I'm not sifoo, but i can give u general idea of saltwater tank & share to u my FOWLR experience...Any other sifoo pls correct me if i'm wrong...

1) I can say size of the tank will very much depends on your objectives and budget...if u intend to keep small fish in small number then 2 feets is sufficient lor...maintenance & initial setup cost also cheaper..however small tank prone to drastic changes in water parameter...for marine fish, water quality is important...bigger tank allow more rooms for "error" due to high dilution.with bigger tank u can stock up bigger fish without stress them up...if you have xtra money, start with 3 feet...

2) for tank of your size it's not necessary to have protein skimmer...if u r plan to get cheapo skimmer powered by airstone, just forget about it coz in my opinion it's not effective....unless u are getting expensive skimmer such as recirculation needle wheel skimmer, but its require space (i.e. sump)....chiller is necessary if you plan to play with coral coz they need consistent temperature below 27'c to thrive....if you keep "Fish Only With Live Rock" (FOWLR) tank, there's no need for chiller if you could maintain the water temperature 29'c and below....

3) for 2 feets tank, a good mechanical filteration system and sufficient amount of liverock (e.g. 6-8kg) will do.... yes u may used normal hang-on filter & replace liverock with biomedia...however i've doubt u can put sufficient biomedia inside typical hang-on filter even the big one....so i strongly recommend u to used natural liverock to house the bacteria...

4) Yes u need to cycle your tank first for at least a month without any fish (if possible)..i mean running an empty tank...pour some fish pellet, let the filter running, the nitrogen cyle will start itself and bacteria will start colonizing the liverock or biomedia....please get testing kit and monitor your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate level daily..u can only start stocking your fish if your level of ammonia and nitrite has drop and maintain at 0ppm with some reading of nitrate...

There's few methods to cut-short this process i.e. damsel fish, bacteria culture product or liquid ammonia (i'm more towards the used of liquid ammonia)....For salt level, buy the hydrometer to measure specific gravity (determined by the level of salt in your tank)....mix the marine salt until your specific gravity around 1.021 - 1.023....

5) Brand is kinda subjective...for decent setup like mine, anything cheap will do for filter and media....

6) Clown fish yes bcoz they kinda hardy fish and stay small....however please avoid dory or any Tang/surgeon fish in a small tank...they grow bigger and prone to disease such as ich when stress.... damsel is not recommended coz tend to be aggressive towards other fish....

7) i'll only say coral in a 2 feet tank is only for expert....i strongly suggest u not to rush and keep coral inside this tiny tank...stay with "fish only" first and see whether you can keep them alive for few months....there are too much water parameter u need to maintain for coral or reef setup ...they need nutrient, strong light, low temperature (24-26c) and pristine water condition...slight mistake will coz all your livestock (fish + coral) gone and money down to the drain....

8&9) maintenance for small tank should be easier and cheaper, i would say not more than RM50 for FOWLR tank per month....that's include salt for weekly water changes, fish pellet, and filtration media....running cost for small tank also not much, maybe additional 10-20 to your water/electrical bill coz very minimal equipment used....but for reef tank i'm not sure la..maybe bit higher coz need to buy supplement and electricity for 8-12 hours of lightning....reef tank of your size at least gonna need 50w of lightning i guess...

10) i'm not sure whether this is allowed (some kind of free ads):
+ Oceanic aquarium (tmn bukit kuchai Puchong)
+ Planet aquatic (jalan kuchai lama)
+ East Aqua (Midvalley)
+ Batu karang Laut (ss16 subang jaya).
+ 88 Petsmart (sunwaymas commercial centre)

My final say, FOWLR tank is good for beginner, less head-ache and easier to maintain.....If you really into reef setup then need to invest bit on few other equipments in order to maintain pristine water condition......

Anyway this is my noobie 3 feet FOWLR setup...


This post has been edited by silverbolt143: Aug 20 2010, 04:01 PM

Nice setup bro...

Thanks Moe....still waiting for more experienced reefer and fowler to post and share their tank setup for reference....

thanks bro for your guidance...

so basically i'm not encourage to have coral in my tank yet... and liverocks will be highly recommended.

silverbolt, do u mind me asking what is your filtration system named?? if i dont plan to get something like yours, do i have any other alternatives?

tmrw i will try to seek for more guidance from shops, thanks...

thank you once again!

hey silverbolt, is there supposed to be that much water in your skimmer cup?

anyone can recommend me a protein skimmer for my 2ft tank? pls dont recommend the china brand one, using the piece of kayu with air bubble coming out.

one more thing, are lights necessary for growth of beneficial bacteria? cause im running my tank now without any lights.

