Good corals, fish and invertebras for beginner 70 gallon reef tank

[jessibrown24]

Hey everyone
I am starting my first salt water tank (72 gallon/ 275L reef tank).
I am currently trying to decide what I will add to it (once its all set up with all the equipment, once my coral rock is "live" and when water levels are perfect for my potential fish, corals and invertebras).

Will the following work together (the suppliers suggested these and say they will but I want more opinions from people who aren't trying to sell me products)? I want corals and fish that will not eat my invertebras and corals with are not too aggressive. I am a beginner so I want to start simple but have a nice natural looking reef tank. I don't want it to be too crowded and I want the fish to thrive!

Fish for the 70 gallon:
2 firefish (one red, one purple)
2 ocellaris clownfish - a pair (one red, one black)
3 pajama cardinal fish
3 green chromis
1 royal gamma
1 bi-colour blenny
1 diamond watchman goby
1 kole tang
1 red eye fairy wrasse

Invertebras for the 70 gallon:
10 cleaner shrimps (is that enough or too much?)
4 turbo snails
4 hermit crabs

Corals:
1 zoanthid
1 yellow leather toadstool
3 different peaceful mushrooms (some hairy some not)
1 candy cane coral
1 pulsing xenia
1 green pagoda cup

I also really want an elegance coral but I have heard they can eat shrimp, snails and other cleaner crew and can be difficult for beginners. Is this true? I want something to host my clownfish but anenomes seem too hard for me as a new beginner.

Thanks in advance!

 

[nereefpat]

Chemistry forum probably isn't the best place for this.

Fish:
Usually only one firefish can be kept, unless you are lucky enough to get a pair.
Chromis usually don't tolerate each other long term, unless in a large tank. They don't really school, as many folks hope they will.
Diamond gobies tend to eat everything in the sandbed, then starve. A mature 75 might be enough to sustain one, however.
The tank size is borderline for the kole tang. What are the dimensions of the tank? Is it a 72 bowfront?

Inverts:
You can basically keep as many cleaner shrimp as you want, but don't consider them part of your cleanup crew. They need fed.
The snails are fine. Hermits are ok, depending on what species they are. Some folks don't use hermits at all, but use more snails like ceriths and nassarius.

Corals:
What will be your lighting?
Zoas are great.
Yellow leathers are great, if you have enough light and flow.
Not sure what you mean by "peaceful" mushrooms.
Candycanes are among my favorite easy stony corals.
Xenia can take over a tank in short order. You can sometimes keep it isolated, but by quite careful.
Pagoda cups are great as well, depending on light and flow.
You should have easy access to Ausie elegance corals, right? They are much more hardy, I believe. Not sure about them eating inverts. Clowns can sometimes damage corals, by trying to be hosted.

 

[bertoni]

[welcome]
I'd probably trim the list down to 6-8 medium-sized fish.

The cleaner shrimp are optional, and they aren't part of the cleanup crew, in reality. They will eat leftover food, but so will many other animals. I'd probably add one or two because I like them. I don't know whether they'd get aggressive with that many in the tank.

Elegance corals were hard to keep for a long time, and might still be, for reasons that are unclear. If you find a captive-propagated one, you should be fine.

 

[jessibrown24]

Hey thanks everyone!
Sorry i didn't realise this was a chemistry forum, I only joined yesterday .
Its very hard to get captive breed corals here, so I am going to shy away from the elegance coral I think as the ones here sound like they aren't as hardy.

I'm debating whether to stick to the 70 gallon or drop down to 30 gallon. There are some really good all inclusive 30 gallon systems here designed for reef tanks which I think may be easier here.

At the moment I am thinking 30 gallon now and just have:
Fish:
2 captive breed ocellaris clownfish (pair)
1 bicolour or lawnmower blenny
1 firefish, royal gamma or chromis
(so max of 4 fish in the 30 gallons)

Corals:
1 zoanthid
1 leather toadstool coral
1 candy cane
1 pagoda cup
1 mushroom
1 red open brain coral
(and maybe an elegance coral but I have heard a lot of bad things about them).

Then i can upgrade everything to my 70 gallon later on (which I would need to get all the equipment for as well).

The clean up crew part totally confuses me. I want some turbo snails, cleaner shrimp and hermit crabs but I am not sure how many.
For lights i have 4x24 watt T5 for the 72 gallon or a 25 watt LED for the 30 gallon (thats what they come with but I can add more lights).

Also FYI we can't buy "live substrate" here (bio-security etc) and "live rock" is hard to come by and can contain a lot of parasites so i will have to start from scratch (which I am completely fine with as I want to learn and do it all properly).

Thanks so much for your help everyone (i promise i will get better at all this forum stuff haha).

 

[jessibrown24]

or potentially a goby or something instead of the firefish..
and maybe a feather duster or something instead of some of the other corals.
I just want to start with getting all the rock and substrate "live", then add clean up crew and a few simple corals with a clownfish pair, and then add everything else way later when I am convinced the system is stable and working well and everything is happy and thriving.

 

[jessibrown24]

also would it be worth just getting an anenome for clownfish to host in, so they don't try host in corals and damage them? like a bubble anenome? or should i just stick clear of anenomes in general since im a beginner?
Sorry for all the questions! thanks for your help

 

[nereefpat]

For a 30gallon, that fish list seems good for the most part. I would do:
the clown pair
bicolor blenny
royal gramma or firefish. The chromis would probably be terrorized by the clowns, since they are related. Folks here have reported as much.

I'm not an LED guy. If you could give us the specific brand/model of the 25watt fixture, some other folks could help.

No need to buy "live" sand or rock. Dry rock and sand is fine, and in some ways better.

An anemone would be fine. Most need an established tank (at least 6 months). Keep in mind that they can get large enough to take over a 30 gallon tank, and possibly be mobile, and can sting corals.

Questions are fine. People are here to learn. Spend some time reading the stickies on the top of the forums here too.

 

[jessibrown24]

Thanks for your reply! Would you people recommend a 30 gallon tank to maybe upgrade to 70 gallon or start with a 70 gallon for a complete beginner as those are my main options.

I have revised what fish would be better what do you think of (this is maximum I would end up getting).
2 ocellaris clownfish (pair)
1 royal gamma
1 firefish
1 orange spotted goby (I'm worried it might eat shrimps) OR a bicolour blenny instead of the goby (worried it might eat the corals).

Clean up crew: (depends on if it's 30 gallon or 70 gallon)
Some scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp
Some peppermint shrimp
Maybe one pistol shrimp but they seem very hard to get here
Some turbo shrimp
Some blue legged hermit crabs
Would these all be ok together with my shrimp?

Corals:
1 candy cane
1 zoanthid
1 yellow toadstool
1 red open brain
1 pagoda cup
Some mushrooms

Would a bicolour blenny disturb any of thessential?

 

[jessibrown24]

Ignore the weird autocorrcts. I meant these haha

 

[bertoni]

Either tank size is fine for a beginner. You should make the choice based on what you want and your budgetary limits.

I'd drop a fish from that list, if not two, for a 29g system. It's very easy to overload a saltwater system and cause a lot of maintenance issues.

 

[b_evans06]

In my first tank I started out with a 29g tank with a pair of clowns, a royal gramma, and a bi color blenny. They lived together 3 years peacefully and now all live in my 75g with a few new inhabitants added. I liked the combination and would recommend it if you decide on the 30g.