lr

jillian ayers

jillian ayers

Member
I have decided to turn my 75 gallon that I will be getting TOMORROW (YEAH!) into an all-fish tank rathar than a reef because I am new to saltwater and want to start slow instead of starting with a bunch of plants with different needs. The things I want to put in there are:
live rock
live sand
mandarinfish
purple psuedo
white cheek tang
six-line wrasse
maybe a cleaner fish or two
clean-up crew
some feather dusters
clownfish
blue and purple linkia starfish
anemones for the clowns
Is there anything else I should add? And since I now have an all-fish tank, how many pounds of lr and ls should I put in it? Thanx for the help! :confused:
-Jillian=+)
 
slothy

slothy

Active Member
you might wanna hold off on the madrin until your tank matures some more... and maybe x off the blue linkia as they dont last long.. i got one as a hitchhiker and taken him back tomorrow for store credit...
live rock prob 70-90 lbs.., atleast 4" sandbed..
 
sistrmary

sistrmary

Member
Hold off on the anemones as well as they require established tankwater and high (i.e. expensive lighting) and still die 99.9% of the time.
If you're looking for cleaner fish, go with either cleaner shrimps or neon or sharknose gobies. Cleaner wrasses, while widely available, rarely survive. I've got one that I bought from my LFS before he finally stopped carrying them, but it's in with a tang and a porcupine puffer (both huge ich magnets) and it's taken to frozen food readily. I bought it to give it a chance, not to just have one, and I've just been extremely lucky that it's lasted as long as it has. Most die within weeks, a lot die within days. They belong in the wild. They can also stress out your fish, since in nature, they set up cleaner stations where the fish will come to be picked free of parasites. In an aquarium, they're constantly pestering the fish, stressing them out.
 
sistrmary

sistrmary

Member
Not always :D But usually when I'm wrong, it's confusing something with something else. Or it's a personal opinion, which I guess shouldn't be considered wrong...just different lol
BTW Jillian, I don't mean to sound like I'm telling you what to put in your tank or what not to. I mean, it's, as always, your choice, I'm just offering you advice that I wish someone else had offered me back when I finally dove in.
 
angus

angus

Member
I'll just add my 2 cents. Skip the mandarin and the anemone.
Anemone's live for literally hundreds of years in the wild, but don't do that well in captive aquariums, especially new ones. Many folks will get an anemone only to watch it slowly die and pollute the tank. I know some people will say it's OK, I've got one and it's fine, but the fact that they live so long in the wild, well...it's your decison, but...
The mandarin will starve without lots of liverock and live sand. They eat the small copepods found crawling over the surface and not much else. If you wait for a while for the tank to mature (a year or more) and/or grow some pods in a refugium, that may work for you.
Again, don't wanna preach, it is your tank. I've made mistakes, everyone has, it's part of the learning process. But it sucks to watch something starve, you feel very helpless. Just trying to spare you that. :)
 
jillian ayers

jillian ayers

Member
I don't feel that anyone is preaching to me on here. I asked for help and I got it :) I will hold off on the anemones and the mandarinfish til I am more experienced in sw fish-keeping and the pod population has grown reasonably. As for the dottyback, I'll put it in last, but if I see it nipping, I have a 20 gallon with nothing in it, just waiting to make a good home. Thanx for the advice all! I'd be totally lost without a board like this!
-Jillian=+)
 
clarkiiboi

clarkiiboi

Active Member
Just to add, you may want a FOWLR for now. Meaning down the road, you may want to add something reef . So maybe take into consideration the fish you chose in the beginning, get reef safe fish, just incase you change your mind. Thats what I am doing, just wanted to pass it on. :)
 
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