New Tank Setup

[jeepjon]

I have recently setup my 15 gallon reef again after being out of the reef aspect of fishkeeping for a few years. My setup is a 15 gallon standard glass aquarium, a Hamilton 2*55W PC hood, a Red-Sea Prizm Skimmer, a 12" CPR Aquafuge Refugium, and a few powerheads for water motion. I have about 8 pounds of live rock right now, and I plan to add a few more in the very near future, as well as a little more sugar-sized live sand. My question is this...anybody got any cool ideas for a tank like this? Right now I have planned to eventually be an SPS/Clam tank with a few soft corals like mushroom anemones and a xenia stalk or two....maybe some green star polyps. I would like to hear any additional ideas that people might have for my setup. I want to make a really unique setup, which is why I have so little live rock right now. The live rock that is set up right now is only on the right side of the tank, and I want to have a lot of open area in the tank for future coral growth and clams on the sand bottom. If anybody has any neat ideas, I would like to hear them...any ideas on fish, corals to add, types of clams, positioning of the reef, etc. would be greatly appreciated!

[512148048]

there is a fish called a blue assessor this is a very neat fish they are very hardty and they are dociel they also look like a basslet or gromma but not nearly as agressive. but they are very pricy 50 - 80 $ but very cool there are other colors as well

[jeepjon]

hmm...I looked that one up...a very interesting fish indeed! I may have to look into that after my tank settles down. I don't want to dump $50-80 on a fish when I'm on a college budget! I like that idea, though-it is a gorgeous fish! I like fish and ideas like that, as I like the bizarre things. I want a really original tank, something that not a whole lot of other people have.

PS-do you have any of these assessors? I would like to know how they've handled in your tanks? I read that they can be a menace to small crustaceans...do they pick at tridacnids at all?

[jeepjon]

I meant dump $50-80 on a college budget to have the fish die...I would get a fish like that...I just want to wait to have my tank settle down...sorry for the mistype.

[ckreef]

Skip the Xenia --- That is one of the most common place weeds in the aquarium industy.

A completely filled tank of really exotic colored zoo's make a nice setup --- reds, oranges, blues, purples, bright greens --- most people try for this but very few people achieve it.

[tapsmith]

ckreef, do you have any good suppliers of Zoo's. Our LFS of course doesn't have any nice colored zoo's. In fact I've learned so much from these sites that I was able to tell him a few things. =) But if you have a couple good suppliers I would love to know about them.

[ckreef]

Not really --- between all the awesome LFS in the Atlanta area and the wonderful club members I never have to go mail oder --- sorry I can't help with that.

One that I have herd for some really exotic was thesea.org --- sort of pricey and hard to get from an availability standpoint but if you can catch him at the right time he has some really exotic zoo's