Any fishy ideas?

Ask uberbatman. He tanks owns many salt waster aquariums.

put a lobster in there(might eat the fish though)

If you want to put a lion in there, dont put a volitan or anything large like that, it will eat your clown. You could probably get away with a fuzzy dwarf though. Make sure you see any fish eat before you buy it, but especially with these guys as they can be very picky eaters. Try and get one that will accept frozen foods like krill or squid as its not really good to give live feeders all the time.

Depending on the size 25–40 the other fish you can get will vary greatly. You should however be fine with most gobies/blennies. Damsels would be ok too, but i strongly advise against getting them as they are VERY territorial and have been known to kill larger fish , theyre also pretty much impossible to get out of your tank once they go in.

As far as which clown to choose i would go with a False Percula or a True Percula depending on how much you want to spend, but they seem to be one of the more passive clowns. (clarkis are the most passive but dont look like nemo) If you spend a little more, you could get a mated pair of clowns. :)

Also heres a compatibility chart for fish.

Do you plan on doing coral or just FLOWR (fish only with live rock)?

our last tank had coral and I really liked it, so I’d like to try that again…what are your thoughts on that?

that chart is awesome, thank you!

I know the yellow tang are pretty, but I believe they are pretty mean too, is that true?

They arent that aggressive but i wouldn’t put them in anything less than a 75g they need a lot of swimming room. I would go for coral if you have the patients and money for it, i have a 44g reef tank and i love it. I actually enjoy coral much more than the fish :P.

I’m very excited, thank you for all the info! Now I just have to go pick out my tank and my fish!

if you have any questions, id be more than happy to help :P

Thanks, I bet we will after we get started.

Get all the fish from Finding Nemo. They do live well together in real tanks or so I’ve been told, that’s my plan anyway. :)

and they’ll need an anemone to live in!

not to burst your fantasy bubble but bloat would eat Nemo and probably Jacques, and Gill doesnt do well in captivity, often dying after a couple weeks.

Good advice, uber.

Be careful with anemones. While clowns do love them, they’re often a pain to take care of and keep alive for any decent period of time (depending on tankmates, setup, etc). I’ve heard many stories of them getting sucked into powerheads as well, so bear that in mind.

With marines, there’s so, so many choices and combinations, it’s often difficult to stock your tank. Because of the environment they hail from, in all it’s vastness, nearly all marine fish & inverts are very specific feeders and will only accept certain foods and in certain ways. Unfortunately, if you get multiple fish which rely on these same resources in the tank, it creates great competition between the fish. Making picking good combinations very difficult and compatibility charts hard to trust.

Also, bear in mind, if you decide to go for a fish-only setup (i.e. no live rock, no corals and only very hardy inverts), many fish will be unsuitable and liverock provides an invaluable natural food source and hiding place. Also, the amount of fish the tank can handle will vary.

So, whatever you do decide to go for, read, read and read some more. Find out what their temperament is like and what they eat.

My percula clown is quite aggressive and a strong competitor for food in my tank. I keep it with a Midas Blenny, a Firefish, a Bangaii Cardinal, a Sixline Wrasse, a Coral Beauty and a small group of Green Chromis in a 65 gallon reef setup. For me, the angelfish is the most aggressive, the clown, cardinal, blenny and wrasse coming close second and the firefish and chromis receiving most of the aggression from the others, which makes food competition harder for them. The problem is, in a reef setup, it’s nigh impossible to get a fish out without ripping it all apart to catch the bugger – so you want to make sure you’re choices are good before you put them in.

And no, as uber said, the nemo setup wouldn’t stand a chance in hell. Also, if you put a shrimp-controlled bubble-lava-fountain in with great intentions of a tribal-nemo-initiation, I’m afraid you’ll also be disappointed.

Also, here’s a couple of really useful reef-oriented sites which have loads of info you may be interested in:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/
http://garf.org/

@uber: I was lied to! :’’’’’’’(

What a nice thing to do. I love seahorses, don’t know what you think of them. Just an idea though.

