So my marine tank is pretty small as its a D-D24g making it around 100 ish litres. its been running now for around 1 year.

The water’s always been stable and it has 2 clowns, 1 Yellow Clown goby and Bi-Colour Blennie in.

I saw a Valentini Puffer Fish probably over 1 year ago now in my local LFS. But i steered clear even though it was a lovely example. Anyway i decided a few months back that i’d order on and try one out knowing that they can nipp fins.

So i got one and it fed straight away on flak and pellet and everything was fine for around a month and half, but then i came down one morning to notice that my female clown had have a fin missing and the male with a circle hole in his, a trade mark of a bite from a puffer. I put this down to the fact that its only the clowns that cant hid in the rocks due to there sizes.

Lesson learnt if they are known for fin nipping then you’ll probably encoutner it

Well i kept both tropicals and marine fish and would say no.

Tropical I’ve kept numerous times. I’ve found that the water often smelt when i was younger and my last tank which was just over 1 yr ago seemed to be cursed and would only ever keep 3 mollies and more fish and they would simply perish. The last tank which an Interpet FishPod X 48litre it wasn’t a bad tank and was probably the best that i have kept, i found that algae was kept down with the use of some japanese moss ball. Water changes where frequent but when ever i went to my local fish shop I’ve always craved marines.

I decided to sell the Interpet FishPod X and jump into marines. My first marine tank was a Rio 180 which was setup on a budget of around £500. I went for this after numerous people saying bigger is better. As if you have any water issues it will take more time to take affect, on the other hand you have more water to change and address should anything go wrong.

My current D-D 24G has been a god send, and has never given me any issues. When i moved the water over from my Jewel aquarium Rio 180 there was a slight Phosphate issue which did carry over slightly, but with frequent water changes and a hand full of cheato in the rear chamber seem to sort this and i now have a lovely clean tank.

fortnightly water changes of around 3/4 gallons take place and with this i also change my RowaPhos using a 2 heaped tea spoons worth. Ok changing it fortnightly is more than advised but the sight of hair algae is worse in my eyes, so i’ll pay the extra.

The tank really requires little maintenance over the water changes, maybe a trim back of the cheato every few months, but that’s really it.

So keeping marine fish in my eyes is no more difficult than keeping tropicals

Maidenhead Aquatics have over 30 when you look on their website, and when i saw that there was one only 30 minutes away i thought it was worth the drive to go and visit.

Their magazine adverts always seem really good so i thought this would be a worthy trip turns out it was a waste of around 1 hr of my time that i’ll never regain.

Firstly the store isn’t even sign posted outside the garden centre that its located in. its locatred just of the A59 road within the Wyevale Garden Centre York. When i got parked up i found my self double checking this due to the lack of signage for Maidenhead Aquatics.

It isn’t until you get into the entrance of the garden centre that you see a tiny sign at the other end of the corridor mentioning Maidenhead Aquatics. even when you within the garden centre there where no signs or directions to the shop.

OK finding it wasn’t hard but i could easily of given up and not bothered going.

Since i’m into marine fish keeping freshwater really holds little value to me, although i do like looknig through the tanks.

Bit of a let down since there where no marine fish and it was full of tropicals and cold-waters.

There where some good cheap starter tanks their that i saw i think it was £180 for a 160 litre tank suitable for tropicals or even marine with some legwork, they even sold Interpet River Reefs.

If i kept tropicals then i would probably of bought from the York store of Maidenhead Aquatics. The tanks however where clean on the front which is always nice to see and encourages people to purchase over having display tanks covered in algae.

There where a few marine things like PH buffers and test kits, but nothing i don’t have or had any intention of purchasing.

Overall i think that that the Maidenhead Aquatics York store needs better signage and to offer some marine fish. Without a sign on the main road no one is going to know your there that’s a pretty basic cock up in my opinion. offering more fish gives you a better customer base.

i’m i a big fan of ultimatereef.net/forums/ and can be found 0n there as carvaletingpro.

But over the past few days it looks like someones hacked the site and installed some spyware on there that will install onto your PC currently if you try to access the forums you get.

Heres the list of what google says is wrong

“What is the current listing status for www.ultimatereef.net?

Site is listed as suspicious – visiting this web site may harm your computer.

Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 2 time(s) over the past 90 days.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 24 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 13 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2010-09-16, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2010-09-15.Malicious software includes 1 exploit(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 2 new process(es) on the target machine.

Malicious software is hosted on 4 domain(s), including demparten.com/, blamesllek.com/, cnjug.com/.

This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS29550 (EUROCONNEX).

Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?

Over the past 90 days, www.ultimatereef.net did not appear to function as an intermediary for the infection of any sites.

Has this site hosted malware?

No, this site has not hosted malicious software over the past 90 days.

How did this happen?

In some cases, third parties can add malicious code to legitimate sites, which would cause us to show the warning message.

Next steps:

• Return to the previous page.
• If you are the owner of this web site, you can request a review of your site using Google Webmaster Tools. More information about the review process is available in Google’s Webmaster Help Center.”

If this is going to be the first marine fish in your new marine setup then there’s one of 2 roads to go down.
1. Get a damsel these are the cheapest fish you an get which are pretty hardy and easy to look after. Unfortunately this makes them a testing fish, in the means of if theres an issue they will float and die.

I’d recommend taking your water to a local Marine shop and get them to do a full water test on your water. first before you put any fish in.

The thing is with damsels is they look pretty but are little cunts they’ll fight between them selves and with other fish. So if 1 year down the line you are find these blighters hard to catch your likely to have a tank full of fish. so for this reason i’d steer clear of damsels as tester fish or even all together.

