Newbie Question

[reefgirl1027]

HEllo everyone, i just bought a 8 gallon ocenanic bio cube. i have live rock, r/o wtr, & sand in the tank, & will cycle for 4 weeks before i put fish in that's what they told me in the store. The lights have 2 buttons on the top of the lid, one is for day & the other is for night. Do they stay on the night time light all night? i don't see a button to turnthe lights off. And what fish can i put in without overloading it? Can i put 2 clown fish & a couple of smaller fish?

 

[SaltWaterNewb]

Are the night lights just blue? A lot of folks do a light cycle something like this...Blue lights on for 2 hours, day time lights on with the blue lights for 8 hours, then turn off the day lights and leave the blue ones on for an additional 2 hours. Kinda simulates dawn, daytime, and dusk.

As far as your fish, two clowns will be pushing it in an 8 gallon tank. I am not sure I would even suggest that. Generally 10 gallons is the minimum for clowns.

 

[Ritsuko N]

Plus one to what SWN said about the lights. Thats a good route to go. If the night lights are LED's you can leave them on all night.

As far as fish in your 8 gallon nano...one is about the limit realistically. Fish are a huge bio-load on a small system. There are some that do somehow manage to pull it off but these are usaully those that complain about chronic algae, cyno bacteria out breaks and crappy water parameters. If you just must have multiple fish in your tank try something like a False Percula with a Yashia Goby and comensural pistol shrimp. Both are pretty small fish and occupy a different area in the water colum and thus wont compete for space. This should aslo make for a pretty interesting set up if you must have two fish.

 

[TimSchmidt]

Or just have inverts as opposed to fish. They have a smaller bio load.

 

[reefgirl1027]

Tanks for the advice, that sounds like a good fish combo, or i might just get one goby fish like a firefish. With the lights now it makes sense but, you would think there would be a button to turn the lights out if you want to, it looks like to me i would have to unplug. But since i have led blue lights i just leave them on all night.