Starting a 30G Salt Water Tank

I've been into freshwater keeping for lake tanganyikan cichlids a few years now. Been very successful with breeding a lot of species from cichlids. And I feel like I'm ready to take on a harder challenge in salt water keeping. But to start, I have a 30G that measures 30x12x18 and I plan on keeping live sand, live rock and fish. Not planning on having any corals at this point in time. I have a few things to ask, so if you are nice enough and have enough time, please let me know what you think of my equipment set-up.

Equipment:
30G 30x12x18 tank
Flip-open glass lids
24" Coralife T5 65W Dual Light Strip
Protein Skimmer (anyone suggest one that costs around $100 CAD?)
30 Pounds of live rock
Aquaclear 110 Filter to create flow and maintain the PH with carbon, ceramic ring and sponge
150W Heater

Live Stock:
2 Clown fish (undecided yet which variant)
3-4 Cleaner Shrimp
2-3 Small starfish
2 gobies

Please help me if you have any suggestions.. I need more suggestions on the type of protein skimmer I should get for this size tank. I also need suggestions on how many pounds of live rock I should have for these inhabitants and tank size. Thanks in advance!

New to 3reef! Nice to meet you all!

Mark;D

 

Welcome to 3reef. Everything looks pretty good.

I would use aragonite sand. It has good buffering capacity. Keep the depth around and inch to an inch and a half.

Your lighting is fine

Get rid of the glass lids. You do not want them. It will mess with gas exchange and have a negative impact on your tank health.

You have enough LR. But when you go to buy it, get base rock. It is cheaper and it will seed and become LR. You also run less of a risk ITO hitchhikers. If you decide to go reef, I would increase the amount to around 50 pounds.

The filter is fine, just keep it clean. Otherwise it can turn into a nitrate factory. If it were me, I would just run carbon in it after your tank conditions.

Get a titanium heater. They IMO are the best you can get.

ITO livestock.....you look like you don't want to overstock. That is GREAT!!! K+ to you. I would only have one starfish though. If you have too many, they can starve. I would keep the number of shrimp to two in a tank this size.

With the skimmer situation. Don't skimp on this. You may have to dish out a little more money. Look into the AquaC Remora and the Octopus BH-100F. Both are great little HOB skimmers. If you want to look at something top of the line......look.....and then drool at the deltec mc500, mce300 or the mce600