Some Advice From You Lovely People

[kalberer7]

whats the smallest tank you would suggest for a marine setup?
 
thing is im limited on the space i have in my house so nothing too large.
 
i started a marine tank 5yrs ago but we cam into money issues with our home so it was never finished.were more stable now money wise and id like to start gain.
ive been keeping tropical fish for 7 yrs so know the bascis.my last fish was a mbu puffer which i had to rehome due to not having room  for a 5/6ft tank that he needed.
 
anyway i want a tank that could house a few easy corals,2 clown fish,1 regal tang,some chromis and a firefish goby.
 
what tank would you suggest as the bare minimum.also how long would you suggest i let the tank too mature with just the live rock before i stock? is it as simple as stocking after i cycle it like a freshwater setup??
 
thanks in advance you lovely people 

 

[Box]

Tangs need a big tank so you might want to rethink that one mate

 

[wildechild_01]

Tangs need a big tank so you might want to rethink that one mate

 
I would second this... the recommended minimum tank size for the tang is around 180 US Gallons.  
 
As for the rest of the stock list I've seen people cram that into a 20G but to be fair to the fish i would say something closer to the 50G mark will be needed.  For the setup you will definitely want to let the tank cycle properly once you add the live rock.. general order of adding things is Water.. live rock, sand..... wait...... wait a little more.... do a lot of water tests..... ohh look algae... wait.... get some Clean Up Crew (snails, crabs etc.) and then we can look at fish... on the one hand yes its easy to stock like FW... the acclimation process is a little slower and personally i recommend spacing out the adding of fish to allow the tank to mini cycle and deal with the added bio load, but i do the same with FW tanks too.
 
Other things you are going to want to consider are,
 
RO/DI water supply?
Sump or no sump?
Skimmer?  I highly recommend this as when things are running smooth a skimmer will actually reduce the frequency of water changes which while not hard are definitely more involved than FW
Lighting - if your just going with some easy to keep soft corals lighting doesn't have to be crazy... but be warned keeping live coral is just as if not more addicting than the fish keeping and before long your running reef capable LED fixtures haha
 
also... welcome to the dark side...errr.... umm... salty side.