[nrsoccer08]

I am new to the whole saltwater tank thing and I want a small tank that I can take to college with me and I saw Oceanic biocube or nanocubes and I like the idea. I also like twenty longs for some odd reason. I plan on putting clowns in either one but I would appreciate some thought, imputs, and suggestions on what type tank ect.

Thanks for yuor time

Phil

[Ninong]

I'm not familiar with that product, so I looked it up on Oceanic's website. If you plan on keeping clownfish, I suggest their 29-gal model. Both the 8-gal and the 14-gal would be too small in my opinion.

Good luck!

[Clay12340]

The advise I got when looking at the nano tanks was that a larger tank is 10000x easier. Saltwater creatures come from an incredibly stable environment and they need that in home aquariums as well. A stable environment is very hard to reach in such a small water volume. If you've got the option definitely go with the 29 gallon. It is twice the size of the 14 and will give you twice as many options.

I ended up going with a nano as the fish I am most interested in(shrimp gobies) are often very small and would rarely be visible in a larger tank. The downside is you are very limited on what else you can add to that size of a tank. Most corals will get too large for the tank at some point and I don't like the idea of having to have a larger tank ready at some unknown point in the future.

Ninong is probably right about the clowns, but a percula or ocellaris(sp?) will be able to live a healthy life in a 14 gallon tank. They would probably appreciate more space, but they don't seem to be adversely affected by the cramped conditions. They are a commonly kept fish in the nanos and the tank bred ones seem to do very well in these small environments.

The other species of clowns will get too large. Regardless of the clown species all of the anemones that they host on will get far too large. So if you do get a clown stay away from the anemones.

Aquarium Fish: Tropical Freshwater Fish and Saltwater Fish for Home Aquariums has a page of nano fish. It is not a complete list of potential nano species, but it will have some choices that will be reasonable and give you somewhere to start from as well as a general idea of the cost of some common fish.