First Ever Reef Tank! ALL NEW TO ME - Pile on with the advice and critiques :)

January 23

I have had freshwater tanks for a while, but always wanted to try salt. I was turned off by the cost of salt filling a large tank, etc. My freshwater 55 gallon is doing well, it's been up and running for 2+ years with a happy fish colony.

I have a fluval 9G flex (the bow front type) AIO. I have so far done the following:

Filled it with Instant Ocean salt + RO/DI water (from the grocery store) My refractometer (I had one already for other purposes) reads 4.4 Brix (about 35 ppt salinity from what I can tell online)

Placed caribeasea aragonite on the bottom

made my little caribsea live rock design

added Seachem stability bacteria from a bottle

Set up heater at 78 F

Now I just...just wait for it to cycle? Am I missing anything special for saltwater?

Stocking goal: one occelaris clown fish and one goby, like a watchman, and some sort of invert (hermit, crab, shrimp) for cleaning

If corals, low light varieties since the included LED (meant for freshwater) is only 7500K

General comments or critiques or helpful advice?
Am I missing any equipment here?
How long will the cycle take adding bacteria as I have?
do I just monitor salinity, temp, and general (ammonia, nitrate, etc) moving forward
Any advice for other stocking options other than the watchman goby + occerlaris? Could I do 2 of the occelaris clowns?
Whats a good invert for this setup?
Will my idea of low light corals work?
Should I have an anemone?
Should I add a marine buffer solution? I saw these online and at Petco, unsure if needed?
Do I need plankton or anything like that?

Thanks!!

January 24

You need to dose an ammonia source of some sort to cycle it, bottled bacteria alone can't cycle a tank - it needs a food source. How long the cycle takes is a how long is a piece of string question.

9G is too small for two clowns; one would be the max IMO. If you wanted, you could get a goby/pistol shrimp pair - they are great fun to watch. No, you don't "need" an anemone. CB clowns will host off pretty much anything and anemones are animals in their own right who can be pretty tricky to care for. You will probably need a clean up crew of hermit crabs and algae eating snails.

Yes, plenty of easy soft corals can be grown fine with things around about full spectrum (6300k): things like xenia, GSP, mushrooms. For these corals just keeping an eye on nitrates and phosphates is fine. I wouldn't bother with a buffer solution if you're using a high quality salt, generally keeping things simple is the way to go.

You'll want test kits for ammonia, nitrate, pH and phosphate for sure.

IMO......gobies are one of the BEST, beautiful and most interesting groups of fishes there is. And there's loads that would be suitable for a 9G tank 🙂 :

Stonogobiops xanthorhinica - hi fin goby, will pair with pistol shrimp!

Paragobiodon echinocephalus - red head coral goby, not one that will pair with a shrimp as it's a coral goby so its natural niche is sitting in the branches of stony corals - but so damn adorable . honestly probably the single cutest marine fish in existence

Amblyeotris sp. (I think) - will pair with shrimp, also happy in pairs

Elacatinus sp - neon goby - cute cute, lots of personality , dont pair with shrimp but more active than the coral gobies

Gobiodon histrio - green coral goby - just adorable tbh

ps all pics taken by me no stealing please anyone

January 24

What about a Clown with a Firefish and/or small Goby? The Gobies are SO CUTE!!

plus 2-4 snails and 1-2 other inverts (shrimp etc)

I did add ammonia (dried fish food) and it's reading at 0.25 ammonia. 0 nitrates. I am adding more bottled bacteria - Seachem stability

January 24

9G is too small for a firefish. 1 clown would be OK with another small fish so long as you added the clown last. Sorry I missed that you'd added fish food. I don't know how long it will take because I've always used bottled ammonium chloride, using food takes longer though as it has to break down to ammonia first. If you could get some live rock from another hobbyist's tank that would be ideal.

January 25

On 1/23/2024 at 1:42 PM, DragonStone said:

always wanted to try salt. I was turned off by the cost

...said everyone who's ever been in the hobby. 😉 Welcome!

On 1/23/2024 at 1:42 PM, DragonStone said:

Now I just...just wait for it to cycle? Am I missing anything special for saltwater?

What did the Seachem Stability instructions say? Double check, but I'm guessing the tank was ready for a fish (and no more; tank too small) when that went in.

On 1/23/2024 at 1:42 PM, DragonStone said:

Stocking goal: one occelaris clown fish and one goby, like a watchman

IMO pick one and go with that. Too small for more.

