ten ten

About 5 weeks ago I made a decision to have a salt water fish as a pet. I purchased a 10 gallon aquarium, sand, saltwater mix, hydrometer, 100 Watt "Elite" submersible aquarium heater, "EHEIM" Liberty hanging filter. I got some advice from the pet store and decided in about 4-6 weeks to get a CLOWN fish. So 5 weeks ago I prepared the aquarium by adding the sand, then the water, let the sand settle, connected the filter and water heater. Last week I purchased about 9 pounds of cured live rock and added it to the aquarium. Two days ago I got my clown fish and a shrimp and placed them in their new home.

My question is the following weeks to come?

Apparently in about a month I will have to replace the filters from the unit. I notice the "EHEIM" Liberty filter has 3 filters?

1. Do I replace all 3 filters?

Question no. 2 Apparently unlike fresh water fish and their tanks where you actually have to replace the entire water in the tank?

2. Do I just replace the amount of water that has evaporated? For example if about 2 inches of water has evaporated do I replace the same 2 inches of water?

And if so do I let room temperature water settle in another bucket and slow just pour it into the tank?

Apparently on the internet the information I was given states...

3. In a separate bucket mix the salt and water, let it stand in the same room the aquarium is in and in about maybe...30 minutes slowly add the salt/water mixture?

Is that correct or the previous instruction of room temperature water is the correct step? Please let me know?

Question no. 4

4. Can I have another CLOWN fish or BLUE TANG with my first clown fish? Please let me know?

I also saw another breed of fish in the store and forgot to ask the pet store owner it's name? I describe it as a combination of the colour violet-purple near the head and body and near the tail the colour blue?

5. What is the name of this fish?

6. Can I have this fish in my aquarium with my clown fish?

I guess that is all the questions I can think of for now?

And If the person who responds to my topic...please don't hesitate to give me any further advice!!!

SALT WATER FISH NEWBIE

COBettaCouple

welcome to fishlore! we haven't gotten to a SW tank yet, but there are plenty of SW tank owners here to help you out. Best of luck in your new endeavor.

sgould

Welcome!

I am new to SW myself, but I will answer what I can.

I am not familiar with the Eheim Liberty so I will defer to someone more familiar with them.

Yes, as water evaporates, you replace it with treated freshwater. No need to add salt when replacing evaporation. You also need to be doing a partial water change every week to 2 weeks. There are trace elements in the water that some of the organisms on the live rock, as well as the shrimp, will use up. Changing out some of the water will keep those elements replenished, as well as keep the nitrates from building too high.

After mixing the salt, you should let the water sit for a day or two before putting it in the tank. I would also put a little cheapo heater in the bucket while the water is sitting out so that it will be the correct temperature when you add it to the tank.

I do not think there is any kind of tang that you can keep in a 10 gallon tank. They get too big. Adding another clown can be tricky...though peaceful with other species, some of them can get territorial towards their own kind. Hopefully someone more experienced can expand on that.

No clue. Maybe someone else will recognize it.

Jendayi

I have a 12g reef tank that sounds similar to yours. It has about 15 pounds of live rock, live sand, three different corals, snails, crabs, a fish and a cleaner shrimp. Here are a couple things that I didn't see you address regarding your tank...

- Do you have a water testing kit to test your water values? It took close to three weeks for our tank to cycle using the live rock and live sand. That is the ammonia and nitrites were 0 and there was a small nitrate reading. We use the test kit by API to measure the values. If you are at any time going to be adding corals you definitely need a kit to test for calcium and phosphates.

- Do you have a clean-up crew? After our tank cycled we started to get a small algae bloom which is completely normal. At three weeks we added a couple turbo snails and hermit crabs to clean the tank of algae. Since that time we have added a couple sand sifting snails that live in the sand bed to keep the sand aerated, an emerald crab and a cleaner shrimp.

- I don't know a lot about saltwater fish, sorry. The only fish we have in our reef tank is a six line wrasse. He is a great fish, tho, very colorful and active all day. You may want to look to see if this type is compatible with a clown. He is a great pest controller, too, and will eat flat worms and bristle worms if you end up with any hitch-hikers.

I'm sorry I'm not familiar with your brand of filter, as we have a self-contained AquaPod unit. We take out the filter material about every other week and swish it in the siphoned water when we do a water change to get out most of the debris.

There is a lot of good information on this site aside from the forum, too. http://www.fishlore.com/SaltwaterBeginners.htm I have learned a lot from here - my tank is not even 4 months old yet. Good luck!