This is bad

[shreez]

I had a really nice looking reef setup and this lfs sold me some fish and like 5 turbo snails. I brought all of the stuff home not even 2 days later something that was introduced to my tank literally killed everything in it and now all I have is algae.
Now I'm leaning toward more of an aggressive fish only and was just wondering how many and what kinds of fish would go well in my setup. I have a 25 gallon extra tall. Is the extra tall a bad thing for this kind of setup?
Also, I'm going to be starting from scratch so I'm going to go with new substrate/water. Can anyone tell me how I should go about cycling this thing for the type of tank I will have. Should I just use damsels, since they will probably end up being eaten?
Thanks for any suggestions!
Chris

 

[shreez]

Well, what could I do other than a reef or aggressive. I don't have the cash for the filtration needed for an aggressive and I had a lot of technical difficulties with my reef. Would you reccommend anything specific for a fish only? Or find another hobby?

 

[grouperhead]

dont even try to put a dwarf lion or an eel in that tank at all, that is just ridiculous. dwarfs need a 55 minmium and eels need a 40 minimum. if you really want an agressive setup, go out and buy a larger tank (i would suggest a 75, its dimensions are 48x18x20). you really cant do anything agressive in a 20. go buy a couple books on marine tanks, do some research and you should be ok. as for never going with an lfs' advice, i disagree with that. some lfs' are out there for the money, but some are hard workers there to help you. after you read up, youll get some more insight and be able to tell if an lfs is good or not. bo

 

[grouperhead]

id say not puttin a cb w/ a cleaner would be good advice since cb's sometimes can be quite aggressive and eat other fish and shrimps. another thing, dont post just to add more posts to your total count, because it means absolutley jack crap. if you dont know, or arent sure about something just dont post, your info will be just as much respected if you give good info with 50 posts as good info with 1000 posts. so dont post just to post. bo

 

[shreez]

Actually you were both wrong. It's a 25 gallon!
At any rate, I would like to know what WOULD be good in this tank that is NOT reef. I would like to start some sort of fish only tank. I tried reef and just wasn't as pleased with it as I thought I'd be.
Any thoughts guys? Thanks for the input so far.

 

[terence trent]

Go w/ a FOWLR. I have the same size tank in my in a spare in bed room in my house and have a small clean up crew, 2 purple Firefish, and a drawf hawkfish.

 

[terence trent]

Oh yah, an additional thought...if you really want to go aggressive you might be able to get away with a small sharp nose puffer, but that would be about all that you could put in the tank.

 

[shreez]

Could you please define FOWLR for me? I'm not familiar with some of this terminology as I'm quite new to this.
Thanks,
Chris

 

[fender]

FO - Fish Only
FOWLR - Fish Only With Live Rock
LR- Live Rock
LS - Live Sand
DSB - Deep Sand Bed
CC - Crushed Coral
PH - Power Head (as opposed to Ph which should be between 8.0- 8.4)
CB - Coral Banded Shrimp
Did I miss any?

 

[grouper 42]

Interesting that there are no real good guidelines for how many fish, of what size can go in a specific tank. You will see all sort of opinions but I am not aware of any research that provides the home enthusiast with any kind of concrete guidelines. The more aggressive the fish (i.e. triggers) or fish that are not compatible (i.e conspecifics) the less you can squeeze in. The smaller the tank then the less per gallon also IMO. If cost and time are a concern then in a 25 gal you might consider just doing freshwater fish or no more then 5-6 inches worth of saltwater. Otherwise invest in a bigger tank and make the hobby worth your while.

 

[grouperhead]

please tell me what you are talking about. where was a showing anger? maybe if i knew where i was showing anger i can explain why i said it. you dont have to be a smart allec either. bo

 

[blueberryboomer]

shreez, we have a 20 gal tall, we used to have just a mantis shrimp in it, he was so cool, he died, we think from old age, he was about 6in. long. When we couldn't find another mantis to put in it, I bought about 8 damsels, 2of each kind, lemon, chromis, sergent, and yellow and black stripes, they we're all very pretty and it gave the tank some color and activity.
I would recomend cycleing with raw shrimp that you buy at the grocery store, it works great. Lisa