Filtration Set up

[JTak77]

Hello to all! My name is Josh. My wife and I were thinking of starting a "species only" marine tank, consisting of yellow headed jawfish, and maybe 1 porccupine puffer. My question is, what kind of filtration to use, as we don' t want to use a whole lot of LR, because of the display purposes and nature of the Jawfish, I was thinking of setting up either a 50g, or a 55g L and possibly using the Eheim wet/dry filter sytem, as we will not be trying to grow any corals, or much else for that matter. Any thoughts on settting up the ultimate Jawfish tank would be helpful.

[boxfishpooalot]

50 gallon is too small for porcupine puffer. I think the can attain a size over a foot.

The porcupine will also eat the jawfish in time.

Any amount of live rock is benificial in a sandbed tank. So long as you have some. But imo, rock is not needed with enough sand.

[sir_dudeguy]

like boxfish said, the puffer is way too big for a 50g tank (or even 55 for that matter).

If all you want is fish and no corals or anything like that, then wet/dry's are a perfectly good way to go. Much cheaper than LR and does pretty much the same thing. They just produce nitrates which is bad for a reef and live rock does not.

But anyways, for jawfish, i believe they like deep sand, so plan on having that.

[steri]

I don't know if 50 is too small for a puffer. I know they can get big, but they should only grow to the size of the tank. I had a pourcupine puffer once for four years in a 30. It never died, I just took the tank down and gave the puffer to a friend. I will say I only had about 5 or 6 fish in the tank most of the time, but that puffer seamed quite happy in the 30 I had.

His size when I had him was maybe about 4-5 inches.

[steri]

I do think the puffer could eat hte jawfish though, in time if the puffer continues to grow.

[JTak77]

The Puffer was just an idea, We mainly want to do a Jawfish colony, (we are just absolutly in love with them) however, I was just trying to maybe find an additional mid/top level swimmer that dosent require much cover, and can fare well the the jaws.

[Redstratplayer]

chromis or bagi cardinals

i would go with a the cardinals

[sir_dudeguy]

I know they can get big, but they should only grow to the size of the tank

i dissagree very much :) If that were true, then why would people even bother getting bigger tanks for big fish??? Fish are gonna grow to their normal size despite the tank size (given that their food is provided in the right ammounts).

Chromis and bangi cardinals would be top level swimmers, however the chromis will likely kill eachother off quite a bit till there's only a few left.

Also, this might be the first time i ever recommend these (and the last lol) but arent jawfish somewhat aggressive? If so, i'd say you could add some damsels :) They would fare well w/a somewhat aggressive fish, and there are a couple different damsels that arent that ugly. But then again, if they are too aggressive, you'll have to take everything out to catch em lol. Just a thought :)

[JTak77]

Thanks to all for the input so far, any input on the marineland tidepool sys, for this type of set up, I need to have a tank with no openings on top, as the jawfish I know are jumpers.

[Redstratplayer]

I dont know if this is to many fish but... IF jaw fish are agrresive that forces the chromis to school and schooling avoids fighting also chromis dont fight if ther are 6 or 7 in a group