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Originally Posted by berryj Alright, I want to get a small fish tank, and I would love to make it SW if I can swing it. Im leaning towards an Eclipse 12 with Bio-Wheel. (another option is 15 gallon high tank) And all I really want to have in it are two clowns: a black percula and a true percula....or 2 true perculas.
Now, Im sure most of you are laughing at me b/c of my desire for such a small tank but Would it really be that difficult for a newbie to control a small saltwater tank with 2 fish and no reef in it?
After research, Im thinking like 50lbs of sand and 15-20 lbs of live rock if i went with the 15 gal. . Im kind of mixed up on the set up i need....
- Is live rock necessary. Could i just use the fake coral reef
- is the eclipse 12 too small for 2 med. perculas
I don't know if it would work, but my ideal set-up would be the eclipse 12 with the biowheel filtration. 1-2in of sand and fake coral, fake plants, and 2 true perculas (sm to med)
Thanks in advance for your help, I'd love to get a SW set-up going, but just not sure about where to start. |
I would consider a 12 gal tank with two clowns in it to be very difficult to keep for someone new to the hobby.
Can it be done? Yes, by someone experienced, but someone new is going to make mistakes and end up with a tank of very dead fish. There is no margin for error on small tanks.
I would also recommend the use of live rock, but corals and other stuff is optional. Your sand bed should be shallow, just enough to cover the bottom, half an inch or less. You do not want this to become a dirt trap. It's not that live rock looks better than fake stuff, but that the live rock contributes a lot to the filtration system. You'll have much better water quality. I'm not a fan of the "fish only" type of system, because I have found them much more difficult to keep disease free, and to maintain the water quality. Yes, I did do fish only setup for years before I ever did a reef.
If you have any choice in this matter go with something much larger. You chance of sucess will be much greater, and you find as long as you don't go too big, it will not be that much more expensive. You are going to need light, heat, and filtration for any size tank, and going up a size or two isn't that expensive.