What should I stock my saltwater tank with?

Hello, recently I had to restart my saltwater tank due to a disaster. My parents wanted to paint the room and we are assuming that the paint's fumes mixed with the water somehow because it became very cloudy and the water parameters were off the charts bad. Anyways I gave away the survivors to my lfs and I restarted the entire tank. It's a 40 gallon with a canister filter running currently, but I'm planning on building a sump to run with the canister filter ( would I need the canister filter if I had a sump with a protein skimmer? let me know please ). I have some live rock in the tank but I plan on getting more later. Any suggestions on what fish I should add? I plan on having a reef tank so coral ideas would be great too!

 

Canister filters are terrible for saltwater tanks especially reef tanks in my opinion.
do the sump with the slimmer and ditch the canister.
As for what fish to stock with it depends greatly on what you like. Why don’t you look at some fish and see what you like and ask us if they will work.
clownfish, gobies, a small wrasse, Cardinal fish are some fish that would work.

as for the corals what light do you have? I recommend starting with some soft corals or possible an LPS like a hammer coral or zoa frag.

 

Canister filters are terrible for saltwater tanks especially reef tanks in my opinion.
do the sump with the slimmer and ditch the canister.
As for what fish to stock with it depends greatly on what you like. Why don’t you look at some fish and see what you like and ask us if they will work.
clownfish, gobies, a small wrasse, Cardinal fish are some fish that would work.

as for the corals what light do you have? I recommend starting with some soft corals or possible an LPS like a hammer coral or zoa frag.

Wow I did not know that about the canister my lfs actually recommended me it, so thank you for your advice! And before I had 2 ocellaris clown fish with an orange stripe goby with a pistol shrimp, as well as 3 scarlet hermit crabs and a couple nassarius snails. I think I want different fish but keep a community tank but again always up to suggestions, like would I be able to keep any predatory fish? Or maybe keep box fish or types of puffers ( I always like the ValentinI ). I had a green star polyp before and I have a FluvalSmart led light currently.

 

That’s pretty small for predators. You could probably keep a small puffer but I’d say that and one other fish would be it. Puffers are messy eaters.
For fish I like banggaI cardinals, purple fire fish, clowns are always nice, many nice gobies, jawfish, a small wrasse, orchid dottyback, pigmy angelfish, there’s a lot of options.

 

That’s pretty small for predators. You could probably keep a small puffer but I’d say that and one other fish would be it. Puffers are messy eaters.
For fish I like banggaI cardinals, purple fire fish, clowns are always nice, many nice gobies, jawfish, a small wrasse, orchid dottyback, pigmy angelfish, there’s a lot of options.

The pigmy angelfish sounds good so maybe those with some clowns and a shrimp goby pair. Thank you for the ideas!

 

The pigmy angelfish sounds good so maybe those with some clowns and a shrimp goby pair. Thank you for the ideas!

Anytime. I loved my Pygmy angel.

 

Be aware that Pygmy Angels can be coral nippers, although the Pygmy Angel does tend to be better behaved than some of their slightly larger dwarf counterparts. With any Dwarf or Pygmy Angel I strongly recommend waiting to add one until the tank is established with algae growing, and give them daily seaweed/nori feedings. This helps improve odds of success in terms of coral nipping.

 

Thank you for your tip, and I’m sure to do so