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What next?


classyfish

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Ok, long story short or shorter anyway. New to saltwater have a 29 biocube bought from craigslist that was up and running about 2 years. After almost a year and a lot of problems but a lot of learning things seem to be going well. There is live rock, live sand (just recently added) a mexican turbo snail and the baby corals that started growing on their own. (See id thread) Last week I added 3 sand sifting snails, 3 margarita snails and a halloween hermit. My question is what gets added next and when? Can a fish or two be added now?

Thanks for the replies!

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OClownsandNanos

Wow one year - sounds like you've definitely been going slow which is admirable. Congrats on that LR score, BTW. As the others said, QT is best to use when adding your fish. QTing for at least four weeks should be sufficient. It will guarantee nothing like marine ich gets into your tank. Which fish were you thinking about BTW? And you don't have to add only one at a time if you are doing pairs or something like that of course.

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Thanks for the admiration but it has been mainly due to one problem after another. What kind of set up do I need for a QT tank? We are researching now what to put in the tank. The tank is in a classroom so we want easy but interesting for the students. My LFS said we can have 10 to 12 fish if we stick to small ones like gobies. Does this sound right? I am open to any and all suggestions for fish. I've checked out the stickey but would love to hear peoples opinions on the best way to stock the tank. We did have a clown fish which came with the tank when we got it and he was so aggressive we gave him to the fish store, so as much as the kids enjoyed having Nemo we are not sure we want another one. Sorry for the long post and thanks for any input!

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A quarantine tank can be as simple as a 5-10 gallon tank with a HOB filter and some shelter for the livestock. That said, many nano fish (like gobies) are largely disease-resistant and don't absolutely require quarantining. The most important thing is that they are feeding well wherever you place them.

 

10-12 fish is kind of large even if you had only gobies. Stick to less than ~8 small fish. Small is around 2-3" or less (note: in general, "inches per gallon" rules are inaccurate for SW fish). These include the genuses Trimma, Eviota, Elacatinus/Gobiosoma (neon gobies), Gobiodon (clown gobies), and the various shrimp gobies. Shrimp gobies, with a pistol/snapping shrimp, would be a good educational tool for symbiosis (clowns and anemones are more obvious, but many anemones are challenging to keep).

 

Check lgreen's fish guide at the top of the beginners forum for more ideas since gobies are only a part of the diversity of suitable fish. Get the ID of the fish you want down to the species level, and remember that territoriality often is the main limit to keeping groups in any small tank.

 

Clowns are a good example; they are part of the normally aggressive damselfish family, but only two species (Amphiprion percula and A. ocellaris) are safe for peaceful tanks. Even then, they can be aggressive; yours was likely a female, which act as the dominant individual in a clown group.

 

When you have a finalized list, post it here so other members can check for conflicts.

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