On 1/23/2024 at 1:42 PM, DragonStone said:

and some sort of invert (hermit, crab, shrimp) for cleaning

It will take more than one. Avoid crabs, IMO. Shrimp are residents, not cleaners per se.

On 1/23/2024 at 1:42 PM, DragonStone said:

If corals, low light varieties since the included LED (meant for freshwater) is only 7500K

You'll want a light that's got more blue. Much to your chagrin, algae will be much happier than corals under a 7500K light.

On 1/23/2024 at 1:42 PM, DragonStone said:

General comments or critiques or helpful advice?

Am I missing any equipment here?

How long will the cycle take adding bacteria as I have?

do I just monitor salinity, temp, and general (ammonia, nitrate, etc) moving forward

Any advice for other stocking options other than the watchman goby + occerlaris? Could I do 2 of the occelaris clowns?

Whats a good invert for this setup?

Will my idea of low light corals work?

Should I have an anemone?

Should I add a marine buffer solution? I saw these online and at Petco, unsure if needed?

Do I need plankton or anything like that?

Roughly in order....

One Seinfeld bit goes "it's not what you have, it's what you're stuck with". Reef equipment is like that. Yes it will do a job, but you also have to maintain it, it takes up space that something else could be using, etc. In your case, you already have a false-wall filter system – basically a power filter, but it takes up tank space instead of hanging outside the tank – so that's what you're "stuck with". 😉 Consider how to use it most optimally so it's not a pain, not too expensive, not en environment hazard, etc. 😉😉 A lot of folks think live rock and a protein skimmer is the ideal combo since the live rock is also the basic infrastructure so it's there anyway, and a protein skimmer runs without a filter-media that needs to be replaced or cleaned....only the "waste" gets discarded. There are merits to other methods (eg false wall), but all involve tradeoffs of one type or another. What's ideal for you might not be live rock and a skimmer, but IMO that option is at least worth seriously considering/understanading before you deviate.

It's not ideal to start reefing with such a small tank – take your time and build it slowly so you aren't overwhelmed by the results of any one bad decision.

Cycling happens naturally in 30-40 days. You would be well-served by reading some reefing books that competently cover the basics like this. Martin Moe's "Marine Aquarium Handbook - Beginner to Breeder" is a great place to start.

You used a cycling product called Seachem Stability that is intended to shorten the cycling time – what did the instructions on the bottle say?

Testing is another topic that should be well-covered in a book. What you look for will change in phases over time. Ammonia is a concern at the beginning, for example. @seabasshas great article on ammonia, cycling and testing, BTW. https://www.nano-reef.com/articles/

You should look at a tank of at least 15-20 gallons if you want two fish like the ones you've been looking at.

As long as you don't choose invert-eating fish, most inverts fit into a reef perfectly. Just know their habits BEFORE you buy anything.

Most corals in the hobby don't need a ton of light in terms of wattage, but they do need a lot of blue....mostly in order to look their best. There might be a way to supplement your light or replace it with a more suitable one.

Only certain types of anemones, and it would be best to wait until you've had the tank for a while before you decide.

Adding things like buffers is only done in combination with testing. I would do a lot more reading. Start here...

...but don't stop there!

Focus on good articles (lots here and here) and books (here) until you have a good handle on things. Avoid edutainment video resources until then.

January 26

Don't really expect your clean up crew to clean much of anything up. Plan on cleaning the tank yourself, particularly at first.

Get pods and live phyto and some goop from the shop of another reefer so you can have some benthic life such as amphipods and micro brittle stars and little creepy crawly things. You might pick up a pest or two, but dinos are much worse.

Don't ask a million questions and take the answers to heart, find threads about tanks similar to yours and see what happened to other people when they did whatever it is they did, see what worked what didn't, build threads, particularly those of tanks that have been up for some years are the most valuable resource available I think.

Remember that these tiny tanks, are not the ocean and all methods are compromises with corresponding advantages and repercussions.

I would establish the tank with some crabs and snails and corals before I tried to put any fish in there. A lot of people try to start out tiny tanks with fish right off the bat and a lot of fish die rather quickly. I can't think of a single successful thread where somebody started a tiny nano with fish and they lasted too dang long more than a couple of months, though I'm sure some people have succeeded.

I think rushing things is unfair to the fish and ultimately a naive approach. Just because you have zero ammonia doesn't mean you have a stable established tank or that you have a suitable habitat to keep a fish alive. Saltwater fish, for the most part, seem to me to be more intelligent and have much bigger personalities than typical tropical fish, so it seems cruel to pull them out of the ocean and kill them in tiny unstable little water cells run by inexperienced clumsy newbies.

