New tank owner looking for advice

[Janus]

Hello we just bought our tank and are in the process of slowly setting it up and would welcome some advice.

We have a 30 gallon tank( I know its small but we have a 2nd story apt so for now its small with a few fish till we get a house) it was an Odyssea kit from Fintiques on west ave here in San antonio.

it has 2 lights both 65 watt...one blue and the other a white daylight

the filter is a trickle ove filter on the top of the tank w/ a 900liter per hour power head.

right now we have about 15 pounds of live rock 4 snails and 4 hermit crabs.


Besides at least doubling the live rock and adding a sump and protien skimmer what woudl recomend we add to start a healthy tank?

[demodiki]

Is your tank already cycled? What kind of substrate do you have? What are your overall plans for the tank: fowlr, sps/clams/lps,softies,etc....Do you have testing kits? Do you have a Ro/Di? That's the best thing I ever bought for my tank.

[Janus]

we have a 2-3" layer of sand and aragonite mixed and are going to buy another 5 lbs of live sand.

We were reading about the berlin method and would really like to use as much natural filtration as possible.

would like to grow some coral eventually as well.

as far as fish, we are not sure what to start with...thought about some green chromis and maybe a tang or two eventually
not sure what sps/clams/lps, andsofties are though.
and I am getting ro water from the fish store down the street like 50 cents a gallon.

[gjuarez]

I would hold of on the tangs, they more swimming room. Chromis are nice and hardy fish to start of with. As far as corals, it seems like your tank is equipped to keep soft corals, mushroom, and a couple of hard corals. I think I would go with an extra inch for the sand bed so you could have more room and less oxygen for denitryfiying bacteria to grow. Its good that you are doing your research. GOod luck with your tank.