a nano-reed tank!

[Habibi Squid]

hello everyone!
Im new to this forum and salt-water fish keeping. I was hoping you guys could provide me with a guide on how to stock/set up my future reef tank!
Currently, I have a spare 10 gallon and since I'm 15 I'm ok with the extra level of care required for such small ecosystems. In my head, that's all part of the hobby and makes the experience much more gratifying. That being said, here is what I'm looking at in terms of gear

tank: 10 gallon
filter: Aquaclear HOB 70 (will serve as movement + refugium)
heater: Hydor 100 watt
light: hipergero 30 watt aqua knight
substrate: Carribsea Fiji arag-alive 20 lbs
reef rocks: Carribsea south seas base rocks (10lbs?)

These are just about the definitive of the gear and the general basics for the tanks, i believe all of this came out to be approximately 166 USD. Now we get to the funky stuff that i really need help with. Livestock and cycling.

in terms of fish and inverts, I'm really ok with anything. id love a dotty back or a royal gramma, but I'm also looking at different combinations of fish where I can get away with 2 or 3 fish. One of my favorite setups that I saw on youtube was 2 clowns (ocellaris I believe), a yellow watchman goby (these fish look PREHISTORIC and I adore them), and a pistol shrimp. this is gonna be a tank in my room, so a few fish cruising around some coral is really the type of look I'm going for.

like I said I'm really wanting to a reef tank, so I contacted my LFS and they have plenty of coral frags for under 20$. though, I'm not sure what species of corals are compatible, what corals need to eat, or even what coral can fit in a 10 gallon.

Lastly, phyto plankton and copepods and tank cycling. i cant find much on cycling nano's on youtube, so if there is a forum about this on here please link it!

thank you all!

 

[HereFishyFishy3]

I think a clownfish pair would be a great start to saltwater keeping! It would be best to add smaller ones since they tend to get along better. You might have to wait with the goby/shrimp to determine how big your bioload will be. In terms of coral for a beginner you can start with some soft corals such as Kenya trees, zoas, palys, toadstools, ricordias and mushrooms. I would try to stay away from any type of xenia or gsp unless you have a separate island away from your other rocks. Easier hard corals that you can do are blastos and duncans. I found these all to be very budget friendly. You can keep these all in the same tank, just make sure there is spacing between corals. You can put the zoas next to zoas and palys next to palys. Once your tank has cycled you can add your choice of copepods as well as any other type of cleanup crew.

 

[Sharkbait19]

I never had to add phyto or copepods, whatever is in my tank hitchhiked I’m on live rock, like many other organisms. Technically a tank is instantly cycled when you do live rock and live sand, but it’s probably still safest to wait 3 weeks before any fish go in. A month or 2 for soft corals. 3 months for lps corals.
I’d go for a solo clown, pairs can get mean to each other, especially in a small tank.
Gobies and shrimp produce next to no waste, so definitely something I’d go for.
Other good beginner fish are royal gramma, firefish, clown goby and neon or sharknose goby.
I would go max 3 fish.
Skunk cleaner shrimp, nassarius snails, astrea snails, cerith snails, emerald crab, and hermit crabs would be a great cuc. Just give plenty of shells for hermits so they don’t kill snails. And be careful with emerald crabs as they can turn on corals if they run out of algae (or if they feel like being evil).
Good soft corals are leathers (nuclear bomb proof), Xenia and gsp (very hardy but spread fast, so best to isolate, though Xenia is easy to remove as it grows), mushrooms (I didn’t have any luck but they are easy), zoas (easy and very colorful - just be careful to avoid potential toxins), and clove polyps (same for gsp and Xenia).
As the tank matures you can look into easier lps like favia, blasto, frogspawn, BRANCHING hammer, and trumpets/candy canes.
Most of these get most food from light and nutrients in the water. Corals do sting, though most softies are mild. The lps should only be next to the same genus (hammer and frogspawn can touch, but they shouldn’t touch favia, etc.).
Technically any coral can go into a 10, just need to be pruned so they don’t get too big.
Most grow rather slow anyway

My big advice:
QUARANTINE ALL NEW FISH!
Even the first ones added.
I made the mistake of not quarantining early on and lost all my fish, and a 90 day fallow period is not fun, especially when you are just starting. Most medications will kill corals, and the coral safe ones are much less effective.