Just look at all of the "my clownfish is sick" threads...🤢

Look how many people get gobies and see how long most of them last.

Develop a good maintenance routine for the tank and let it get through all of it's ugly stages before you get a fish.

Once the tank is looking good and wait until you know all about the evaporation rate, the nitrate levels, how much water you need to change to keep the nitrate at an acceptable range, know the alkalinity usage, the ph swings and the temperature swings and wait until you know how much havoc you wreak on the stability of the tank when you do your cleaning and water changes before you get a fish.

Don't get a fish until you are already running your tank with a tight inescapable lid.

^^^poor little dude 😞

disclaimer...I don't have any fish in my tanks.

Don't put the fish before the tank! Don't get a fish that you know isn't right for the tank with the "I'm getting a bigger tank soon excuse"

Don't kill a saltwater fish. Maybe practice with a guppy or two or a molly first.

Remember that a reef tank, particularly a small one, takes a bit of attention and finesse, and a fish makes it all very much more difficult.

The other thing I would advise is to get another way to measure salinity and cross check your measurements, and take both to your LFS and get them to measure their water with them too so that you can have some idea if they are accurate or not. triangulate!

Measure your salinity everyday. Twice is even better.

Get a inkbird temp controller on top of the heater.

Good luck and have fun.

January 26

Thank you all!

I have the crabs (2 zebra) , coral (2) and (2) turbo snails and just going to start with that - no fish for a while! 🙂

January 26

5 hours ago, fenderchamp said:

Don't kill a saltwater fish. Maybe practice with a guppy or two or a molly first.

I agree with everything except this.

Don't kill any fish. They're sentient beings ffs

January 26

9 hours ago, fenderchamp said:

find threads about tanks similar to yours and see what happened to other people when they did whatever it is they did, see what worked what didn't, build threads, particularly those of tanks that have been up for some years are the most valuable resource available I think.

This is so true and will save you and the livestock from heartbreak.

January 26

4 hours ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

I agree with everything except this.

Don't kill any fish. They're sentient beings ffs

I wasn't suggesting that anybody kill anything intentionally, but as you know from recent personal experience, sometimes things go south, and you don't know why.

I was trying to suggest that one could acclimate a couple of guppies or a molly to saltwater and see how keeping them goes in one's small nano tank before buying actual blennies or gobies or other saltwater fish and throwing them in a small tank. Mollies and Guppies are certainly sentient lifeforms and should be treated such but they are also very much captive bred much cheaper and I think less intelligent and less sensitive than typical reef fish.

January 26

14 hours ago, fenderchamp said:

Don't put the fish before the tank! Don't get a fish that you know isn't right for the tank with the "I'm getting a bigger tank soon excuse"

Don't kill a saltwater fish. Maybe practice with a guppy or two or a molly first.

Remember that a reef tank, particularly a small one, takes a bit of attention and finesse, and a fish makes it all very much more difficult.

Just posting the quote in context.

January 26

Not sure you could say CB clowns & similar arent pretty much just as hardy if not moreso than poecilids mass produced in the middle east for the trade. Properly aquacultured marine fish (especially if bred in the same country the aquarist is in) are likely to be less inbred, have a much lower risk of being full of parasites, and aren't stressed rom air freighting halfway across the globe. I agree with everything you say, just don't like the implication that they are somehow lesser.

January 26

Although I will say possible caveat to this is I am a HUGE livebearer fan so bit biased 😅 I've actually never kept a clownfish in a personal tank lol but worked with plenty .......... otherwise everything you say is right and I say that as someone who absolutely killed two coral gobies who didnt need to die by adding fish too fast to my first reef tank 😞 doing things slowly and carefully is definitely the way to go

January 26

1 hour ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

Not sure you could say CB clowns & similar arent pretty much just as hardy if not moreso than poecilids mass produced in the middle east for the trade. Properly aquacultured marine fish (especially if bred in the same country the aquarist is in) are likely to be less inbred, have a much lower risk of being full of parasites, and aren't stressed rom air freighting halfway across the globe. I agree with everything you say, just don't like the implication that they are somehow lesser.

I think I did imply that too, maybe I'm out of line there.

I still think that little salt water fish, e.g. the tailspot blenny seem a bit more self aware and intelligent than guppies, but I certainly don't know that for certain.

