Stocking advice for a 24 gallon nano requested...

[illuminum]

Hey everyone. I've been reading up on marine aquariums for over a year now and just took the dive with a 24g nano. Up to now I've got about 24 pounds of live sand and 15 pounds of live rock (fiji and tonga branch) in. I'm trying to figure out what I can stock my aquarium with. I've got a few weeks before I want to add anything though. Below I have a list of fish which I know I shouldn't have all in my 24g, so I was wondering which ones would make the best combination for a healthy and aesthetically pleasing reef aquarium:

1) Clown Goby

2) Orange stripe prawn goby with a pistol shrimp

3) Lawnmower blennie - How would he interact with the other livestock? Would he
be effective in algae control?

4) Ocellaris clown - This is probably going to be my first addition since it's real hardy

5) Firefish

6) Green mandarin - Now I know I'm going to get alot of heat on this one but I'm determined to wait and find a mandarin that eats frozen foods and does to readily. I have 4 reputable LFSs close by that have mandarins regularly so I am going to search those for a suitable one. Finding the right one will take a while but I'm willing to put in the effort. I'm also setting up a fuge in the middle compartment in the back to grow some [acronym:4301ea4c9e="copepods, amphipods, etc"]pods[/acronym:4301ea4c9e] for the mandarin

7) Bicolor pseudochromis or fridmani pseudichromis - I've heard the bicolors can be quite pests in that they can become aggressive towards others in the tank. Does anyone hav eany first hand experience with this? I'd prefer to have a bicolor but if they are troublemakers, I'll go with the fridmani.

I also love these inverts: Cleaner shrimp, sexy anemone shrimp, fire shrimp, orange sea star

I haven't decided which corals I want to grow either.

So, fire away guys. Any comments and suggestions are more than welcome.

[DragonForce]

For a 24g nano cube I would definatly do a pair of true or false percula clown fish and a goby/pistol combo and that would be my limit.

You could also consider a purple firefish with a 6 line wrasse as your limit.

Lawnmower blennys generally need larger systems due to their eating habbits, I would skip this.

The green mandarin is definatly off limits for a 24g. I would not even put one in that eats prepared foods.

The cleaner shrimp and sexy shrimp would be good, but I would skip the fire shrimp, they are rather shy and would be overload in a 24g.

As far as coral goes, the nanos are perfect for softies. You could have some nice polyps with some [acronym:387466f897="Mushroom coral"]shrooms[/acronym:387466f897], xenia and some leathers. (look into activated carbon, I like to run it on all my tanks, many soft corals release toxins into the water, and is [acronym:387466f897="In my opinion"]IMO[/acronym:387466f897], important on skimmerless systems)

The absolute most important thing [acronym:387466f897="In my opinion"]IMO[/acronym:387466f897] when running systems like nano cubes is to not over feed or overstock. You can ruin the water quality rather quickly and have all sorts of algae problems. I like to run grape calupra macro algae in the display to help control nitrates and have had great success on my moms 24g reef and my 6g mantis tank.(this is more pratical in smaller systems because you have to be an idiot to let it get out of control)

I would consider a 3-4 inch sand bed with a dozen or so nassarius snails to work it nicely.

Also get plenty of rock, 40lbs in the display would be nice, with a few lbs in the back compartment would be perfect.

If you want my personal opinion, I would setup the tank like this.

4 inch sand bed
48 lbs of [acronym:387466f897="Live rock"]LR[/acronym:387466f897]
12 nassarius snails
12 margurita snails
12 hermits
2 true percula clownfish
1 goby
1 pistol shrimp
1 cleaner shrimp
1 serpent starfish
3 sexy shrimp

and assorted soft corals

I would also consider a heater with an external heat adjustment, you can stick the heater in the back area to make the tank look better too

Another cool thing about soft corals is many of them are aquacultured so you are saving the natural reefs.