New Saltwater Aquarist, lots of questions!

If I were you, here's what I'd do: splurge and purchase a 29 gallon biocube.

The biocube was thoroughly explained in an above post.

Fish: a pair of true Perc. Clowns, a pair of firefish, a yellow watchman goby or blenny.

Landscape: 40 lbs of live sand, and maybe 5 lbs of LR and 30 lbs of BR.

Main inverts: serpent star or red reef star, blood shrimp, cleaner shrimp, and peppermint shrimp.

Corals: I'd do an open brain, and softies to start out. You'll need water flow. Later you could move on to LPS(long polyp stony) corals.

Clean up crew: this is where crabs come in; here's what I'd suggest:
30 Dwarf Ceriths - small effective cleaners
15 Nassarius
12 Florida Ceriths
9 Blue Legs
4 Large Nerite and 7 Small to medium Nerites

PS: don't get an anemone. You'd need to have the tank up running for 4+ years to have the slightest chance of keeping one successfully. If you just want the looks, get a torch or frogspawn after having your tank set up for awhile. A foxface is just too big to fit in that size of tank. If I were to get one, I'd make sure it was going into a 75 gallon tank at the least.

EDIT: as for the mandarin, that's a bad choice. I've had 2 in my biocube so far, and Both have died of starvation. Their food isnt really something that you just run over to the store and get. They eat Copepods. And Copepods come on most liverock and reproduce as long as their safe. A mandarin will eat 1000+ Copepods easily in one day. You'd either need a sump/fuge or an extremely large aged tank to keep one successfully.

 

If I was in your situation. I just finish college and buy a big 120g tank instead of wasting money on little tanks.

 

XD or that.

 

In a 125g, you can all the fish you listed... and more.

 

Depends on shape, but yep. My petsmart has a 125 gal system(6 ft long) with lights and hood for $350.

 

125g why not round it off to a 200 gallon like my LFS it only weight a ton or better lol.

 

I wouldnt say "waste" i have had loads of fun with my 14g nano.

 

Thanks

"Curved glass front corners
Coralife lighting with dual fans
Necessary components built-in
Integrated wet/dry biological filtration"

What does it mean by dual fans? and coralife lightening, i assume means lightig for coral and anemone? And "necessary components are what?

 

JBJ 28 Gallon Nano Cube w/ FREE MTS-60 Stand
HQI or LED is the one you want.

 

Ya'll are so helpful.

ok so hows this,
14gallong biocube
8 pounds (or more) of live rock
enough sand for about 2 in on the bottom (live or not?)
a pistol shrimp and a goby (after the tank has cycled)

to start. plus, later on, some coral, brain, or frogspawn or something of the like, and then even more later on 2 clowns, and then even more later on a bubble tip anemone???

serpent star, sounds very cool but will it fit in my tank and get along with said fish/corla/anemone?

anything else?