New to the hobby

[7IHd]

Hey all, I've been kind of peeking around through some of the threads and haven't made myself a proper introduction yet. I just finally had the chance to start up my very first tank. It's a 35 hexagonal with a Whisper filter (came with the tank, I've since added Purigen and all my levels seem to be good and stable, running about 20-30 mg/L Nitrates with no measurable Nitrites) and some basic low output fluorescent lighting. The system had been running for 2-3 years with about 20 lbs of live rock when I bought it and I kept 80% of the water on transfer and did a 20% water change. I let it run for a couple of days at my place, then added some cleanup crew and several days later added a cleaner shrimp. After about a week, I added a yellow watchman goby and have since added:

a pair of ocellaris clowns
tiger pistol shrimp (paired nicely with my YWG )
small detrivore (fighting) conch
2 bar gobies
about 10-15 pounds more live rock

My next move is to upgrade my lights, flow, and filtration (thinking about adding protein skimmer) to add coral and a bubble-tip anemone. I want to be able to accommodate a decent amount of coral, and plan to go with some nice high output T5s. I'm also going to get some sort of powerhead to make sure my circulation is flowing nicely. My main question is on my filtration. Is the Whisper 40 going to provide good enough of filtration with supplemental Purigen and a protein skimmer in order for me to keep whatever coral I get nice and healthy?

Also, additional fish I plan on purchasing. Any comments or additional information on them would be much appreciated as I have little to no experience with them and would like input:

Bicolor Angel (obviously the only angel I plan on getting)
Springer's Pseudochromis
Possibly some reef-safe wrasse

Other than that, I'm undecided and probably won't want to overload the system too much especially as I plan on adding coral.

Well, anyway, hello everybody and please comment and let me know what you think. I hope to add pictures soon, but have only my crappy phone camera right now. Thanks for reading!

 

[JMRegan]

Welcome to the Hobby!! I would say a protean skimmer is an essential buy to clean up junk in the tank. I started on a 29 gallon tank and did not know about them. It was one of the many issues that tank crashed. Also I am concerned about the bioload that is planned for the tank you are talking about. I found this when I was looking into how much fish to add to my tank.
A general rule of thumb is 4" (10cm) of small-to-medium fish per 10 gallons, or 2" (5cm) of larger/fast growing fish per 10 gallons. This is just a rough estimate of the number of fish. There is no exact number since finding the stocking density has to take into account the filtration, maintenance, feeding schedule, etc..

Have fun and ask more questions here as there are alot of very knowledgeable people who can help prevent mistakes. As a fairly new guy I can vouch for this. Lastly, do your homework on what you want before you put it in.

 

[7IHd]

Hey thanks for the welcome! As I said, I don't plan to put too much else into the tank to stress the bioload. Right now all of my fish are quite small and I know they'll grow (especially the angel were I to get it). If I were to add the angel, I would probably eventually get another tank (I plan to anyway within the next year or two, certainly) whenever my fish started grew large enough to stretch the bio capacity. Oh, and I also know that the angel (as with any angel) may nip at my corals, but it's a chance you take with an angel of course. I am going to get the Springer's at some point and that'll probably be it as I don't expect to get a reef-safe wrasse if I can get the Springer's, it was just another option. I appreciate your input. Thanks for your time!

Phil