"The Hobby" as seen by a beginner

Thanks.

Yes I've figured out there's no real "right or wrong". At best there's "trial and error".

But I'd rather not turn a course that leads to tank crash and corals and fish down the toilet plumbing.

Realistically anyway, I'll probably start a tank in the 20-29 Gallon area with merely live sand, Live rock, water changes and T5 lights, over the course of a few months.

(I've just done some major renovations, but I still need to rip out my living rooms wooden floor to put in concrete beams - Don't trust these old wooden beams with the weight of a billion gallon tank )

 

no I want a 290.

But I'd also like it above ground level and it's easier to move stuff from a small one to a large one the it is the other way around.

 

Researching Fish, or, is there something besides gobies ?

Damsels are great, but not when you have a viable tank. Clowns are sweet but yeah they attack too. Tangs : your tank is too small, no need to say how big it is. It's too small. Triggers kill. lionfish eat everything that fdoesnt get too big. Everything else either gets too big, gets eaten or starves. Or you don't add predatirs : all your fish are so small you wonder why you bought a big tank, as people ask you "so when you gonna buy a fish ?".

This is great. One can spend his entire life tankless trying to assemble a stocking list. And even then it will never be right.

Right doesn't exist, of course, outside of church. When I walked ot of my bungalow in the Maldives into the sea, there was some hard treelike coral about two feet diameter with a billion (OK only a hundred I guess) damsels (black with one white dot if I remember correctly) protecting it. You can't keep more then one in a tank. Of course the lagoon + reef was a tad larger.

Around said tree, picasso triggers patrolled and made attack moves and snapping sounds at any human, shrimp or rock that they saw. Butterflyfish played between your hands, but were impossible to grab, and the slithering feeling at your ankle was a moray waking up. Turning rocks revealed a billion hermits and often a lionfish ....

So what am I saying ? Nothing really.

I just want a list of fish sorted by minimum tank size, with their aggresiveness, "reef safety", total adult size, diet and typical behaviour. And with pictures.

This stuff is tuning out harder then it looked, once one wants bigger then gobies and firefish.

I'll have to buy a marine encyclopedia I guess..... the internet is failing me. Or I'm not typing the right queries in google.... (possible, english isn't my first language I'm Flemish Belgian)

 

well when you get you 200 gallon you can have a tang. most rules only work for standard tank sizes, the wpg rule breaks down with small tanks, the amount of certain types of fish you can have breaks down sometimes in very large tanks. with damsels if you have a big enough tank for over 6 damsels they are "suppose" to shoal(like in the big coral you saw).

tangs i wouldn't have one in anything smaller then a 75
clowns aren't nearly as bad as damsels, perhaps a small tank with firefish may be in trouble but most perculas have almost no aggression.
if you want a reef tank stay away from triggers and most puffers(but all are not invert safe).
wrasses you forgot about the wrasses active and colorful, they are the perfect reef fish if you know which ones to get, some will get big and eat inverts.
basslets and psuedochromises are a options too.

if you want shrimp and crabs just stay away from coral banded shrimp and arrow crabs, a few others but those two are the most common.
sometimes its good to just go to online fish stores and look around at their selection, they have them labeled reef safe or not, try saltwaterfish.com, they don't have the how many gallons they need so you will have to look that up, but it will give you a idea.

 

I WANT a >290, but I'll be getting a <55, mot likely a 29 or something close to start....

( i was gonna write somthing like "and I'll put in 4 hiipo's and three yellow tangs" but decided i wouldn't risk giving heart failure to any of you )

 

i think that their is such a thing as a perfect system...It is one that is constantly being modified and tweaked as new issues arise. It is also one that the proper maintenace is kept up with in order to keep it running smooth year in and year out. I think of a reef tank very much like an old classic car. You can keep it running forever if you change out parts that need changing when that time comes, you wipe it down with a diaper at 3 am in the morning to keep the shine that it had the day it left the dealership, and you have to love it even more as it gets older and not let it just become another toy that sits on the back burner.
I have gotten to the point with my reef where i am not upgrading per say but i am just letting it evolve into what it needs to be in order to keep it running beautifully. For example i changed my lights from metal halides to T5HO's...not really7 an upgrade nor is it a downgrade but it is just a change that i made to make the corals even more pretty than they already are. I reworked my plumbing to make the system run more efficiently by adding a pump to run all of my reactors, skimmer, chiller etc... off of a manifold to maximize my flow rate out of my return pump by reducing the load on it.

I couldnt really say what i would do if i were to do it all over again because i know i couldnt afford what i want to do hahah but....... I could go into elaborate detail about what i would wanna do if money was no concern (that would take awhile so i will spare you all!)

 

I think that this thread which was started by Pepeisagod, is great. Every comment posted on this thread has merit. The way I see it is, there is no one way to do things in this hobby, but rather, do what works for you. So, you may wonder what will work for you? Well my friend, thats a trial and error process. The good news is, once you find that "sweet spot", stick with it. The best advice that I can give you is, research, be patient and use common sense. This is a hobby that can not be learned from a textbook. Good luck with your new endeavor and dont forget to post some pics.;D Luna

 

OK So where am I now ?

I've got the next in mind :

5 blue chromis
2 Clowns (Is there a differencebetween "true" and "false" percula other then black stripe and dorsal fin ? I mean in behaviour or feeding... things that matter ?)
Lemon goby and pistol shrimp (buying them as a set is 30% more expensive then separate, how high is the hit % of them teaming up ?)
2 pajama cardinals OR for a bit larger and moving fish I was thinking a wrasse , sixline, flasher or a longsnout (dunno the exact name in english and I need to look up the latin) or something else entirely.

Is this still 29-30 gallon material ? As I count, it's about 28-29 inch total, nothing big like tangs (alas)

The more you resaerch the more you want a bigger tank then what you have or can afford... Saddest is that a 100 gallon is a mere 50-80 bucks more expensive stand included, for just the tank. It's the rock and lights that hurt, curses.

How long does it take for homemade aragocrete to become "live" when seeded by 20 % real live rock ?

 

And another silly question : tank depth.

The average tank under 55G's is 16' high. Minus 2 at the top (water level), Minus 3 at the bottom, sand, that leaves 11 inches... 28 centimeters give or take

isn't that.... incredibly little ?