There's nothing wrong per se with the gear you were sold. If anything you might have just bought without doing enough research....not the end of the world and pretty common in the aquarium hobby.
Do you have any reefing books yet?
I was gonna get a small yellow tang i figure if any of the fish get to big then i can always return them to my LFS for credit and replace again.
That's a bad policy on your part....get fish you know you can keep and care for. Plus I'm not aware of any fish stores that have a policy like that (it's bad business and possibly bad for the health of their fish for sale)....make sure before you buy.
But I am curious now cause I see 36 gallon tanks with 1 yellow tang,
You can see examples of every form of bad reefing behavior if you look around long enough – thanks Internet!
When trying to learn like this,
you have to vet who's taking the pictures you're looking at, as well as
when and why the photo was taken in some cases.
A 55 gallon tank is considered "small" if you're more familiar with freshwater terms.
"Small" freshwater tanks are considered nano reef tanks.
The fish you've been naming so far are all "medium" or "large" tank fish if you're trying to keep them in a community.
In saltwater there really are VERY few small fish like in freshwater – none schooling. And the small ones that you can find aren't very exciting like chromis, clowns and tangs can be.
Most small reef tanks you find online as examples will be pretty overloaded with livestock. Without going into whether that's a good idea in the first place, I would
not try to emulate that until you've had your tank running for at least a year or more and have a lot more experience. Keep the fish population SMALL and concentrate on learning the best ways to treat them.
@Paul B has many, many great ideas about fishkeeping – if you want someone to emulate in terms of fish-care, he's a great candidate! Look up his threads!