This post has been edited by auto774948: Aug 21 2010, 05:45 AM

hey there.. how about JAD wg-428 skimmer.. here's a reff pic:



East aqua has is for 220 i think..

this is a hang-on skimmer... if u're not using a sump, this is ur best bet.. if u're gonna use a sump, then u can get bigger stand alone skimmer to put inside ur sump..

no.. light is not necessary for beneficial bacteria growth...

i'm currently cycling my tank too without any lights..

guys, i can mix clown fish with yellow tailed demsel or 4 stripe demsel in a small 2ft tank??? because i'm not getting any tangs for this size.

because i intend to mix with some other fishes, but i will only start with cheap fishes, others are far more expensive, even angel fish also expensive and bit hard for beginner.

I dont recommend beginner to start with coral coz it's hard for u to maintain pristine water condition....
What u need to do is READ more and join some other reef or marine forum to get advise from more experience person....
try google "nanotank", "reeftank setup", "chuisui" etc....
Dont rely much on local fish shops, they usually talk nice & persuasive just to sell their product....
Perhaps any sifoo running nano reeftank willing to share their advise here...

I'm using sump tank, where usually people put all their filter mechanism and equipment inside.....it's the best place to hide everything...
u dont want to put all that thing inside your main tank or display tank.....it will look messy & consume lot of space....
And people running with less liverock (in the main tank) usually hide their liverock or biomedia inside the sump tank....

If you stick with 2 feet FOWLR, hang-on filter/external filter, Liverock + biomedia already sufficient in my opinion...


there are 2 type of skimmate which are wet & dry....what u saw in my sump is a very wet skimmate, like "tea O" or plain chinese tea....
depends on type & setup of the skimmer, u can get dry skimmate (less water but just black coloured gunk/waste)....
People prefer dry skimmate coz it show the skimmer is very efficient in removing protein/waste...
However it's hard to get cheapo skimmer to produce dry skimmate...after few modification, the best i can get only 50% "kopi O" coloured watery skimmate

A good dry skimmate more/less look like this...

(source: reefcentral)

Basically a good skimmer provide:
i) huge amount of surface area i.e. by producing high quantity of very tiny little bubble (using needle-wheel pump)
ii) longer contact time between the the waste & the bubble i.e. by using big/tall reaction chamber
If you can understand these concept:
+ then u'll understand why expensive skimmer is much more efficient....
+ u can try modify u skimmer to get better skimmate....
+ u can even DIY and design your own skimmer...

sup guys its been a long time.

heres my 2ft tank
only 2 things, 1 shrimp and a blue king angelfish

some crap happened to my 10 gallon tank, all the fish died, the protein skimmer was faulty.
wanna get my hands on an in tank skimmer.

wow... getting interesting and interested in getting 1 marine tank.

having spent 2 days reading from page 1 to last page. (only read bit when i got free time and not 24 hrs camping here in front of the pc).

but most likely wont be getting 1 so soon, but will need to equip myself with sufficient knowledge about this marine fishtank first b4 i get it.

reason not to get? my pair of goldfish is growing bigger and bigger =.= so if i were to get a 2ft tank also will be their home first. my goldfish is also very cute too will welcome u by splashing water to u.

hello there.. after about 4 weeks cycling.. added some clownfish and demselfish... looking good so far.. will try to post some pics soon..

still no light and fan... still in the mids of diy both... will share updates soon..

salt roughly 33 grams for 1 liter of water.
for corals, u need chiller that'll cost a bomb. an indicator that your tank is nicely cycled and prepared for corals is when you see coraline algae growing on your rocks.


bro ur tank how big? clown n damselfish will fight.
light is optional - if want coral then u might need to get proper lights depending on wat type of coral.
i saw people selling some blue led strips(purely for decorative purposes), im planning to fix that onto my tank.
fan not really necessary also, just monitor the temperature. sometimes powerhead/ water pump will cause temp to rise then only you might need fan.

