Hello!

I've been strictly a freshwater girl, but somehow I've found myself the future owner of a small saltwater tank....

I need all the help I can get!! I'm going to pick it up at 4:00 today... so anything that you can tell me to help would be wonderful!

Here's what I know about it...

It's a nano cube dx tank, about 14 by 14 inches. Two small blue saltwater fish, some live rock, two crabs. There's a heater, light, and filter. Not a lot to go on, but that's what I've got :P

I've had so much luck with the freshwater side of this site, I'm hoping that the saltwater side is just as helpful!

IMHO the best thing to do with marine system is to balance out the tank with macro algaes. chaetomorphia (brillo pad) is a good choice.

They are the "plants" of the marine world and will balance out and stabilize operation.

And are basically never mentioned to new marine hobbiests.


my .02

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

I would research nano reef tanks right away! I am thinking the two little blue fish are damels, if they have yellow tails they can grow to be quite agressive. Not so good in a tank your size.

I would start by moving the tank, keeping the the liverock moist by wrapping it in damp newspaper. Get home mix up some saltwater to 1.025 salinity and let the tank run with the rock in it for an hour or so before you add your fish. Hopefully the rock will prevent the tank from going through a mini cycle.

After that......research nano reef tanks. HTH to get you started.........

Well, I think the move went well! Everyone is still alive and swimming this morning, so I'm going to count it as a success so far!

I kept the fish and the hermit crabs in seperate coolers, and the live rock in a tub with the water. The sand I left in the tank with a bit of water

The little fish are electric blue damsels, I think. No yellow tails. So either they are both female, or a male too young to have yellow yet? They are bigger than the little ones with yellow tails at the store I saw, though, so I'm guessing they are females.

Oh! And the crabs are little hermit crabs in spiral shells that remind me of MTS :P Wow, those guys are fast!

There were bristleworms in the rocks!!! So creepy, I was gonna die. o.0 (And this is coming from someone who loves bugs!) I got tweezers and pulled all that I could out, but I know that there are at least two in those rocks still.... evil things... They are pretty cool from a distance, though! I was just too freaked out that they were going to break when I tried to pull them from the rocks (I'm the kinda girl who catches things and let's them outside... can't kill a fly, really!)

Happy to hear! The damsels are probably Green Chromis, it is very difficult to tell male from female in damsels. Bristle worms aren't bad but can tend to over populate a tank if too much organic material is around. You can lure them out in the evening by putting a little piece of shrimp in a jar and when they come out ,net them out.

The hermit crabs will need an assortment of empty shells so when they grow they can re home. Matter of fact the cute little mountain shells they have now came from astrea snails, a snail used to eat diatoms in a saltwater tank. The hermits killed them to steal their shells! Dosen't make them look so cute now....Sorry!

Will these fish be ok in this small of a tank? They have been living in it for a few years, from what I gathered from the previous owner.

I'll have to look for some more shells for these guys, then! There are quite a few shells in there now (looks like there used to be at least 4 turbo snails throughout the past...but those are big shells!) Most of them are big or around the same size as their's, though. Where do I even look for new shells? o.o

Ah, so those bristleworms won't hurt the fish or hermit crabs, then?