brand new spanking salt newbie here

jshigman

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Jun 6, 2004
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hi everyone, well i finally started a salt tank since i have had brackish and fresh water for years with know problems, i finally broke down and started a tank. I know i went kinda small 20 gallon long, but i am finicky about my tank waters so i will keep up on my salty little tank. Anyway i have had the tank cycling for 6 weeks and have live rock 20 lbs of it and aragonite as a substrate. i know i know people like sand but i liked the aragonite look, so anyways ph is 8.3 o nitrites and o ammonia, my question is that i bought a piece od liverock the other day with what the lfs told me was dead coral on it, so i bought it cause it looked cool, well i freaked this morning when i looked into the tank and saw the "dead coral"
ALIVE now and soaking up the light. I have a 10,000 t8 coralife light that is on the tank and was wondering if this would be alright since the tank is not that deep? I wasnt planning on keeping coral but hell if she is living i would like to keep her going.
If i can. i was planning on a clownfish maybe two and some shrimp snails you know the cleaner crew so. fire away guys and gals and feed me the info.
Oh ya great site.:confused: :D what does coral live on also to eat? i am completely stumped on this. wasnt planning on it to be alive but oh well let her survive then.
 
Great to hear you have a live one! Corals have diverse requirements, so it's a little hard to tell you much without a better description or a photo. Most won't do particularly well with a single striplight, though. Some feed on zooplankton, some phytoplankton, and some don't appear to eat at all.

Two clowns in a 20 is about perfect. If you get a couple of juveniles, you will end up with a mated pair. For a tank that size, smaller species like percula, ocellaris, pinks or skunks will work very well.

For a cleaning crew, I always recommend a mixed bag of 10-15 snails (astrea, nassarius, cerith, trochus, strombus), some hermits (I prefer scarlets, blue legs are OK), maybe a serpent star. A few scarlet cleaner shrimp may also suit you.
 
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