Had the fluval 5g when I started..had 2 clowns a watchmen and fireshrimp with cuc no issues for me..yes I know fish grow and it was a small but things can be done...Not sure if this was covered or not(as I read a few posts here and there) What type of rock are you using from the looks of it not very porous..did you use live sand at the start? I had a friend with the 13.5 and remember how the back compartments looked..has three slots..in one slot I would look at getting a bag of eheim substrat pro or put lava rock in it...just some thing more for biological filtration more places for good bacteria to grow on...try a bottle of good bacteria such as instant ocean bio spear or fritz turbo start to really get a good jump of bacteria going to help with the amount of fish..even throwing a bottle in now will not hurt any thing but will only help..like some people said take what a LFS says with a grain or salt same as every thing said here..also with any system fresh or salt owning an aquarium is a waiting game..changing to many things to fast will crash a tank..if you change some thing wait a few weeks to a couple of months to see things change/take affect...also with water changes I find once a week on a small tank with small amounts tends to be better..then once time goes on you can push it to changing water every two weeks max..don’t get frustrated owning an aquarium and learning is an every going process from beginners to vets..I mean everyday new ideas are coming out that people are still trying/learning on what is successful for them..just one piece of advice is no two tanks are the same..so somethings that work for some don’t always work for others...also remember some fish when looking to buy might look great at the store but could always have issues that are not seen till days weeks after..because most of us have no clue how fish are being shipped/fed/handled from farm to depots to the store..as of now I say best thing is to get some more biological filtration so good bacteria builds ups to handle what ever next fish you put in..Nano tanks are one of harder sides of fish keeping as things can swing drastically and quickly.. where as in a big tank you have time to see problems starting and be able to adjust..it’s like this as of now your tank looks awesome and if you can successfully keep the corals you have going in that small tank with no issues then fish will be no problem when it comes to stocking again...reason I say this corals are living creatures also even though there a different type of species they can still die if they don’t like there new home..
Sorry for the late response!
Wow that's impressive that you had that many fish in such a tiny tank with no problems! I always see pics online of tiny tanks with several little fish and they look awesome but after hearing from so many people on here that you can't have that many fish in a small tank, I always wonder how those people make it work.
As for our LR, one of them is pretty porous actually- the one in the middle. I don't know enough to tell you exactly what kind of live rock any of our rocks are though. I didn't know that the type of rock meant much though, as long as it is live rock right? But I recently learned that there are different kinds of LR, all of which provide different things for the water, but that's really all I know. I'm not sure how to identify the ones we have though, and my boyfriend doesn't remember either. Is it important to have porous rocks? Our one porous rock is definitely my favorite, but other than the fact that it looks really nice and provides little caves for our watchman to go in, what else makes it important to the tank to be porous?
And yes you are correct that our tank has three compartments on the side. I have heard of people putting certain things in them to help the tank. I told my boyfriend your suggestion (because at the end of the day- he is the one who makes the decisions on what to do since it's technically his tank) and he says that we are good on the amount of good bacteria. But is this something that the water tester kits will tell us? I'm looking into getting one this week.
But as you mentioned waiting to make any more changes to the tank, we are definitely going to do that. It's already been three and a half weeks since our two fish died and all we've done since then is rearrange a couple of the corals. We probably will add another fish in a couple weeks, but as of now it is still just the watchman and clownfish.
As for the corals, knock on wood, but we have been pretty lucky with all of them so far. We have a torch coral that was two separate ones attached to a branch thing and one of them died, but that is the only issue we've had with our corals.
Thank you again for all of the great information! And for taking your time out to help and give your advice!
.. Google and read questions you may have on here before buying a fish.. changing anything.. such as salt or additives.. how much to feed.. lights.. fish behavior.. any question you could possibly think of is right here.. i agree also with another post about not adding anything else after you add the one clown.. read up on clowns and types that will and won’t get along before making your decision on which clown to purchase to pair with your existing clown.. don’t give up and never feel like it’s your fault.. always know we all had to start somewhere and we all make decisions that may not always work.. so you learn from it and move on.. let us know if you have any other questions if you can’t find your answer here.. so sorry for your loss by the way... have a great day!
as for test kits, salifert, elos and red sea are all excellent kits to go with, I use red sea myself and love them. Hanna checkers are great as well, a little tricky to learn at first but great once you get the hang of them. If you were looking for a good starter test kit I'd say have a look at the red sea marine care test kit. It was a great starter for me and I moved into the pro kits afterwards and have been very happy since. Also I might be missing it but what water source are you using??