2. I got a pair of Tank bred common Clown fish, costing around £25 for a pair. I had my water fully tested my my local supplier and everything was fine and i wait around 3 weeks after setup before adding these fish.

When ever your choose a new fish there’s a few things you need to take into consideration.

1. Tank Size

If you’ve got a 90 litre nano aquarium then don’t be expecting to get a lovely Regel Tang as they need alot of room in terms of litreage easily 240 litres as a minium as they grow large a Red Sea Max 250 would be ideal.

2. Compatability

Is ny new fish foing to be aggresive towards my current fish.  Picasso Trigger fish can be picked up for around £20, but they can be an agressive fish and will eat smaller smaller fish.

3. Corals

Some fish such as Tangs tend to nip at soft corals so if your really worried then coral nipping fish are best avoided.

4. Toxins

Foxfaces are a lovely looking fish but they have a toxin in the spin on there fin so this cud end up in a trip to Hospital if your stung. Also Boxfish look cool due to there shape but when they feel threatened they will release a posin that in the sea quickly dissapates but in your tank will stay around and could result in a complete wipeout.

Conch Snail Marine Fish Tank from rory lofthouse on Vimeo.

Well for a start your going to need a few things

Do i need to buy everything new for my marine aquarium. Not really no, Just make sure no medical treats have been used with any2nd hand equipment.

1: Aquarium / Tank

There isn’t really an upper or lower limit for tank size, but if your wanting to keep fish i wouldn’t go any lower than say 50 litres. AS once you place your rock in then your already losing water capacity of the tank.

If you have a really cheap tank th that looks old then it may be wise investing in a new aquarium as this will be the base for your new marine aquarium and the last thing you’ll want is a leak the next morning.

2nd hand Aquarium’s can be picked up very cheap on the likes of eBay and marine aquarium forums like Ultimatereef.net, having a £200 budget for a tank alone could easily see you walk away with a 400 litre Jewel aquarium Rio with some equipment, or a Nano like mine a D-D 24G.

I bought my first tank new but i wouldn’t, do so again unless i was getting a larger marine aquarium with a sump and all the pipe work. as 2nd hand equipment can be picked up for bargain prices.

Also When your getting your tank you need to think about what fish your wanting. If you just want 2 Common Clown Fish then a Nano Tank around 90 Litres would be fine, but if you want a Regal Tang then you’ll probably want a larger tank around 400 Litres.

2: Heater

Heaters come in varying rating from 25Watts to 300Watts, this is also the amount of Electricity that they use per hour that they are switched on.

I have a 150Watt in my D-D24G nano. Compared to my Rio 180 litre which used a 200Watt. Really the heater size is down to you but the higher the rating of heater the longer it will be.

If you have a large Marine Aquarium then you might want to think of having 1 / 2 heaters.

You can get cheaper heaters from ebay, but should it fail then your water will go could within a few hours and your live stock could then become compromised. so buying a known brand will be best InterPet or Ehiem.

If your buying a new  Marine Aquarium setup then it will probably come with a heater so don’t worry to much.

Any Marine specialist will be able to help you get the right heater for your 2nd hand Aquarium.

3: Power Heads

You need to get power heads to move the water around the tank around 40x of your tanks total litre-age is the recommended turn over, so of course power heads are rated in LPH (Litres Per Hour).

Power heads or wave makers can be bought fairly cheap again from Ebay, but you pay for what you get, buy cheap buy twice. I have only ever had New Wave power heads, but you will also see that Koralia Power heads are well known throughout the marine world.

4: Filters

Since your live rock will do the majority of your natural filtering for chemicals.  Most new aquariums will come with a filter, there’s no harm in using it. You can run stuff like rowaphos which helps remove Phosphates, in there and other things like Activated Carbon.

You can get external filters for your marine aquarium, which will of course have more space inside them compared to internal filters. But then you have water running outside of your aquarium, which some people don’t like.

5. Lighting

New tanks will come with lighting make sure that its ok for marine use, If your getting a second hand tank then you might be able to buy the lighting aswell..

Most commonly seen are T5 lighting tubes. which work fine. but there’s also metal halide, which do cost more to run and buy but they will give better end results.

With the obvious Live rock and Substrate missing you could pretty much get up and running from here.

6: Sand

I’ve used the Cheap TMC Gravel that can be bought in pets at home for around £5 for a 5KG bag.

TOP TIP

Rinse the gravel through with tap water first to get all the crap out and then rinse through a few times with RO water this will stop your tank instantly going cloudy when you add the sand.

7. Protein Skimmer

Not a necessity but they do help your tank especially if your heavily stocked. Ican’t explain how they work but its something to do with protein in the water which gets separated in the skimmer and ends up a manky brown colour and thew end produce is skim mate.

You can get the of places like eBay alot cheaper 2nd hand over buying new.

8. Live Rock

You can buy this from your local shop but expect to pay around £10 – £13 per KG. People say you need around 1KG per gallon of water. So 500 litres is around 109 Gallons so that around 100 KG of live, so shop prices you could easily be looking at over £100 in rock.

Second hand rock can be picked up for around £5 per KG but you’ll often find buying in bulk from people closing tanks down is cheaper.

This is only rough so you might get away with slightly less or you might need slightly more.

What do i think

If your tank is going to be the centre peice in your house by new or get a custom tank and then go for second hand gear to recoup some of the costs.

I think i’ve covered everything here but theres loads of other things that you can buy like UV Lights for water treatment and reactors to make sundries last longer.