Newbie stocking a 40 gallon breeder!

[Cats4life!]

So, to be clear, I do have experience in freshwater, but this would be my first saltwater. Anyways, from what I’ve gleaned off the forum and internet, I’ll have a 20 gallon sump for filtration in the tank. This stocking list is pretty rudimentary, but these are all the fish I like so far that can fit. Obviously I can’t have them all, so just assemble a list from this of what I can have, please.

- A pair of Ocellaris clowns
- Royal Gramma
- Firefish
- Sharknose Goby
- Orchid Dottyback (If they’re not aggressive)
- 5x Bangaii Cardinalfish
- Flame or Lemonpeel Angel
- Flame Hawkfish
- Two Mollies
I plan to do a reef with soft corals and two bubble tip anemones for the aquascape. Plus, some inverts. I’m not sure if inverts count for stocking in saltwater or not.
- Skunk cleaner shrimp
- Sexy Shrimp
- Fire Shrimp
- Serpent Star
- Maxima Clam
- Emerald Crab
- Porcelain Crab
- Trochus Snails
- Longspine Urchin

 

[Reefing102]

Welcome to RC! If it was my tank, I’d do the following:

Pair of clowns
Royal Gramma
Firefish
Orchid Dottyback
Flame Angel
Flame Hawk

Now with the hawk, your shrimp will be a little risky so I’d skip the shrimp and due to size, I’d skip the long spine urchin, may a couple blue tuxedo urchin inestead. All the other inverts should be fine.

You may have issues with the angel and corals (each one is different) and not sure on the mixing of the Orchid and Royal Gramma (I believe it should be okay)

 

[JohnL]

Welcome to Reef Central

 

[Cats4life!]

Hmmm…if the hawk is sure to eat my shrimp, I’ll just kick him out and get the sharknose goby. The orchid dottyback is actually just something my brother likes, so I’m getting it for him. Hopefully he won’t be awful. I’ll just kick out urchins entirely.

 

[Reefing102]

It’s not a 100% certainty with the hawk but a very common occurrence

 

[Cats4life!]

I like the sexy shrimp too much…could I put them in the sump and get the flame hawkfish? And, concerning the flame angel, I’m going to target-feed it to keep it from getting nippy.

My brother’s pretty young, so I might just convince him the gramma is a weird dottyback and he might accept it.

 

[griss]

Definitely do NOT do long spine urchin. Had one in a 92 and got too big for that tank. Everything @reefing102 said, I agree with.

 

[Cats4life!]

Yeah, I really just wanted him for the symbiotic relationship. Kicking him out.

 

[JohnL]

My brother’s pretty young, so I might just convince him the gramma is a weird dottyback and he might accept it.

Lol