Starting My First Reef Setup - 30 Gallon Tank

yes get a heater now, they are not too costly. You will want to wait for several months on the anemone. They need an established tank to really blossom. You risk killing it in a new tank and that will cause such an ammonia spike that everything in your tank will be dead as well. Shrimp are great, but are also very fragile and need very consistent parameters. I would wait a couple months before adding them. Avoid the banded shrimp. Feather dusters will be fine after about 6 weeks or so.
As for fish, an ocerallis clown will do fine with a firefish or gramma. There really isn't much room for fish in a 30 gallon. The room seems deceptive til you stick your live rock and sand in. Good luck.

-Dr Marco :sfish:
 
Thanks for all the advice. I will buy the heater, powerheads, lights and protein skimmer. Once I have those ready to go I will purchase the base rock, live rock and live sand and start them cycling.

Should I buy the equipment as sized for the tank capacity or should I go one size larger to ensure maintainability? I will not buy a coral banded shrimp, I just thought they looked cool. I read that the fire red shrimp do better when they have a mate so I was thinking I would buy two. I will wait on the anemone which means I will wait on the clownfish as well.

The 1" per 5 gallon rule, does that apply to snails, shrimp and starfish as well? It seems like those would do alright even if I had 6" worth of fish. Is there a problem getting 3 2" fish or should I try to limit it to 2 fish 2-3"?

I'll research into the firsfish and gammas.

Thanks again everyone! I am so pumped!
 
Your clean up crew can vary in size, I started off with about 1 snail/crab per gallon, since my tank has been established im down to 23 snails, 3 crabs in my 12 gallon... Not sure if there is a real rule of thumb though...
 
As for clean up crew stay away from hermit crabs they can be a pain in the butt. Even the little blue ones everyone says to get. They do gorw and cause trouble. I know from experience. I would get turbo snails they are great and clean algea fairly quickly. I have 5 of them in my 55 and I also have a 10 astrea snails plus the snails that dig in the sand about 20 of them. They keep my tank clean.
 
Should I buy equipment rated for my tank size or go bigger?
As far as skimmers than yes,if its rated for a 65g and yours is only 30g. than that should be good.Make sure it isn't to big because the higher the tank capacity the larger the skimmer.Stay away from the Seaclone skimmers though.Many of us has experience with certain equipment,tell us what you have in mine and we can tell give our opinions on them.

Most don't equate snails,shrimps etc as part of the inch per 5 gallon rule as long as they are part of the clean up crew.As far as starfish if they are not part of the cleanup crew than IMO,they need to counted.
 
I have never counted shrimp or any inverts or starfish in my inches of fish. It is a rule about creating waste and the others add ons in your tank don't create much waste at all. the 1:5 ratio is for fish. I would avoid buying a 6 inch fish, but 2- 3 inch fish or 3 - 2 inch fish is just fine.

-Dr Marco :sfish:
 
As for my protein skimmer, my friend has a SeaClone 100 which he is really happy with. Being his is the only one I've seen working I was going to go with that. Is a 100 gallon rated skimmer too large?

As for my powerheads I was going to go with AquaClear 30's (2 of them) and place one high in the back left corner and the other low in the front right corner, hopefully concealed with some base rock for aesthetics, to create a good current. Should I go with 2 20's or is this thought process flawed? I don't want to create too large of a current but it doesn't seem like 2 30's would cause a problem.

What's the best solution for my lighting? My friends setup has three different bulbs, a white for daytime, a blue for nighttime and one that simulates moonlight I guess... It makes a grey hue to everything. Is there a solution that would work for a 30 gallon that could also be incorporated into a larger tank later on? (i.e. if my current tank is half the length of my future tank I could simply buy another ballast to cover the other half) I'm thinking a dual bulb T5 ballast will do the trick with the day and night lights. I need to do more research on my lighting.
 
If I was you I would go with T5. I have CP and I wish I would of. What kind of corals are you planning on? I have the Seaclone on my 55 and it works fine. A lot of people on here don't like them. Not sure why. I have 2 hydro koralia powerheads in my tank a 1 and a 2. Got them placed one on each side. These are the magnet type. Are you doing a sump?
 
Not on my 30 gal. I want to set up the 30 gal. as a kind of test setup which would be moved into a larger (150 gal.?) setup down the road. The 30 gal. will then be made into a refugium. I am thinking that if I buy the Sea Clone 100 and have good luck with it (I've heard their seals tend to weaken and leak but can be replaced simply from materials at a local hardware store) I will simply buy a second one when I upgrade to the larger setup. I am hoping that I can buy a lighting system that will also work in the same way, just buying another ballast to cover the added area. I need to research standard tank length to determine what size lighting I'd need for a 150 gal. setup and how I can make that work with my smaller 30 gal.

At this stage in the game I am just planning on getting some live rock with different polyps and dusters and what-have-you with the long term goal of getting an anenome and a clownfish.
 
Hellooooo and welcome! Like others have said, you shouldn't add an anemone until your tank has been up and running for a long time, I advise at least 10 months. AND anemones need at least 8 watts per gallon of lighting to survive, so those lights you linked to will not do the job. You will need either T5s or metal halides to keep an anemone.

Clownfish will do just fine without an anemone. If your girlfriend wants a "Nemo", by all means, go ahead and get one. But I would seriously reconsider getting an anemone AT ALL. They are one of the most difficult animals to keep alive, and they have the potential to very easily kill everything in your tank very quickly before you can do anything about it. Definitely not for a beginner or a new tank. Get a clownfish and skip the anemone. You will be glad that you did. Plus, many clownfish will host in other types of corals, so you get the same cool hosting behavior without the danger of the anemone.

DO NOT get the Seaclone! Your friend only thinks it works well because he hasn't seen the amount of gunk that a REAL skimmer would pull out of his tank. The Seaclones are the biggest waste of $100+ you could spend.
 
with your powerheads, place both of them high in the tank. You want the water surface to ripple to oxygenate it. it will force the current down onto the sand bed and keep cyano away. You are right to face them toward each other, but do place them high

-Dr Marco :sfish:
 
Thanks for the advice, I would have thought that placing them high/low would create a better circulation.

Yote, your links are perfect. Those are both right in the price range I am looking for and at least look like quality products. They both look like they will do what I am looking for, I'll have to look into them a little more in depth when I am not at work.... my productivity is starting to slip. :)

Thanks to all of your help I think I am ready to start amassing what I need to get my system up and stating to cycle. I'm sure I'll be posting with additional questions as I go. Thanks again everyone! :)
 

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