This post has been edited by auto774948: Aug 26 2010, 04:54 PM

wow wat an essay above...

anyway, if not mistaken the blue fish white white rings in the center quite expensive?

Thanks ....that's a juvenile Emperor Angelfish, quite cheap actually around RM60...but once it had changed colour (to yellowish with vertical lines) then it will cost at least RM120...mine had start showing colour changing at tail section....

I setup my filter to maintain nitrate around 0-10ppm even without frequent water changes...in the middle section of the sump tank under the floss is a box of "remote deep sand bed" (RSDB) around 6 inch tick...Previously tried Chaeto but throw it out since it need lighting and consistent trimming....

I suspect there's still significant amount of phosphate in the tank but no testkit to confirm...gonna get some Rowaphos and hopefully the tank is ready for some lite coral for the next 2-3 months.......

emperor is a very nice fish ..i dont have the gust to bela yet..

i wonder if i should buy in tank skimmer or bio tank skimmer better...? can it be modified later on if i buy in tank skimmer

hi all... just passing by... well i'm still new in marine. at present, i have 3 feet custom aquarium... will upload picture soon...

Here's an update of my tank.. added more live rock, some clownfish, and some damselfish and a couple of goby. added a fan and temp is maintaining at 26.5C.. no lights yet.. will be DIYing led lighting very soon.

very nice tank there you have!!! so big your tank, why dont add some tangs?? blue or yellow...?

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Added on September 4, 2010, 8:24 pmi'm so itching to get a marine tank... but that gonna cost me a bomb... must start saving bit by bit...

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Added on September 4, 2010, 9:43 pmanother quick question please.

what do u guys use to test the water parameter? do u test all of them? nitrate, nitrites, and all....

what about salinity? is there 1 reader that can provide all function? lol... sounds so greedy...

how often do u test the water parameter....? if you change your water weekly or once every 2 weeks, is that necessary to test most of them??

from what i understand, the most important part is the nitrate cycle, so what parameter do i have to take into consideration here? thanks!!!

This post has been edited by tehoice: Sep 4 2010, 09:43 PM

Nice rockscaping So envy that you could maintain the temperature @ 26.5c with a single fan...was the tank placed inside air conditioned room?

Water parameter were tested using TESTKIT, usually cost around RM20-RM50 depending on the brand & accuracy...
At least get a liquid form testkit, please avoid cheaper test kit which use tiny paper strip to get the reading coz its usually not accurate....
And as far as i know, a testkit can only be used to test one particular water parameter...never saw all rounder testkit...
There is Test kit package (few test kits pack together) but that cost at least hundred buck....

Test kits very useful during initial cycling process, u need to test for ammonium, nitrite & nitrate...your cycle is considered complete once the reading for ammonia & nitrite is zero.these 2 gases are harmful to the fish....the presence of nitrate (less harmful) confirm there is nitrogen cycle going on coz the bacteria had consume nitrite...
(in a clean purified water without any bioload, there's no nitrogen cycle so there's no reading for ammonia, nitrite & nitrate....)

After cycling process, u dont have to bother about ammonia & nitrite anymore....U may test them once in a while if necessary,say once a week....
i myself only test ammonia & nitrite every 2-3 months just for fun....
The only reason these gases gonna spike/surge is due to significant increase in bioload i.e. too many livestocks/fish added at the same time, big dead fish inside the tank....

Even though less harmful, u still need to maintain nitrate level below 20ppm for FOWLR....
Fish can survive/tolerate nitrate more than 20ppm (some say more than 100ppm) but it's not recommended....
For nitrate i recommend it to be tested at least once a week......
High nitrate will also give u head-ache with nuisance algea.....The easiest way to reduce Nitrate is by frequent water changes.....

There's no testkit for salinity. u just use hydrometer to measure it....usually test to know whether u've mix enough salt into the water.....
Salinity fluctuation is very rare if your water level is stagnant.....however u need to be careful if u use fan to cool down your tank coz the water will evaporate & the salinity will increase eventually.....

From my POV, the above test routine already sufficient for a FOWLR tank....
u dont have to worry about carbonate hardness, phosphate, calcium, zero nitrate etc coz these only concern if u keep coral...

im used the same fan..also maintain 26.4 day light..but on nano tank 1.5ft..so u 3footer to get that temp so good!