stocking 29 gallon biocube

If you don't want to get an anenome my clowns are hosting in a fat hairy mushroom coral there are pics in the gallery under fish pics I personally would not put a anenome in a tank this small cuz they can move around and might sting your other coral. You can connect the coral to the rocks with gel super glue or they sell a two part epoxy putty I prefer the gel super glue cuz it is cheap. I know that this sounds crazy but the glue will not pollute your water.

 

I'd say no on the anemone for at least a few months, they require some care. Stay on the lower side for the hermits, I don't even have any anymore, I don't miss them either. If you just have stock lighting anemone's are a no go. Your stocking list otherwise looks good, 2 cleaner shrimp might fight. Good luck.

 

As far as fish goes, I just have two false percula clowns and I've enjoyed them. I would get two if I were you. Mine swim around together and I'm sure that they make for more entertainment together than just a single clown would. Firefish gobys are nice too. I'm sure you'll be happy with them. With shrimp, I just have one so I can't comment on the potential of fighting shrimp...but I would recommend making one shrimp a peppermint shrimp to help keep aiptasia under control should it get introduced to your tank. Emerald crabs will keep green bubble algae under control and are fun to watch in your tank. I like my hermit crabs. I don't have a speck of visible bad algae and I credit that to my hermits and turbo snails. Make sure to get extra shells for your crabs so they have room to grow. One other thing, your shrimp and crabs will molt leaving a exoskeleton shell behind that looks like the animal has died. That kind of freaked me out the first time I saw them in the tank.

I went with an anemone in a 12g tank and wish that I would not have. It's just gotten too big and now stings many of my corals. Anemones need high light, most (many say all) need T5 or Metal Halide. Some of them which will tolerate lower light such as the Rose Bubbletip Anemone and the Green Bubbletip Anemone will grow fast and you'll run into the same problem that I'm having. I would get rid of it if I didn't have plans to move it to a larger tank soon.

Clowns do not need to host in an anemone. Many will host in toadstools, mushrooms, frogspawn and lots of other stuff. Now, I think that my frogspawn stung my clowns which caused black spots to appear on them which gradually went away over a couple of weeks, but others have success with frogspawn without the stings.

As for coral dip, I've been dipping all of the corals that I introduce to my tank. Some people do, some don't. Corals can introduce diseases and problems to your tank just like fish can and it's a good idea to have a quarantine tank set up to monitor them for a week or two before introducing them into your main tank. There's a lot of people that don't do this and just throw them right in, but most/all of them will tell you that this has been the reason for an introduction of a disease or other pests like bad algae or bad anemones like aiptasia or majano. I know this happened to me (more than once) and I'm in the process of setting up a quarantine system. I'm just using a coral dip that I won in the raffle at the GIRS Fall Fest. I think it's just called Coral Dip. I don't have exposure to any brands other than the one that I've tried and I can't even say if this one has been doing anything for me to keep diseases and pests out, but I figure it can't hurt and it doesn't take long so.

For rocks, I just stacked mine. This works good when you don't have things that can move the rocks. I had one get moved by a snail or crab and it ended up falling on some of my coral and damaging them. I just rearranged things to be a little more stable and I still just have it stacked. Some people drill long holes in the rock and put in acrylic rods, others use glue and still others don't use anything. There are lots of options for arranging your rocks.

It seems like you're on the right track by doing lots of research before adding things into your tank. This should help you quite a bit in preventing you from making painful mistakes that others have made. Good luck!

--AJ

 

Great job to everyone for the advice. That is why I like this site.
A common request for a new tank is to advise buying a damsel for the first fish because they are so hardy. But hey if you like clowns go ahead if you think your parameters are ok.
I started with PC lights... my first corals were hairy mushrooms and lived for 5 years. After 6 months I got a condy anonome that lasted a few years. I even had a gonopria "flower pot" that lasted over a year and my clown hosted in it.
I would say to get the hermits. Snails are usually good. My favorite first shrimp was the coral banded shrimp because it would eat out of my hand... brine shrimp. Whiskers were almost a foot long.
Some clowns attack when you put your hands in the tank...my maroon clown is beautiful but it is a mean little sucker if I get too close to the anomone.

 

If you buy hermit crabs, get the Scarlet Reef hermits. They are very non-aggressive. The zebra hermits I had before were snail killers and stole food from my corals. This scarlet moves very slowly and is not aggressive at all.

 

Try to find some shells that they will be able to grow into. I had some small crabs that quickly became medium crabs and not enough shells. I had one running around naked for a day or so...I don't think that one ended up surviving without his shell... /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/sad.gif

 

I have never done this myself but i was at wal-mart buying glue in the arts and crafts area and i saw they have sea shells of all sizes for crafts.My crabs always have enough from the snails that get stuck in the sand and die.

-Bill