New 46 gallon tank

[Eastie]

Hello and thanks for the help in advance!

We are starting out with a 46 bow saltwater aquarium. We will be adding the live rock in a few days. We would like ultimately to have a nice mix of fish, coral and invertebrates and know this will take a long time and plan to add slowly. We've been doing a lot of reading, but it would be nice to have some advice on which combinations would do well in our tank given its size. Since we are new to this, we obviously need to start with easy marine life. Thanks. So far we are thinking of a clownfish, a banggai cardinalfish, purple firefish (goby). We like the peppermint shrimp, so we'd like to have those as part of our invert crew.

 

[snakeblitz33]

Sounds like a plan.

 

[bang guy]

I'd suggest being happy with a pair of Clownfish and a couple/few Peppermint Shrimp. Enjoy that for 6 months or so and then add your next fish.

 

[Eastie]

At what point would you recommend starting to add coral?

 

[bang guy]

One you have your water parameters stable and adequately low in nutrients (Nitrate, phosphate) you can start adding coral. Take it slow though and plan out your entire tank before starting to add. You can, of course, change you mind later but having a full plan will really help you out. Start with the hardiest coral of course to get your feet wet and add slowly. The big coral packages are very tempting because there is a significant cost savings but the down side is that if you're not ready you can easily lose all of them.