@tiggersmom seahorses are a pain and i really wouldnt suggest it unless you did A LOT of research first. They also need a very well established tank prior to being introduced.

we got our tank today! 24 gallons and were going to start with a couple of nemos and an anemone maybe and were going to do coral so I am very excited! Then we will go from there….

Good luck!

Whatever you do go slow or you can crash the systems balance and KILL everything.

Hold off on that anemone for a couple months, they need a really stable tank.

Are you getting a 24g Biocube or something?

What kind of lighting has it got?

Before you do anything, test it for leaks with freshwater – it’s easier to clean up and far cheaper. With my first marine setup, I put a few lumps of ocean rock in (not live, luckily), filled it up with RO water I bought because I didn’t have an RO unit yet and pretty much all the salt I had bought. Then, the next morning, I awoke to find a massive crack down the front of the tank and about 30 gallons of salt water on the living room floor. Not fun!

Don’t get an anemone just because of the clownfish & finding nemo. There’s no gaurantee the clownfish will host in the anemone. Apart from the fact certain clowns prefer certain anemones, they sometimes just don’t get along or the clown just isn’t interested. Unfortunately, the ‘clownfish anemones’ are often the hardest to care for also.

I really can't stress enough the importance of research with marines. Get an anemone if you decide you really want one and your tank can sustain one - but makes sure you know it can first. The GARF website I linked to earlier has a great page on anemones which you should read before going any further; http://www.garf.org/trever/anem/anenome.html

When an anemone dies in an aquarium, it releases massive quantities of toxins that could decimate every animal you have in that aquarium. These anemones are fundamentally unsuited to aquariums.

Despite this, thousands of anemones are raided from the ocean. This is a tragedy, because in the wild, anemones can live for hundreds of years. They also reproduce very slowly. When an anemone with a 60 or 70 years ahead of it is taken from the ocean and left to die in an aquarium in just several months, it is a tragedy.

When an anemone is not given the chance to produce offspring, it is a tragedy. If we keep up these destructive collecting practices, there will be no anemones left in the ocean. They simply do not reproduce quickly enough to keep up with the demand of the pet trade.

Anemones should be placed in the same category as whales, panda bears and black rhinoceroses: these huge beautiful animals cannot be killed indiscriminately. Imagine a vendor trying to sell baby panda bears to keep as pets in a living room. This vendor would find himself the target of million dollar lawsuits, and would be reviled by animal-lovers everywhere. Keeping pandas in a living room is ridiculous and cruel. Yet, when many large anemones are taken and put in aquariums, it is the exact same situation.

@damien you are so right. I am a big fan of GARF and have bought grunge, home grown corals and crabs from them. They have a great site. I recommend it to anybody wanting an aquarium. I set up my three tanks up about fifteen years ago by their standards and they have been great. I have three reefs a 110, 100 ,and a 55 gallon. Just about all my corals were started from frags. Low impact is the way to go!

@damien wow, I did not know that we will research it before we get one, I definitely want to do the right thing.

@uberbatman I don’t think there is anything special about our tank, except that the back is enclosed so all the hardware isn’t showing and we got a very high intensity light for when we want to start coral, it is a square tank though, not rectangular. I will find a picture and link it later.

@damien i couldnt agree more about anemones. And its true some clowns are just stubborn. I have a huge frogspawn, a decent sized torch and a green bulb tip anem. The clown wont host any of them. also my damn anemone moved to the back of my rockwork so i cant even look at the damn thing <shakes fist>

@gooch frags ftw! Whats the point in buying these huge pieces when you can grow something out yourself? Im all for frags.

@miasmom yea, a biocube or some other brand like it. Find out if your getting the power compacts or metal halides and what wattage. You’ll really like that tank, everything is nice and compact as well as easy to maintain. I used to have one and then the table it was on collapsed :(.
Luckily the light didnt break so i threw it on my 44g and went reef with that. :)