Good salt water fish for beginners? (read on)?

Question

ok, I have a 23-25 gallon tank,(right now its just the plain old tank, but I am setting it up and getting stuff for it in September). this is my first tank, I am still doing research to be really ready when its set up, anyway though I was wondering what pretty, fairly cheap, interesting fish that would do well in this tank but also together. I don't want huge long lists of every fish you can think of that are good for beginners I have already looked up a ton of those, just between 4 or 7 fish that would do well in the tank AND together. I love color and oddities interest me so bright and/or strange looking fish would be great. also if you suggest a group of fish could you also tell me what rock/plants would be needed for the fish?I will look them up on my own after I get some names but any info you have would still be nice, thank you!

Answer 1

Cornelius is right but if you do get cichlids stay away from any from lake malawi or south american the tank is not nearly big enough for them, it would have to be cichlids from lake Tanganyika, they don't get as big and are less aggressive. and there are alot of beautiful one to choose from.

don't ask anyone at the pet stores like petsmart they don't know s***t they will tell ya anything to get you to buy fish from them. if you want to know about cichlids go to some cichlid websites like cichlids.com

Answer 2

In a small salt tank, you could have a black and gold damsel, half blue damsel,strawberry gramma,citron goby, and a saddleback clown. Also a few inverts like shrimp or crabs, but the gramma may eat these if it is large enough. All of these fish should be compatible and remain small enough for this size tank. They are varying colors and patterns which would make it very visually interesting.

Salt tanks are harder than fresh, but if you do your homework as you've said you will- You should have sucess. I would also add live rock if you can afford it.

Answer 3

I'd have to agree with the others that it's simply much too small a tank to run as a first marine tank, even for a person with experience in freshwater. Marine tanks are rather unforgiving, events tend to happen in chains rather than as isolated incidents, and even small mistakes or overlooks can cause an entire system to come crashing down. it's important to remember there is a reason that your lfs doesn't give you any guarantees on marine fish like they do with freshwater fish and important to note that outside of damsels, marine fish are rather expensive (In comparison to most community freshwater fish), so it can hurt a bit more to wake up one morning to $200 worth of dead fish.

I am a proponent of you starting a marine tank, don't get me wrong, I just think you should go with a much larger size (55 gallon minimum) until your more familiar with marine fish keeping.

Answer 4

I don't get it, why are people always lecturing about saltwater fish. In order to learn, you must try first, so people, if you are going to lecture loki, then you shouldn't answer her question. Saltwater tanks are hard, but enough research will help her to be successful.

Anyways, To Loki, hardy saltwater fishes are damsels and clownfishes. Some damsels can be aggressive, the Green Chromis is very peaceful. Just like Clownfishes, the tomato and maroon clownfishes are aggressive at times, while the percula clownfishes will do just nicely.

A unique fish that I would recommend is the dragon wrasse, however, when he matures and grows into adult, he is called a rockmover wrasse. The dragon wrasse, is unique in his patterns on his body, he is very interesting, however, if you have fishes that can fit in his mouth, it'll be a bad idea, I have a dragon wrasse, when I put a goby inside the tank, he ate it and swallowed the poor goby whole :(

Tangs are good to have, however they contract marine ich (Cryptocarayon irritans) really easily.

Triggerfishes are aggressive, not all but this is a fish that if you have in your tank, he may tempt to eat the other fishes.

Gobys are unique, they are slender in body, a Dragon mandarin is pretty tough to get to eat, however you may try it.

Squirrelfish is hardy as well, depending, some fishes you have to feed them meat.

Anyways, my suggestion is to look on websites such as www.saltwaterfish.com, you can choose from a variety of fishes from there.

I hope this helps, thanks for asking, by the way, people, please help her instead of telling her how hard saltwater fishes are or talking about freshwater fishes. Thanks...........

Answer 5

you need a 50 gallon tank for sw even bigger would be better

Answer 6

Saltwater fish are almost never good for beginners. You would be much better off with a freshwater tank. There are some cichlids that would be okay for beginners and would have the bright colors you want. Why don't you try researching cichlids?

edit: 25 gallons is not a large tank. A saltwater tank that size will be very difficult because small changes in the water conditions will have a bigger effect. If your only experience is with small desktop tanks, that does not translate to an ability to manage a saltwater tank. After you've had your 25 gallon freshwater tank for awhile you can consider saltwater.