Hey im going to try to set up my first sw tank, its 30 gallons. What fish and coral would be best to start with? and any advice on ph and what not. thank you
First SW Try
- Thread starter coolrunnings
- Start date
well you need to chose a fish only with live rock or a reef tank? do you have the right lights? filtrations? you need alot of stuff if your going to do corals
Id start with live rock and reef safe fish. You dont want to put corals in at the start.
Your tank needs cycle time of course before you add in fish, but it needs settle in time before you add in coral.
Otherwise you will be spending money for nothing.
When you do start getting corals, start with a leather coral. They are hardy and if it does well, then add in other types.
Lighting is VERY important when having corals. And will be the second biggest expense you have. (live rock is your first biggest expense)
So, keep it simple at first. Live rock, substrate, skimmer (a must).
Let the tank FULLY cycle.
Then add in snails and hermit crabs.
See how they do.. (week or so)
Then add in a reef safe fish of your liking. Start with cheaper fish at first like clowns or fire fish.
See how they do.
One fish a week is best..
Get a tang at some point also. Will help with algea issues on your live rock...
After a few months of having fish,,,
Get good lighting.. T5's or LED's
Then start adding in corals. Like I said, leathers are good ones to start with..
Do some research..
Start with substrate, Live Rock, and a Skimmer.
Live rock is best, will cycle your tank faster..
Your tank needs cycle time of course before you add in fish, but it needs settle in time before you add in coral.
Otherwise you will be spending money for nothing.
When you do start getting corals, start with a leather coral. They are hardy and if it does well, then add in other types.
Lighting is VERY important when having corals. And will be the second biggest expense you have. (live rock is your first biggest expense)
So, keep it simple at first. Live rock, substrate, skimmer (a must).
Let the tank FULLY cycle.
Then add in snails and hermit crabs.
See how they do.. (week or so)
Then add in a reef safe fish of your liking. Start with cheaper fish at first like clowns or fire fish.
See how they do.
One fish a week is best..
Get a tang at some point also. Will help with algea issues on your live rock...
After a few months of having fish,,,
Get good lighting.. T5's or LED's
Then start adding in corals. Like I said, leathers are good ones to start with..
Do some research..
Start with substrate, Live Rock, and a Skimmer.
Live rock is best, will cycle your tank faster..
To what everyone else has said... I suggest starting with fish and live rock only no coral to start as coral is dificult to noobs and needs required lighting like already said. Just start with live rock, live sand and a few small reef safe fish.
Cycling wont be necessary if you use Live rock and Live sand
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Cycling wont be necessary if you use Live rock and Live sand
.you can put a "small" tang in a 30 gallon. Small blue tang would be all I would do. At some point it "will" out grow the tank, but you can always trade it in for another small one.
Tangs help with keeping algea down in your tank.
But like I said before, get what fish you think you want to get.
If planning on boing a reef, just make sure they are reef safe.
i will also tell you, in my exp, larger tanks (75 gal or up) are easier to do. But not everyone has the room for larger tanks.
If sticking with the 30 gallon tank, just make sure you keep up on water changes. I would do at least 10% to 15% every week...
And yes, the tank will need to cycle. Even with live rock.
Tangs help with keeping algea down in your tank.
But like I said before, get what fish you think you want to get.
If planning on boing a reef, just make sure they are reef safe.
i will also tell you, in my exp, larger tanks (75 gal or up) are easier to do. But not everyone has the room for larger tanks.
If sticking with the 30 gallon tank, just make sure you keep up on water changes. I would do at least 10% to 15% every week...
And yes, the tank will need to cycle. Even with live rock.
Whoh. Glad I saw this.
First off, start reading as much as you can, from as many different places. You will start to learn what sort of filtration system will work for you.
Secondly, buy the tank, the system sand and rock. I recommend dry sand, live sand is usually lousy, and it is not live. I use aragonite with a grain size of 1-2mm so that I can gravel vac it.
Now start looking that fish that are acceptable for a 30g aquarium. NO tang is suitable for a 30g aquarium. You can start on www.liveaquaria.com looking at fish (this pretty well covers most of what you will see in a pet store) and from there you can start to research your stock. What do they require etc. Do not just rely on what fosters tells you, seriously go out and google them. Read about their care on as many different sites as possible. Then start coming here and telling us all what you want in your tank. We can give you personal experiences with those fishes or combinations of animals.
Now, make sure that your tank has cycled, and you can stock your clean up crew. (snails, hermits, sea stars...whatever)
After that, you can add your first fish. My usual rule of thumb is that I wait one h2o change in between fish additions. Helps your h2o stay clean and stable, and also allows your BB colony some time to grow to meet the demands.
Now after your tank is fully stocked (which should not take long in a 30g tank) you need to acheive stability.
Once your tank has matured, and all parameters are coral growth acceptable, and stable - you can start adding corals.
