Help with setup?

[boom215]

I just purchased a 75 Gal tank after getting bored of my 29 gal freshwater. After starring at the salt water tanks long enough i decided to get a new tank and go with saltwater. I have my wet/dry already and a skimmer which i didnt hook up yet. but my real question is what kind of fish should i start out with? i like lion fish but heard my tank is too small. i like clowns but dont want to be stuck with all comm. fish( or is community fish a fresh water term?) i like puffers and love coral. Also what kind of lighting do i need? i have a twin strip florecent? light. do i need diff bulbs or diff light setup all together for coral? dont really like damsels, just thought id put that out there.

 

[boom215]

also can i get an eel?

 

[cupcake]

I am fairly new at the game myself and maybe someone else will have better info for you. I have read and been told by the LSF that you should use Damsels to cycle your filter. I know you don't care for them, but at least they are fairly interesting to look at for a few weeks, and if they die, oh well, they were cheap and you didn't really like them anyway. Why waste lots of money on fish you really want just to watch them die off.

 

[mwaraxa]

I'm also fairly new to the game. Set my first tank ever up in Jan. And so far she's doing pretty damn well. Well for starters if your going to go reef (with all the corals and what not) your going to need more lighting then if you went with just a fish only tank. I think with corals i believe they say you should have about what? 5 watts of light per/gallon? Now that would be ideal of course and someone can correct me if i'm wrong. I just bought another high output compact flouresent because one wasn't enough for me because i also want to go into the soft coral department. The ones i have are 50/50 bulbs. So half of the bulb is the 10,000K bright light and the other half of the bulb is the blut actinic light. The actinic light is especially important for the corals and stuff like that. So keep that in mind. The other thing i would add is DON"T GET DAMSELS! hehe. I put 2 3-stripe and 2 Domino damsels in my take to help the cycling process and i guess they werent bad for being cheep fish but the Domino's are aggressive as hell. They would even attack my hand when i put it in the tank. Not to mention i had to destroy my tank just to get them out. I'm not sure about the chromis but if i could do it over i would have gotten a bunch of the green cromis or something. They don't look bad plus they can school and stuff. About eels. . . Not exactly sure but i don't think they are considered "reef safe" i think they would eat the hell out of your invertebrates. Correct me if i'm wrong someone!
-peace out