Saltwater Tank Tips

[Lareina&Mike]

Hi all,

My DH has always wanted a saltwater fish tank and sooooo, about 2 weeks ago, we got one (a 30 gallon tank)... Does anyone have any tips for us that I can share with him on what we need or how best to care for it? We love it so far and have read up a bit but I'm sure there's tons more to learn.

We got it used so it was already started and we have a couple fish (a yellow tang, a blue niger triggerfish, a chocolate chip starfish and a blue knee crab) and it has live rock and live sand for a base. We got some tips from the lady but I thought I'd ask all the knowledgeable people on here for advice.

We are also thinking of selling the triggerfish and the starfish because we want to make it a reef tank and we want to have more peaceful community fish (so any ideas of appropriate fish would be great too). I've heard the yellow tang can be okay in a community tank but I've also read you need a 100 gallon tank for it eventually so we're not sure if we're going to keep him as well.

Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!!

Lareina

P.S. My dh likes the lawnmower bleny's, bi-color bleny's, firehead goby's, or blue-green chromis. I like the clownfish. Any tips on whether these would go together well or good/bad things about them would be appreciated as well.

Edited March 11, 2009 by Lareina&Mike

[2manytanks]

You're right, the trigger and the tang are definitely out for a 30g tank. I don't know how big your tang is or how it's behaving, but even small it would benefit from a larger tank, they just aren't comfortable without some swimming space.

Never had blenny's myself, but most gobies (stay away from mandarins though, you don't have enough real estate to grow the food they need) and clownfish are a good choice. You have enough room for a smaller species of anemone for the clownfish to host in, something like a bubbletip anemone and some percula or oscellaris clowns.

Don't know about your lighting, with a small tank like that you'd do OK with soft corals with good power compact or T5 lighting, things like mushrooms, xenia, colt coral, GSP and zooanthids. A bubbletip anemone would also do well in this lighting - stick with a darker anemone, nothing white in this kind of lighting, the lighter anemones need brighter light.

You should have a protein skimmer, particularly if you're getting into corals.

Sorry I can't help more, I'm kind of bagged and brain dead right now. Let us know more details, and just keep reading, learning is the most exciting part.