I would research what corals you might want to keep now. Again, start at liveaquaria to get some ideas of what stuff looks like, and then start researching the web, and checking stuff with us back here. We can make sure that you avoid, or are at least aware of bad combinations, things that will kill or eat other things, or things that ended up just dying for us or being headaches. Trust me, there is more to coral selection that just looks.
I also wouldnt tell you to just go out and add a leather coral. Leather corals once attached to the rock are almost impossible to completely remove, and they are fierce chemical competitors. In such a small tank as soon as that leather coral got comfy, it would have that tank saturated with alleopathic cometition. These specific chemicals can brown or kill sps, will kill trach brains (talk to me about this, lost two $500 down the drain) and kill other softies, corals and anemones.
Going back to the tang thing - tangs for the most part are lousy for algae control, especially the kinds that newbies are prone to getting.
I own three large tangs and I have to trim my macro algae in my tank.
In addition to that, you should never be using animals for algae control. All you are doing is making more waste, which will in turn become more algae. What you need to do is improve your h2o quality so that you dont have algae to start with.
First off, start reading as much as you can, from as many different places. You will start to learn what sort of filtration system will work for you.
Secondly, buy the tank, the system sand and rock. I recommend dry sand, live sand is usually lousy, and it is not live. I use aragonite with a grain size of 1-2mm so that I can gravel vac it.
Now start looking that fish that are acceptable for a 30g aquarium. NO tang is suitable for a 30g aquarium. You can start on www.liveaquaria.com looking at fish (this pretty well covers most of what you will see in a pet store) and from there you can start to research your stock. What do they require etc. Do not just rely on what fosters tells you, seriously go out and google them. Read about their care on as many different sites as possible. Then start coming here and telling us all what you want in your tank. We can give you personal experiences with those fishes or combinations of animals.
Now, make sure that your tank has cycled, and you can stock your clean up crew. (snails, hermits, sea stars...whatever)
After that, you can add your first fish. My usual rule of thumb is that I wait one h2o change in between fish additions. Helps your h2o stay clean and stable, and also allows your BB colony some time to grow to meet the demands.
Now after your tank is fully stocked (which should not take long in a 30g tank) you need to acheive stability.
Once your tank has matured, and all parameters are coral growth acceptable, and stable - you can start adding corals.
I would research what corals you might want to keep now. Again, start at liveaquaria to get some ideas of what stuff looks like, and then start researching the web, and checking stuff with us back here. We can make sure that you avoid, or are at least aware of bad combinations, things that will kill or eat other things, or things that ended up just dying for us or being headaches. Trust me, there is more to coral selection that just looks.
I also wouldnt tell you to just go out and add a leather coral. Leather corals once attached to the rock are almost impossible to completely remove, and they are fierce chemical competitors. In such a small tank as soon as that leather coral got comfy, it would have that tank saturated with alleopathic cometition. These specific chemicals can brown or kill sps, will kill trach brains (talk to me about this, lost two $500 down the drain) and kill other softies, corals and anemones.
Going back to the tang thing - tangs for the most part are lousy for algae control, especially the kinds that newbies are prone to getting.
I own three large tangs and I have to trim my macro algae in my tank.
In addition to that, you should never be using animals for algae control. All you are doing is making more waste, which will in turn become more algae. What you need to do is improve your h2o quality so that you dont have algae to start with.
PH and what not - PH will be controled for the most part by the alk additives in the salt mix, also leaching from the LR and sand or agronite. Some salt mixes are higher in these compounds then others reason being they are designed for use with RO/DI or pure water. From my mistakes I'd say IMO it's best to start with salt mixes lower in ALK with no Hard Corals present. Stabilizing salinity should stabalize PH. The higher the salinity reading the higher the alk and visa versa. When using tapwater with a high ph valiue, alk compounds in the water combine with the alk in the salt mix can raise the Alk readings too high. You'll have to test to know for sure. As you add hard corals you'll notice your alk dropping as the corals and coraline use the alk to grow. If you have a bunch calcium and magneseium will need to be monitered and managed to compensate, sometimes daily.
What not - Water chemistry with hard + soft corals is exactly as it sounds - water + chemistry. Water being h20 and chemistry being the chemical compounds that bond with it. The intial goal is turning organic decomp into harmless nitrogen gas - this is called cycling. From there it is controlling the other stuff caused by organic decomp - organic build up, dissolved protiens, Co2, excess nitrates,and phosphates. Once these readings are exceptable and stablized the next step is hard corals and controlling the alk. This stuff takes time, esp. starting from scratch.
Fleshy also brought up a good piont - the removal of toxins generated by the animal life we keep. Leathers are far from the only species that can kill with toxins - softies, anemones, cucumbers, and apples to name a few. Placement, combatibilty, stress from stock, and monthly use of activated carbons are key to this issue.
Take your time and enjoy.