 Re: Hi.
well.. judging from what i got from your post, you have had freshwater tanks before, maybe small ones. same sort of thing applies, water evaporates, you need to put more in, and in saltwater it will through your balance of the tank off a lot if you aren't carefull.
With saltwater you can have many different types of tanks ranging from half gallons *REALLY HARD* to big tanks that you can screw up with and still have things live. It's hard to keep your nitrogen cycle in check because the least little thing can throw it outta wack.
REMEMBER you want to have your fish thrive, not just survive. In anything smaller than a 5 gallon I would only put a clown goby, if that. Those small tanks are generally known for corals and stuff. "pico reefs" are really cool and I've thought about doing one, but they are hard to keep the SG correct, and diatoms are a pain unless you're using RO/DI water.
In a small tank like that I would suggest doing either the clown goby as mentioned before, or neon gobies, or the little red headed gobies. you want small fish with small needs of food. you don't want a huge bio-load.
I would love to have a 5.5 and just do an invertebrate tank, maybe that will interest you.
here's what I would do in a 5.5 gallon.
5.5 tanks are small and I love how they are layed out, not too tall, not too short, not too wide, or too wide. I would feel comfortable putting a red-head goby and 2 peppermint shrimp and some coral in there and really enjoy it. As for lighting you can get a regulary lamp that uses incandescent screw in bulbs that is adjustable, being you can move it around to get the light pointed in the direction you want, and put in a 50/50 screw in compact flourescent bulbs, I like em on the smaller tanks. for filtration you could put on a whisper 30, like those they are super quiet and provide good flow for the smaller tanks. in the whisper 30 take out the bio bag and replace it with Chemi-Pure ELITE.. the elite helps to remove phosphates and other harmful chemicals we don't want in our mini-reefs. I would also get LIVE sand from your lfs, i like the fiji pink and indo pacific black, and some live rock.. once again I love the fiji. Get about an inch of live sand on the bottom after you have placed your rock in, I would do about 10 pounds of rock. don't worry about a skimmer on such a small tank, do water changes regularly. You could use the real ocean water, some LFSs carry it, I know my local petco does. that will help with your chemistry. You can get little 25 watt heaters that are really good that are like 20$. a solid clean up crew of 5 reef safe hermits, and I personally like the black turbos maybe 3 will help a lot! I would cover the 5.5 with hinged class, it will slow down evaporation which will help you stay on check with topping it off. I would check the water at least 3 times a week, maybe i'm just a crazy tester.. who knows. if you buy the oceanic brand salt and do regular water changes you shouldn't have to add any extra calcium or anything because I find that oceanic keeps my calcium levels just right. as for corals, depending on how many of those little lights you get, could do two maybe, 15w bulbs, ending up with 30 watts, could have a good little pico with some star polyps and i love the xenias, but they are weird, I know some people that can't keep xenias alive, but on the other side of town people have em growin like ivy. some different colored shrooms would look nice. i am not a fan of the purple ones, just because once you get the coraline algae ( the cool purple stuff on the live rocks ) the purple shrooms just kinda blend in. OH YEA get a thermometer, it's your best friend, try to keep it at 79F.
well I think I covered what I would do and somewhat why. I am not going to read over my post because it's too long and I don't want to read what I just wrote, so it might sound a little funky. sorry. GOOD LUCK! READ READ READ READ..................... ......................... ......................... ......................... ...............READ! okay later  | 
01-22-2008, 03:50 PM
