Help me decide what to do with this tank

[H20cooled]

I setup my old 50G tank for my wife to use as a Fresh water planted tank, well with her being pregnant she really does not have the time to maintain it. I do not have the patience or desire to take care of it.

 

So, I would like to switch it to a Salt water tank of some sort but I don't want it to be another reef tank and I want it to be low maintenance. I thought of a couple ideas but I thought I would ask for opinions and ideas.

 

So far my thoughts are:

 

• Fish Only with LR.
  
• Sea Horse tank with LR & macro algae.
  
• Cuttle fish tank with LR & some Xenia, etc...
  

 

I need to re-add the overflow box and create a sump and skimmer for it. Would also need the LR.

 

For Fish Only -its only 50G but I think I could get away with a couple of medium size fish.

 

Sea Horse would be cool, not sure what sea horse are available and don't really know much about them.

 

Cuttle fish are awesome but they look like they are VERY hard to find.

 

So, what do you think I should do?

 

Here is the tank now:

[CCR]

Never done em, but Sea-horse's would be cool with macro growing in it. Nice looking tank.

[reefgeek84]

I have seahorses and they are cool...but a cuttle fish would be even cooler...or a really cool angler fish or a scorpion, or toad fish...

[DChemist]

I like the idea of a cuttlefish/xenia tank with live rock. I'll even give you some xenia if you already don't have some.

 

Would you consider sumpless? I'm pretty happy with the simplicity of my tank (sumpless, HOB skimmer).

 

By the way- Chris and Shannon were over here picking up some baby stuff, I showed him my tank and he told me his brother has a great reef tank. We made the connection he was talking about you...

[H20cooled]

Darren,

Thats funny that my Bro was over getting stuff from you, small world I guess.

 

Yeah I like the cuttlefish/Xenia a lot the problem is one of the big suppliers went out of business and I'm not finding much on where to get them.

 

As for the sumpless I could totally do that now, the current tank is setup with 2 canister filters and they would be really easy to clean and setup for salt water but I will not run a skimmer that way as I plan to build it myself because I have everything I need already.

[JManrow]

I've kept a few species of seahorses. If you are prepared to meet their needs, keeping them can be very rewarding.

I have only experience with keeping Octopus bimaculatus, but here are some sources for obtaining llive squid and other cephalopods.

 

 

Live cuttlefish & egg clusters

http://www.seacrop.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Store_Code=S&Screen=SRCH&Search=cuttlefish&x=0&y=0

 

Other sources

http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/sources.php

 

http://www.tonmo.com/cephcare/cuttlefishcare.php

 

http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/

[reefgeek84]

Joel, can get cuttle fish...he had one for quite a while...not sure if he still does.

[fly guy]

I would LOVE to see you do a cuttlefish tank (clap)

[siskiou]

Cuttle fish sound great!

 

BTW, my daughter is setting up a planted freshwater tank!

Do you have any plants or equipment for sale?

[H20cooled]

yeah I'll have to talk with Joel about getting them, it also depends on the cost because I don't want to spend a lot on it.

 

siskiou,

You are welcome to have the plants and fish for free, but I'm in Portland and I want to get them out very soon. Not selling the equipment going to save it until my wife can setup another tank.

 

Rich

[siskiou]

Thanks!

I've sent you a pm!

[pledosophy]

I vote for seahorses, but I'm seahorse obsessed. If you want to do them let me know and I can help out a bit.

[dippin61]

joel has this awesome cephlapod at his store right now for 95 bucks! if i had the extra tank, it'd be mine :p

[jptrson]

I don't have any xenia, but I do have some ANTHELIA your welcome to some.

[Michael7979]

Rich i like the seahorse idea.......throw in a few pipefish and try to find a mated pair of dragonets. I think that would be sweet!!!

 

Then down the road maybe you can add a small cowfish/boxfish or something.

[H20cooled]

I'm looking into doing a Sea grass tank, then I could do some cool sea horses or pipe fish and some other things.

[R-3]

Yeah I love pipefish. I vote for the Seahorse and pipefish tank. Just because of the survival rates of cuttlefish. They just dont make it very long. Later Ryan

[JManrow]

As far as voting, I would have to go for a seahorse setup.

One of the main reasons I originally got into marine tanks was to keep seahorses.

[fly guy]

Yeah I love pipefish. I vote for the Seahorse and pipefish tank. Just because of the survival rates of cuttlefish. They just dont make it very long. Later Ryan

 

that is the sad thing about them. Even if you do everything right you only get about a year out of them..............

 

I looked into doing them a while back and that is what stopped me : (

 

They are awesome though............

[Ronjunior]

joel has this awesome cephlapod at his store right now for 95 bucks! if i had the extra tank' date=' it'd be mine :p[/quote']

 

The one I saw was sold Friday. Reminded me of my favorite horsederve I had before dinner every night at Crusoe's Retreat.

[powdertang05]

i like the idea of the cuttlefish but i would myself like to have a frog fish pretty cool fish whats the dem of the tank

[H20cooled]

I think that I'm going to go with a hybrid design, Seagrass, macro algae tank but with fish rather then sea horses. I just don't have the time to do the live food thing for sea horses and I think look great in a bright green tank.

 

Rich

[Nyles]

Hmmm... Clowns, seahorse, and pipefish tank, and flood it with ricordea frags.

[tidalsculpin]

I say seagrass and jawfish community. Put a nice deep substrate in there and let em dig!

[WAVES]

you can check out www.stickycricket.com , he is the only guy I know that might have captive cuttles available.

 

You guys are right about them not living long, but its not the fact that they are in a tank, its nature.