 

[Jimmydks]

If you want to keep corals you need to decide what aquarium lights to get. IMHO lights can be an expensive but important purchase. Whether you go power compact /T5s/ Metal highlights or LEDs remember go give yourself space to upgrade if you decide to change from softies to SPS.

If you decide to get MH you might need a chiller. Personally I use fans on my DT and sump to keep the temperature down.

 

[Mr Worley]

Sand sifters can, over time, deplete the sand bed of valuable microfauna (from what I've gathered). Determine what sand-sifters you are considering eat before adding. Things that sift for bacteria or algae are beneficial, things that eat the micro-crustaceans and worms can eventually kill your sand bed. No guarantee this will happen but have heard of instances where it has.

A (m-f) pair of jawfish would be interesting to watch. Should work in your tank if they can keep a couple of feet distance between. Pairs of cardinals like Pajamas or Ganggai's are popular. I love the looks of Anthias, a pair should fare ok in that sized tank. It all comes down to preference, do you like larger fish or small fish? There are dozens of small Goby species that are quite beautiful and interesting to watch.

Pistol shrimp aren't necessarily tank cleaners. Cleaner shrimp will be more for entertainment purposes than parasite cleaning since the goal is to prevent parasites from getting into our tanks. Some brittle stars can be predatory, I understand that serpent stars make acceptable CUC members, though. Lots of snails, and possibly a few hermits to do the heavy work. Three or four dozen mix of Nassarius, Dwarf Cerith, Trochus, Astraea and Turbos. Micro-brittle stars, spaghetti worms and bristle worms are beneficial, best to not kill or remove them if you're able to get them in on your rock.

Good luck, I hope to see lots of pics as you progress, as I'm sure many others here do as well.

I'll definitely need to research the sand differs a little more than. I'll keep that in mind for CUC, and i'll look into anthias and jawfish pairs too, I feel like my stock will definitely change a few times before I get started with setup. But ill just keep up with my research till I'm sure of whats best, but I was hoping for a good blend of large and small fish. Thanks for all your help and I'll definitely keep RC updated when I get everything started.

 

[Mr Worley]

If you want to keep corals you need to decide what aquarium lights to get. IMHO lights can be an expensive but important purchase. Whether you go power compact /T5s/ Metal highlights or LEDs remember go give yourself space to upgrade if you decide to change from softies to SPS.

If you decide to get MH you might need a chiller. Personally I use fans on my DT and sump to keep the temperature down.

I was hoping to do a mixed reef, but I definitely need to look into lights and the different type of corals requirements more before I confirm that. I'll keep RC updated once I have a bit more figured out. Thanks !

 

[CStrickland]

Jawfish are cool but I don't think of them as beginner fish, and you need a special deep, mixed bed for them. That's fine if you really want a jawfish or something else that needs it, but tank maintenance is much simpler without sand or with just enough to look good.

Plus it's more fun to start with easy fish cause no matter how well you plan, mistakes will happen. It's discouraging to set up a new tank and then stock it with moderate / difficult fish only to lose them and crash the tank. IMO there's plenty of easy beautiful fish to learn the ropes with. If you go to liveaquaria.com they have a section of beginner fish to browse, and even when you are on other parts of the site you can set it to show you "easy care" species. That's a great way to learn about fish, they've got good pictures and the science stuff like tank sizes is pretty legit.

Also, in my noob opinion all this stuff about sand bed diversity is overrated. Sure, a couple of worms are good for stirring everything up, but now that people aren't really setting up dsb tanks I think the "beneficial microfauna" stuff is just added bioload masking a high nutrient condition. Except the stuff that certain pickier fish need to eat, like pods for a mandarin. But like I said, us noobs shouldn't have picky fish anyway.

 

[Mr Worley]

Jawfish are cool but I don't think of them as beginner fish, and you need a special deep, mixed bed for them. That's fine if you really want a jawfish or something else that needs it, but tank maintenance is much simpler without sand or with just enough to look good.

Plus it's more fun to start with easy fish cause no matter how well you plan, mistakes will happen. It's discouraging to set up a new tank and then stock it with moderate / difficult fish only to lose them and crash the tank. IMO there's plenty of easy beautiful fish to learn the ropes with. If you go to liveaquaria.com they have a section of beginner fish to browse, and even when you are on other parts of the site you can set it to show you "easy care" species. That's a great way to learn about fish, they've got good pictures and the science stuff like tank sizes is pretty legit.

Also, in my noob opinion all this stuff about sand bed diversity is overrated. Sure, a couple of worms are good for stirring everything up, but now that people aren't really setting up dsb tanks I think the "beneficial microfauna" stuff is just added bioload masking a high nutrient condition. Except the stuff that certain pickier fish need to eat, like pods for a mandarin. But like I said, us noobs shouldn't have picky fish anyway.

Good points, I didn't know the jawfish needed really deep beds. I think my best course of action is to start off with something more beginner friendly then to upgrade as I go along. Start off with some hardy beginner fish and easy soft corals and go from there. Thanks!

 

[Shawn O]

Yeah, Jawfish do need at least a 6" deep bed, assumed the OP would research the fish's needs beforehand. Some fish naturally hunt worms and such, keeping them alive for the fish just seems logical. Not sure the micro-fauna could be considered added bio-load if they help consume/dispose of excess detritus in the sand. I was under the impression that the micro-fauna could be considered part of the ongoing nitrogen cycle as they help break down the crud in the sand bed.

 

[CStrickland]

That's one way to think about it. What do you mean by "breaking down" and how is that beneficial exactly?

If you have a really long food chain with a lot of micro life at the bottom of it and you are feeding the top so each successive level is eating the poop of the one above it that is a higher bioload because all of those nutrients are still in the tank. It is more life eating, breathing, pooping. Extra pets. The most important nutrients for us are nitrogen and phos, which we add as food. So consider one piece of food's journey along this chain, there are 2 paths: your long one and my short one.

In yours the poop gets eaten and pooped all the way along, each time a little bit of nutrition is taken up, eventually the last poop gets pooped as neutral. All of that nutrition is still in the tank. Bacteria are getting skimmed, worms are dying or getting eaten and pooped again, etc etc but it's all still in the tank and you are still adding food. This cannot go on for ever. Along the way nitrates are produced and off gassed by bacteria, but phos is not. It is accumulating, maybe you run gfo.

In my tank I feed the fish and coral, they poop and it lands on the floor. Along the way nitrates are produced and off gassed by bacteria, but phos is not, it is accumulating. I could run gfo, but because I don't have a deep bed that can't be disturbed for fear of releasing ammonia or poisonous hydrogen sulfide, I can just clean that poop out of my tank by sucking it up from the sand when I change my water. No more accumulation.

The second way is stabler IMO because you don't have this ever increasing mass of unnecessary biology and its nutrients. No extra pets. There's good reasons for deep sand, an abiding love of jawfish is one, but I'm not sure a bunch of worms is.

 

[Shawn O]

My philosophy is that in the ocean there is life at all levels, everything has it's purpose and all are pretty dependent on each other. There are things, like the Crown Of Thorns star that does not serve a purpose that I can see, but it may. Such things I'd leave out, others I see as having a purpose of sorts. Breaking down the poop into smaller and smaller matter until it is converted and released as hydrogen seems like the logical cycle of things. Besides, Jawfish are on my long-term wish list. My dream tank would be large enough to include a 2 foot sand bed to accommodate Garden Eels and Snake Eel Blennies, but that's beside the point.