1st time corals/anenomes questions.

C

Carlandjulie

AC Members
Aug 19, 2006
6
0
0
Firstly Hi all,
I have a 20ish gallon 36" x 12" x 18" tank ive been running for about 5 months now and have been successfully keeping 2 clown fish,1 neon,1 humbug damselfish,1 puffer fish and a lemon wrasse,5 crabs and 4 turbo snails.The tank itself seems very stable with 10% water changes weekly.I have nice size mushrooms and grass growing and as we all seem to do i want to move on to anenomes and similar for more character,movement and something for my clows to maybe enjoy.
My lighting is 1 x 24" marine white 14,000k and 1 x 24" marine actinic blue.
My question is which corals/anenomes are i better going for that will add the characters im looking for without causing too much risk to a stable and slowly maturing tank.oh at the moment im not using RO water which i intend to do in the near future because im spending a fortune on phosphate remover if this might help thing on the anenome side.
Any help much appreciated.


Thanks
Carl
 
i wouldnt even attempt any corals or anenomes until you upgrade your lighting. you want at least PCs but if you dont want to be limited to what you keep or want to keep just about any anenome, id get MH or at least a lot of t5s.
also, what type of puffer and wrasse do you have? since you didnt say the species, it is very possible that they will outgrow your tank (which already seems a little heavily stocked) and may also pick at corals. generaly, jsut about all puffers will, but every fish is different.
I also wouldnt try any until you start using RO water. if your tap water is bad enough where you are spendings tons of money on phosphate removers, then it is probably pretty bad and there would be tons of other undesired solutes in there
 
No anemone in anything smaller then 75G
 
apparently the wrasse is a Halichoeres chrysus when its not buried itself and im not sure about the puffer but its green in colour and grey with a long nose with green eyes and ate all my plants.
I thought adding the blue actinic light would allow me to add some easy/small anenomes or corals.Does this mean im stuck with what i have as i was thinking of making things abit more exciting in there? :sad:
 
That seems like a lot of fish for a 20 gallon or even a 30. What are your nitrates at? You said you are using phosphate removers a lot anemones are very picky about light and water quality. Any nitrates above 10 will be the end for anemone and many corals. Do you have any live rock? What type of bed do you have sand, coral and how deep. Corals and anemones will require certain things and will surely die off if not met. Lighting can be upgraded easily but water quality can not.
 
First, with those dimensions, your tank more in the 30g range (roughly 33g if those were inside dimensions).

If you have been using tap water this entire time, it is possible that you have a certain amount of metals in your tank (depending on your home's plumbing and water source). If so, you could be looking at a potential nightmare for any corals / anemone that you'd add to your tank, depending on the specific metals and the concentrations present.

IMO, your tank is too small and too young for an anemone.

Nitrates < 20 ppm are acceptable for most corals. Considering you're looking to get your first corals, I'd hope you'd steer clear from any that are difficult and/or require more pristine water conditions.

Actinic lighting has nothing to do with whether or not you can keep corals. It is more for effect than anything else. The bulk of corals you'll run into have photosynthetic capabilities, rely on them heavily, and require daylight style bulbs much more than actinic bulbs.

For better water quality, look at RO/DI instead of just RO (if you're considering buying your own unit). DI (deionization) will remove ions that pass through the RO membrane and provide cleaner water, making RO/DI a more practical long term choice unless your tap water is exceptionally good (which it doesn't sound like yours is if you're using so much phosphate remover). The DI step produces no additional waste water and is just one more cartridge to replace along with the pre-filter cartridges.
 
Ghost_knife said:
No anemone in anything smaller then 75G
Click to expand...
why would you say that???
i agree some species should have a larger tank, but you can aboslutly keep anenomes in tanks smaller than a 75
 
Hey until someone even comes close to the natural life span of an anemone I don't think they should be kept in any size tank.

As to the OP, there are many soft easy corals you can try, but I agree get your water conditions more stable first. Look into the mushrooms. They are much more tolerant of low light.
 
TKOS said:
Hey until someone even comes close to the natural life span of an anemone I don't think they should be kept in any size tank.
.
Click to expand...
i do agree with that. almost all anenomes will die within the first year and very few will live a life of multiple years. and assuming how they can theoredicly live pretty much forever in the wild, if you are going to buy one, i would at least get a captive raised one from a fellow reefer and not a wild one.
 
ro water

can someone advise me as to which ro/di kit i would need for a weekly water chance in my now 28 gallon tank,that doesnt cost the earth may be second hand if anybody has one selling.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom