Hi all,
Just wondering if there are any fish keepers in the stw collective?
I want to start a marine aquarium but I’mlimited on space. I know that tank wise, the bigger the better…but I haven’t got the space.for anything bigger than a 40l tank. MsMorgs is intent on a couple of clowns, I know I’d need a cleaner shrimp or two and the live rock, and eventually an anemone. Would this over-populate a small tank?

have thougt about tropical but shes not keen on this solution.

Please help.guys and sorry for the random .’s…..typing on my phone!
?
Any and all advice gratefully received!

Hi, 40L is a small tank for marine fish. I definately wouldn’t advise even thinking of putting an anemone in that space.

You could probably get away with a normal clown fish (they’re fascinating to watch and you’ll soon see why their named appropriately), a blennie or 2. A shrimp if you like them, but you’ll want some hermits in there for sure. It’s kind of a small space for 2 clowns.

I started off with a 40L and had a firefish, bicolour blenny, 2 cleaner shrimp, a goby, hermits & live rock. I’ll post some pics of my tank later.

If you want something interesting i’d probably choose a pistol shrimp and goby pair, that symbiotic relationship is cool to watch.

Just don’t rush things in this hobby

Cheers!
Look forward to.the pics 🙂

Here’s a full tank shot, this is my 120 litre tank

>Patronising bit< I wouldn’t recommend a marine nano tank to a beginner to fishkeeping, so if you’re new to this get a freshwater one first or start with a bigger marine setiup that isn’t as demanding >patronising over<

Don’t bother with an amenone – they are a real pain, the gits won’t keep still and I’ve had them decide that the filter inlet is the best place to sit.. result finely diced anemone and a ruined tank.
TBH I won’t add much more as Junglebuny has it covered and has a nice tank too.

thanks guys and nice tank!

Unfortunately I simply don’t have the space for a big tank. I’d love 120l minimum but can’t!

bump for the evening crowd?

Is it out of the question to have a freshwater tank for a while first? I understand if it is… sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. 🙂

There are a lot of things to worry about if you are diving straight into a marine setup.

wow nice tank! My Lodger had a nanocube marine tank just that sort of size for 2.5 years and never got it as good as that…he got a bit bored with it, would leave it too long between water changes (3 or 4 weeks some times!) let the tank generally get run down…surprise surprise the coral always slowly died off. the clowns wer nice to watch though 😀

He did learn…get the janitorial staff right and things get easier.

3 to 6 hermit crabs to eat the uneaten food etc.
an emerald crab to eat any bubble algae (it was a problem until the crab arrived)
a peppermint shrimp to eat the annoying apstixia (sp?)
another shrimp..to …eat food and clean
sand sifting starfish to clean the sand
lots of snails
an urchin to look nice and to eat the coraline algae (looks like you have just a little of this jun9lebunnie, he had loads!)
but…he still didn;t change the water much and ….coral slowly died….other than some ‘pulsing coral’ that got weed like it did so well, ended up pulling chinks off rocks quite regularly!

He did get a bubble anemone once…it only lasted a month or so. However it was great watching the clowns while it was there..they were in heaven rubbing it! actually they killed off a few of the coral by getting too friendly too often, oops.

Neil, you bring the memories of it all back – sadly I got rid of that tank about 18 months ago when we got our dog. The tank did look awesome but took a fair amount of work, the corals are quite demanding and had to be fed nightly by hand. Such a great conversation piece when guests came over.

That tank probably had around £1500 of livestock in it, it wasn’t the sort of thing I could just ask my neighbour to look after if I went away for a week – I had to dose magnesium, calcium and many additives to keep the coral happy but thats what I focused on as found it fascinating.

To anyone interested, that tank was about 10 months old, it was my first fish tank – it was a real challenge and I learnt a lot from it and spent countless hours researching the hobby as I progressed.

I’ll get another tank, probably a shallow tank concentrating on coral and stingrays.

>Patronising bit< I wouldn’t recommend a marine nano tank to a beginner to fishkeeping, so if you’re new to this get a freshwater one first or start with a bigger marine setiup that isn’t as demanding >patronising over<

This – a marine tank needs lots of care and experience – start with a tropical tank then progress.

If you keep a marine tank, don’t think of it as keeping livestock, think of it as water keeping. Then you won’t go wrong. I have plans for something reasonably large. A friend has a 700L tank plumbed in with bits from work (he’s into bioreactors).

wow jun9lebunnie, 10 months and you had that lot! wow again!

I miss the tank since my lodger moved out…but I’d not manage a marine tank. I might look into tropical though 🙂

I’d been considering a very small 15litre TMC Micro Habitat, to keep a few shrimps, etc, but they do larger tanks as well and everything is self-enclosed so looks fairly neat to me;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=TMC+aquarium&_sacat=See-All-Categories

The thing that put me off was difficulty of keeping such a small tank stable, but 30litres is where it will start getting easier and you could get a few nice small fish stocked.