Help Me Out With This Tank

mistyash

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I'm rather new to the salty side, but I've been doing a lot of research lately, and I'm in the process of taking over an existing setup. It's 55 gallons, with a Coralife Aqualight 53106, Aqua C Remora Protein Skimmer, and an additional powerhead. It includes 35 lbs of live rock, and live sand. There are also some corals and livestock included, but i'm not sure what yet. I'll be able to sell off whatever I'm not interested in keeping, so that's not an issue to me.

now, my biggest question is: what would i have to do to supplement this setup (if anything) to keep sps corals (mostly acropora) and a few lps (frogspawn), along with some zoos. I plan on implementing a deep sand bed, and buying a lot more LR. I'd also like to use a 10-20 gallon tank as a refugium--half chaeto and half LR rubble, in order to keep a good pod population in case I get a mandarin fish.

of course, I'd like to save as much money as possible, but I also know that that's the way a lot of systems fail. So I'm looking for your help. I respect your opinions, but I'm just looking for your thoughts on how to make this work--not anyone telling me to stick with mushrooms in my first tank.

as for stocking, these are just thoughts, and I'll think everything through before going out and buying it. But for now, I was thinking 2 black ocellaris, 1 mandarin dragonet, and maybe a fairy wrasse. I'd also love a dwarf lionfish, or a snowflake moray, but i think the moray will get too big, and I feel like I can either get a lionfish or shrimps, but not both.

Above all, I'd just like to make this work, and so I turn to my favorite forum for your words of wisdom. :wub:
 
Welcome to the salty side :)

With regards to corals:
You are probably good to go with what you have already for most soft corals (zoas, mushrooms, Xenia, leathers, etc) and also a few LPS (torches, hammers and bubble corals). Depending on what powerheads you have you may well need more water movement in there as well (at least X20 times the tank volume per hour).

For SPS corals you will need higher lighting (MH ideally though some can be kept fine under T5's) and you will need a lot more flow (around X30 tank volume per hour). You also need pristine water conditions (very low nitrate, no phosphate and good calc and mag levels).

For the fish:
I would skip the lion fish and eel, I dont know a great deal about them (but there are people on here that do) but both are predatory so wouldn't be too good with smaller fish.

For the rest of the stocking. The clowns are fine, the mandarin is very hard to feed so I would recommend culturing your own pods for a month or two before getting one. If you can keep up on the pod culturing during this time without losing interest then you will be fine (plus you will have a tank crawling with loads of pods which is perfect for a dragnet). The fairy wrasse will be fine as well (love these fish).
 
If you want 2 black ocellaris, 1 mandarin dragonet, and a fairy wrasse I would forget about the lionfish even the smaller dwarf would probably find them a tastey meal in time :sick:
 

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