Thread: Hey guys
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Unread 06/26/2019, 01:17 PM   #5
Small Heavens
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Join Date: Sep 2017
Posts: 246
Oh nice, that does look great, congratulations on getting your SW tank. With your experience, I am certain you will be very happy with your aquarium.
I keep a nano with a Macrodactyla Doreensis & 2 Sulawesi type Amphiprion Polymnus clowns. I suggest you study the clowns First. Some ocean fishes grow huge and will simply hit the glass and hurt themselves, also most fishes grow sick if wild caught and from wildly different places in the world, then any "common flue" can kill a healthy fish

You can easily call Clownfishes for the cichlid of SW, I think you will enjoy them a lot. Polymnus swims with up and down motions (the other clowns swims with side-to-side motion), the bigger clowns are too aggressive and often kill eachother - the Polymnus, a medium clown, looks very different than the others, it is uhm, less flappery or rubbery. Their dorsal spikes look very different from the rubbery types and their entire body is less rubbery and more harmonic (drop shaped).

The issue with clowns is, they aren't good in community tanks. I would make a tank like yours into a single specimen anemone tank with your favourite anemone and then add a group (small group 3-5) of medium size and medium aggression anemones fishes like the Amphiprion Polymnus.
You would have to make sure the smaller clowns have hiding places that are too small or uncomfortable for the dominant clown to follow, otherwise the bigger fish might even force the smaller fish to jump the tank.

People might add other fishes to clown tanks, but, it really really subdue their behaviour terribly to do so. Mixed fishes with clowns, can make the clowns stick together easier, as they become too afraid (of the other fishes) to fight with eachother - but I dont like that tactic, as it still makes the clowns stay very still all day and they shouldn't be doing that, it makes the clowns much less interesting.

I would not suggest that you spend too much time on "starter corals". Many of them are much more difficult to remove again than they are to get to flourish. You seem to have strong experience with the FW and should probably rather study until you find what corals/fish or anemones is a Must Have for you.
Their demands of water conditions are highly different and some cannot tolerate the allelopathy of specific other types: you want to focus on >your< Must Haves from the start. That way you avoid getting a starter coral that release toxics if you try to remove it later, and you avoid mysterious deterioration caused by hostile mixes of allelopathy.

You can easily keep a "smaller" tank, just figure out from the start if you prefer "deep water corals", "not so deep water corals" or "shoreline" (anemones) water conditions. Anemones lives near FW outlets, and in lagoons, etc., they can handle stuff many deep water corals cannot.

Keeping the bigger or smaller tanks is rather like the difference in having a big child or a baby.

You can leave a bigger tank alone but the nano tank acts like a total baby and needs constant attention through regular water changes, the smaller it is, the less you can leave it on its own.

So it is not impossible to keep small SW tanks but mainly if you feel like tending it alittle more so than not Your tank choice seems a good one, big enough to run some auto-dosers or auto-feeders, and not as demanding as a true nano.

I hope you get as little trouble as possible, I read constantly on Wet Web Media to learn and they have a ton of great Knowledge available to read up on, I also find that animal world.com have very stable information about types of corals and care although. Lastly: don't blame yourself for every mistake that happens. Remember that wild caught aquaria often die just because it is hard to handle living in a clear container after being born into the sea. Get Aquarium raised fishes when possible, with wild caught not every loss can be avoided at all and the death rate is rather high with many species. Just learn from potential mistakes, and ENJOY & help mankind become great at saving SW life while you are at it



Last edited by Small Heavens; 06/26/2019 at 02:11 PM.
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