What is the best fish for a 6 gallon saltwater tank?
Posted on August 3rd, 2009 by admin
Fish
I am setting up my first saltwater tank and I am starting with a 6 gallon tank. I already have my sand and live rocks set up. I am trying to deside now what kind of fish to go into the tank. I am going to get a purple lobster but would like to have a fish also. I thought about a shimpgoby or a clownfish. Wasn’t sure if either of these fish would be right for the size tank I have. Any ideas on what would be best?
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I am setting up my first saltwater tank and I am starting with a 6 gallon tank. I already have my sand and live rocks set up. I am trying to deside now what kind of fish to go into the tank. I am going to get a purple lobster but would like to have a fish also. I thought about a shimpgoby or a clownfish. Wasn’t sure if either of these fish would be right for the size tank I have. Any ideas on what would be best?
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personally, as this is your first saltwater tank, and is classed a nano tank (and one of the hardest saltwater types of tank to maintain) i wouldn’t advise any fish to begin with. you’re going to be having enough trouble maintain the levels in the tank to try with fish. there are very few that will cope in a tank that small.
get your nano up and running and see how well you do. saltwater fish are expensive, maybe after research you can get some in 8 months – a years time if you mastered your nano and it’s invert inhabitants without loss.
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The advise of the first poster is good. But to answer your question.
You might look into some of the dottybacks however they are some what agressive towards ornamental crustacians. Some of the smaller gobies should do ok as well and they are less agressive and are probibly a great choice. You can find a listing of them in a book called “A pocketexpert guide reef Aquarium fishes.” They also put out a book geared towards Invertebrates Which might help in setting up the rest of your tank.
Good luck.
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6 gallons is awfully small for a saltwater tank. I’d reccomend holding off on fish until you’re sure you can keep your tank stable, and even then, I’d advise you to get a bigger tank–it will be much easier to maintain and your fish are less likely to die.
You could start off with the 6 gallon and just keep crustaceans in there, and then once you’ve got experience with that, you could eventually get a bigger tank for fish.
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Saltwater tanks in generally are very sensitive. 6 gallons it to small for a first saltwater tank as it leaves no room for error. (Even small fluctuations will greatly affect a tank this small) It is also much to small for most saltwater fish. Purple Lobsters get up to 5″ so the tank is going to be to small for it. They may also harm small fish so would be a danger to anything that could go in a 6gal. Clownfish and the various varaties of shrimp goby need larger tanks, usually 20gal at least. About the onlything you could possible keep fish wise in a 6 gal is a firefish goby or a clown goby (only one fish not both) and even that would be pushing it. If 6gal is all you have room for I would suggest an invertabrate only tank. Forget the lobster in a tank this small go with smails, crabs and maybe a shrimp or two.