20 gallon tank + 2 clownfish + 1 3-stripped damselfish + soft corals = ok??

[Ourfish]

So I'm a total newbie. I've had a betta fish for over a year and absolutely love him. But now I'm planning on starting a 20 gallon nano reef tank. I've been spending hours researching about saltwater fish aquariums but I know I still have lots more to learn.

My current planned outcome is:
20 gallon tank
some sort of canister filter, lighting, and heater
live sand
2 percula clownfish
1 3-stripe damselfish (or will this not work with my clowns)
1 cleaner shrimp
20 lbs of live rock
and some soft coral - zoanthids, closed brain coral, leathers and mushrooms...

Any red flags with this plan? Any suggestions? I appreciate lots of advice as I wanna do this right.

[MCCOOL]

Sounds like a good plan, those fish should tolerate each other just fine.

[Saltwatercoral2]

You shouldnt use a canister filter unless you plan to constantly clean it. AS for the fish, they will be fine together

[ritter6788]

Find something besides the damsel. The 3 stripes are some of the most aggressive. If it's a must have fish for you then you could try it and see but if you can live without it and find another fish to add I would.

[PIMPALA]

i'd have a larger clean up crew than that.

[Toddrtrex]

I would skip the 3 stripe -- just see bad things happening.

Years ago I had a 3 stripe in my 75 with a pair of Clarkii clowns --- the 3 stripe always had to hide in the rocks because the clowns wouldn't let it out.

[Moonstream]

when I had my pair of occys in a 20l and tried to add a small Yellowtail damsel, the female barred it in the rockwork and refused to let it out.

with a three stripe, however, I'd be more worried that it would constantly pester the clowns as it grew. certaintly not a recipe for a soothing tank... expect lots of dive bombing and flaring going on. at least, this is what happened when I had a pair of YT damsels with my B&W's in my 29 (mostly the female B&W and the smaller YT quarreling).

[Ourfish]

Okay, so the three stripe damsel is out.

but UPDATE!! I just purchased my 33 gallon tank today! Found it in good condition at a garage sale. Really stoked

[Ourfish]

Okay, so the three stripe damsel is out.

but UPDATE!! I just purchased my 33 gallon tank today! Found it in good condition at a garage sale. Really stoked

[Ourfish]

:S sorry for the double post. How do you delete a post, I can't seem to find the delete button..?

[Moonstream]

ooo, Ive always loved the way 33gal tanks looked!

if it were me, I'd stock the tank with a pair of picasso or onyx clowns (two very nice pattern morph of perculas), a purple firefish, a m/f pair of yashia haze gobies and a pair of candy stripe pistol shrimp, and a tailspot blenny. for corals, I would do a mix of LPS (several candy cane morphs, a torch, and a cream/blue hammer and maybe a few open brains), softies (a green polyp toadstool leather, a few different clove polyp morphs, some anthelia), zoas of various color morphs and a few different mushroom morphs. I'd also thow in a group of five sexy anemone shrimp or a pair of skunk cleaners and a pair of porcelain anemone crabs.

for equipment, I would either get an aquaclear 110 and turn it into a fuge as well as a good quality HOB skimmer (I've heard octopus makes decent HOBs, I liked my in-sump NW skimmer from them that I ran on my 75g), or if you dont mind spending a little more, I would either drill the tank or get an eshopp's overflow, go for a 20g long sump with three sections: skimmer-> fuge ->return, then do a Magdrive 7 return pump and get two koralia 1s for added flow in the display. for lighting I would definitely get a two bulb 36" T5HO fixture (I like the Nova Extreme Slimline fixtures I have). while I've never used MH or LED, I can say for sure that T5 brings out very good color in my corals, and I love that it is neither extremely expensive to buy or to run.

sorry for the rambling, lol. I'm bored and I needed something to do.

[Ourfish]

thanks for all the suggestions moonstream. that's really helpful

Approximately, how much do you think all the equipment will cost that you suggested? Minus the 20g sump, I don't think we'll be able to afford that.

[Ourfish]

What equipment can we buy used and what equipment should we buy new? Is there anything we should be aware of when buying used equipment?

[Vadimshevchuk]

You can get a 20 gallon at petco for 20 bucks right now. They are having their 1 dollar per gallon sale again. For the sump, you can just go to lowes and they will cut glass for your sump. Shouldn't be to expensive.

[Ourfish]

what about the return pump? is that gonna be expensive?

[ctrl+f]

Originally Posted by Ourfish

what about the return pump? is that gonna be expensive?

This is not the hobby for you if you are concerned about the cost of the return pump.

The tank itself is usually a small percentage of the equipment cost. Lighting is the biggie, but if you are happy keeping softies that helps a lot.

Personally I would go poke around on craigslist or whatever and see if you can't score a cheap full setup from someone getting out of the hobby. It seems to be the cheapest way by far.

[Ourfish]

we're just getting into the hobby =P being students, we wanna be as economic as possible.

yeah we wanna do softies. on average, how much should one expect to pay for everything?

[charleneatkins]

did ask if any meds were used in the tank? I think I read somewhere that if the silicone had a "color" to it, it may have had copper used at one time, not sure. Hope someone clears this up. Just one newbie to another. We read so much its hard to keep everything straight.

[jeff@zina.com]

Originally Posted by Ourfish

What equipment can we buy used and what equipment should we buy new? Is there anything we should be aware of when buying used equipment?

First, anything can be bought used, if it's working and the price is right. Here are the pieces you should consider:

Skimmer. Hang on or in sump. Probably most important. Figure low end of $100 up to $250 new, half that as used.

Lighting. Need reef-suitable lighting for corals. Fish can take ordinary lighting but almost all corals will need better light. Figure $100 at low (and poor) end, $400 and up for high. Used, look at the life on the bulbs, they need replacing regularly (annually for most). You can do just fish and live rock with normal lighting and upgrade when you want to do corals.

Sump. You already have the 20 long you can use as a sump. Some glass for baffles and a return pump, maybe $20 in glass (high side) and $50-$100 for the pump (depends on the height it needs to move the water).

Marine aquariums aren't cheap, so you may want to go slowly into this.

Jeff

[cyberpunk]

2 agreements to the above...

Big NO on the 3 striped damsels. They're $3 for a reason. I had a pair and they were vicious to everything else in the tank. The only thing they were scared of was a huge cinnamon clown that I called John Wayne Gacy as he was vicious as well.

Also, stuff is very expensive. I am selling some things on CL right now and a guy just getting in got very ****ed when I told him prices. He thought I was robbing him. I suggested he do some research and then start a cichlid tank if he thought $175 for a light was robbery or my $2/lb LR. It's a tough lesson, but an important one.

[Ourfish]

Is this a good deal and will it work for our 33 gallon tank?

"I have a Coralife Super Skimmer with pump (up to 125 gallon) for sale $50. I also have some liverock $2 per lbs. I rather say the rocks are dead because I don't think there is any live in them, stored in a bucket for 6 months, but you can cycle them again. I may have a few power heads, but I need to find them and test them see if they still work."

Found it on craig's list..

[Ourfish]

I was thinking, for my 33 gallon tank, of buying 20 lbs of the old live rock and then like 5 lbs of new live rock and let it cycle. If I do that, the old live rock will become healthy again, right?