starfish tank

fishboy52

fishboy52

Member
hello i'm new to the world of saltwater and i've been reading these boards for a while now and i like to start a small tank so i went to wall-mart and picked up a five gallen eclipse. Its aqrilic, it has flouresent lighting and a bio wheel.
i was thinking of starting a reef thank but i really didn't want to spend that much money on coral (a least not now and in this size tank)
so i was wondering if i could make this into a starfish tank
i would like to keep three choclate chip.
i did my reaseach .... i plan to get about six pounds of live rock and about five pounds of live sand
would i be posible to keep a such tank
please give me as much information as you can
throw at me!.......
 
alyssia

alyssia

Active Member
I'm not sure if you could keep CC stars in a tank that size. I've seen some pretty big CC's.
 
debbie

debbie

Active Member
You might want to do some reading about the differenty types of stars available to the saltwater hobbyist. Stars need a much larger tank than your current one, a very mature system of at least 6 months old and many of the stars also get to quite a size.
I had a chocolate chip star in my 25 gal for 6 months. Spot feeding it and all did not make this star happy and sadly it passed away.
The only tiny stars out there that would be okay for a tank of that size are the Asternia stars, I have two of these as hitchhikers and they are very cute and very small.
Stars IMO need a large mature system, urchins are another that follow in this same way too. If you plan on keeping your 5 gal eclipse you might want to look at the live rock and sand for starters. A clown goby later on when cycled would be real cute and you don't have to spend an arm and a leg on corals. Mushrooms are great easy corals to have in your type of tank.
I started my mushroom collection with just "single frags" they soon multiply and then you have more. There are so many types of mushrooms out there that you could add some nice color to that tank.
Add a couple of snails and a hermit crab too. Don't go overboard on those inverts as your tank is only 5 gal and IMO to many people put way to many of these into their tanks only to post here why their inverts are dying. Well, food is the number on key. There just is not enough natural food for them in the tank when you over crowd them.
I have one very large snail and one hermit crab in my 25 gal and it is spotless.....
So be careful there.
But you could still have a cute tank with that, your water changes, water top ups etc will have to be closely monitored as the smaller the tank the more it needs to be watched.
Good luck and do some looking regarding the stars and you will understand where I am coming from.....
 
fishboy52

fishboy52

Member
how about a good sun coral
would i be able to keep a sun coral
under my eclipse's pc lights
yes before you guys get mad at me yes i will be putting in the time to feed him proproly
 
debbie

debbie

Active Member
That I cannot answer for you as I have never had one and I don't know what their lighting needs are. But for the mushroom, you fish store should have some single mushroom frags if no one in your area has mushrooms to give you.
 
jon321

jon321

Member
I would never do a cc star or sun polyps in a 5g. Reason being with all the spot feeding they foul water quality quickly, even in a large tank. Ive had both in 20g+ tanks and weekly waterchanged were REQUIRED just to keep nitrates manageable. Both are very hard on the bio filtration.
Jon
 
fishboy52

fishboy52

Member
i kinda figured that
but my lfs is getto they just priced the coral all the same so a frag of mushroom comes out to 70$ thats alot and i live in south padre isalnd and no one keeps reefs here only the hotels but there ** i asked if they could frag a mushroom and i would give them like ten dallors for it but there like how about fifty for that rock.
So i said can i see the rock ...... the picked out a rock and it had like 1 mushroom on it........ so i said no its so expensive :scared:
i just want a small tank so i don't have to spend so much money
and unlike in freshwater the tank isn't the expensive thing:
live rock
live sand
coral
and its not like in freshwater that fish are no more than 6$ (unless chichlids)
 
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