New Salt tank

[chaas]

Hello all,

My buddy NirvanaFan recommended Reef Central to me, and thus far I'm very impressed by the content. I've been a fan of aquatic life since childhood, and about two months ago I decided to start a small saltwater tank.

Currently I'm running an Oceanic BioCube 8-gallon model with all the stock features. There's a nice 6.5 pound slab of living rock, and about an inch of living sand. After about a month of running with this setup, I added several coral frags and another smaller piece of living rock. One week later we added a pair of hermit crabs and a pair of snails. While I don't know the name of the snails, I'll include a picture at the end of this post.

I've worked with tropical tanks all my life, and the rule there was always no more than 1" of fish per gallon. This seems alright to me. The tank holds about 5 gallons of water with the sand and stone, and I'd rather avoid crowding the tank. I'm leaning towards a pair of clowns, however I'm not sure yet which type I'll get. There's just nowhere near enough room for any kind of anemone, and probably not enough light either. This is fine since I'm a saltwater rookie.

Corals are new to me, however I'm having a lot of fun watching the frags I have in there grow. I'm not a fan of the mushroom type of corals, and until that changes I'll probably leave them out of my tank. I like the appearance of my green star polyps, "button" polyps which probably have a proper name, zoanthids, and what I was told are tube worms. I haven't been able to confirm they are, so I'll include a picture of them as well.

Since the fish population is fixed at two, soft corals are going to be the real bread and butter of the tank. Diversity is wonderful and I'm keen on getting at least a few other types. One of the requests has been "More corals that will flow in the current." The tubeworms and green star polyp seem to fit this description well.

Aside from room and personal taste, is there a real limit to how many coral varieties a tank like mine can hold?


Unidentified snails:


The leftmost colony is the one I can't identify. Can sort of see the "button" polyps and the green star polyps.


These were described as Zoanthids. Do I need to take them off that piece of slate and reseed it on the living rock?


Any feedback will be most appreciated! Thanks!

[imcosmokramer]

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[davewbush]

The snails are Mexican Turbo Snails. There is no limits to the variety of corals you put in the tank as long as they get a long. In the size tank you have, you will have to frag them or they will out grow the tank. You can leave the zoas on what they came on. They will soon grow over the whole piece.

[chaas]

Thanks for the info davewbush!

I've been informed the unidentified coral cluster is pulsing xenia.

[IridescentLily]

Welcome,
Here is a link you can click on to go to the zoa section
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/fo...s=&forumid=104 , they're really knowledgeable about whenand how to take them off that piece of slate and reseed it on the living rock.

[NirvanaFan]

I'd leave the zoas on that rock. There is no need to take them off.

[Michael]

hi, a good start, but id get some more live rock in there tbh, another 3-4 pounds and build up the reef wall a bit, you can then eventually when the water quality is right add a few more corals and a clown will look nice swimming around the reef wall, best of luck to you and welcome to our forum


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