I am new here and interested in getting a salt water tank with only 2 clown fish. I have been to my local fish shop. They had a start up kit including tank(filter/heater), two clown fish, sand, rock and water for 190.
I have gold fish tank(54 Litre) since I was a child and the oldest goldfish I have is 14 yrs old.
I want to find out the basics of does and dont's. example do I need a clean up crew for this size tank, what do I really need in setting up a salt water tank, what type of flakes / pellets or something compeletly defferent.
My LFS was saying with him giving me the sand the live rock and also the water he said I could put in the fish right away is this true.
Do I have to put in real coral or can I put in the fake stuff for decoration.
Welcome to TRT! I would never put in fish the same day as set up, that makes me very suspicious of your LFS. Also I wouldn't put a pair of clowns in anything less than 20g.
The tank needs to cycle before anything living is added to it. The cycle is the time when bacteria grows to support the bioload of the fish that will be living in the tank. Fish constantly create ammonia, but ammonia is toxic to them - it burns their gills and can permanently damage them, shortening their lifespan or it can straight out kill them. The bacteria that grows during the cycle eats up this ammonia and turns it to nitrite (also toxic) then more bacteria turns the nitrite to nitrate (only toxic in large quantities). So before adding any fish you need to make sure you have this bacteria in place and you have enough of it to support the fish so it's never exposed to ammonia or nitrate.
The way most of us do this is by throwing a regular piece of table shrimp from the grocery store in the tank after set up. This creates ammonia as it rots for the bacteria to eat and grow. You'll buy a test kit and when your ammonia and nitrite are 0 and you're left with only nitrates you'll be able to add your first fish.
It's usually best to wait a few weeks between additions. If you want to add two fish at once then I'd recommend feeding the tank like you would feed two fish for at least a week after the cycle is complete to make sure there won't be an ammonia spike.
How long the cycle takes depends on the amount of bacteria living on the rocks. It could take a week or two if the rock is excellent (very rare for an LFS to have this quality rock) or two months if there is next to no bacteria present.
Clean up crew is up to you. Nothing is going to do as good as a job cleaning the tank as you will, that will always be your job. But snails will munch on some algae and hermits will eat left over food.
You don't need to have real coral or fake plants. You just need to have a good water source (RODI can usually be purchased from an LFS or distilled from the grocery store will work or you can purchase an RODI unit to make water at home - don't use tap), rocks for the bacteria to live in, heater, powerheads for water movement (if using a filter I recommend no media as it can get nasty and cause water quality issues), hydrometer or refractometer to check salinity and a test kit. Food can be flakes, pellets or frozen foods such as mysis, brine, etc.
And top off with fresh water not salt water mix.
Only the water evaporates not the salt.
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