I just feel sorry for them when they are obviously put right into the "death cab for cutie", where in contrast I guess seeing tanks full of "feeder" guppies makes me think of them as a commodity. Maybe my views on guppies and mollies need some reconsideration.

None-the-less if I felt the need to see how a fish would do in my little pico, which I'm surely never going to do though I have been as far as I'm concerned, misadvised to get a fish by some of the employees at my LFS and other people that I know, I think I would get a guppy or two (no more than that) to see how they did with my tank keeping before I bought I little ocean dweller.

I think that I don't empathize with little guppies as much as I do with little reef fish, I think it's just the way the little blennies and such track and look at me through the glass.

Plus I see how many people kill little reef fish in threads here and I feel bad for them, or just keep them in tiny tanks where they couldn't possibly be happy.

I would never buy any animal with the intention of killing it, though I've got to admit, I've got a pretty bad record with hermit crabs, and I've lost a few Orandas over the last 10 years. Aquariums can be kind of a rough business.

January 26

Each to their own I suppose, to me a life's a life; my route into fishkeeping was rescuing goldfish (something I still do) and a random freebie guppy matters as much to me as any of my conservation project fishes, or my koi, or an ££££ designer clownfish.

From looking at the literature I don't think the intelligence of most reef fishes and poecilids is really comparable. It's not that one is head and shoulders above the other but more that their cognition is geared towards such different environments that it's totally different.

Anyway, I'm happy to agree to disagree on this, because you're by no means a poor aquarist and I love reading your contributions to threads and learning from them.

(I will say I have toyed with the idea of putting a poecilia wingei pair in my reef ......)

January 26

3 hours ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

[....] just don't like the implication that they are somehow lesser.

Maybe the takeaway is that they ARE lesser in one key way – they are significantly smaller than clownfish. 🙂 Guppies especially.

Being so much smaller they are more ideal to start with since their "ammonia footprint" will also be commensurately smaller...probably beneath the level of concern as long as feeding was well controlled and efficient.

Clownfish are generally A LOT bigger.

Still, in most cases there are cleanup crew that are smaller and have even lower metabolisms...so at least in saltwater, I'd start with them. If there was no CUC availability, I'd probably hesitate in starting a tank in the first place. CUC is crucial.

January 26

4 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

CUC is crucial.

Looks like a thread starter.

January 26

1 hour ago, fenderchamp said:

I think that I don't empathize with little guppies as much as I do with little reef fish,

I think the fact that 2 guppies can (and do) self-propagate like they do – with no help whatsoever; under virtually any conditions – we take a different view.

IMO that's fair since the clownfish someone gets will have almost 0% chance to reproduce...it seems right that special concern would be shown to them.

Whether that means "lesser" seems like putting something extra on the conversation....none are "lesser" in the superlative way....and I'm not sure that's what anyone is talking about. (I would imagine that folks who actually do think fish are "lesser" probably don't get into this hobby or spend time on these forums.)

January 26

TBF I'm convinced some people who own fish don't actually like them based off the way they (entirely wilfully, not through ignorance) treat them (no one on this forum, just a comment based on personal observation).

January 27

1 hour ago, InAtTheDeepEnd said:

TBF I'm convinced some people who own fish don't actually like them based off the way they (entirely wilfully, not through ignorance) treat them (no one on this forum, just a comment based on personal observation).

I can't argue with that.

I'm certainly thankful for the few newbs who are NOT content with learning the hobby from asocial media and videos. So much garbage and bad influence mixed with such scant quantities of actual information. It leads so many newbs – even those with good intentions – into a predictable pattern of tank troubles that often includes compromised fish health.

Better information resources = fewer dead animals.

Sign In

First Ever Reef Tank! ALL NEW TO ME - Pile on with the advice and critiques :)

Recommended Posts

DragonStone

Link to comment

InAtTheDeepEnd

Link to comment

DragonStone

Link to comment

InAtTheDeepEnd

Link to comment

mcarroll

Link to comment

fenderchamp

Link to comment

DragonStone

Link to comment

InAtTheDeepEnd

Link to comment

debbeach13

Link to comment

fenderchamp

Link to comment

mcarroll

Link to comment

InAtTheDeepEnd

Link to comment

InAtTheDeepEnd

Link to comment

fenderchamp

Link to comment

InAtTheDeepEnd

Link to comment

mcarroll

Link to comment

debbeach13

Link to comment

mcarroll

Link to comment

InAtTheDeepEnd

Link to comment

mcarroll

Link to comment

Join the conversation

Recommended Discussions

Home

Library

Forums

Journals

Gallery

Sponsors