I have a couple of Questions???

[tsdpurdue]

I have a 55 gallon aquarium with 4 damsels, 2 tomato clowns, a cleaner shrimp, and a starfish. I also have 22lbs of live rock with a protien skimmer, a Prism protein skimmer, and A XP2 Rena canister filter.

1st? I was offered a Ocellaris Clownfish for free. I was wondering if he would be compatiable with my other tank mates. Is it ok to mix different types of clownfish?
2nd? I add cycle to my tank once a week. Is this a good product and should I keep using it? Some peopel tell me I could get away without using it.

3rd? How long shoudl you wait unitl you get a sea urchin. Just got back from snorkeling in the keys, and saw a bunch of them and knew I had to have one. Just wondering how long I should wait till I get one. I have had my tank runnign for 6 months.

[musho3210]

ok in order

No clown mixing in a tank that size
Stop adding cycle, useless product longterm
I dont think its legal to take an urchin from the ocean without a license.... And what type of urchin is it

[tsdpurdue]

Oh I wasnt going to take it from the ocean. Gonna buy it from the LFS Im not sure possibly a tuxedo urchin or a long spined (which I know is venomous)

[Michael Marino]

4 Damsels may be a little fiesty also the clowns get teritorial this is all up and running i guess right? When i had my 30g I had 2 Damsels a Clown, Cleaner, and a start fish as well. I was good for about 4 months the damsels teamed up my yellow tang. My Clown did the best of all.

[tsdpurdue]

Its been running for 6 months and everything is doing great

[musho3210]

ok, there might be problems with the damsels, unless there chromis. http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/scateg.cfm?pCatId=530

[tsdpurdue]

There still all pretty small still. I know the bigger they get the more agressive they get. I plan on taking them out eventually, but cant really afford to do it now with school going on. So I should defently wait unitl I get rid of the damsels before the urchin?

[5xevy]

I know that some can get pretty big and that you should have solid rockwork. My friend offered me one a while ago to "borrow" when I had an algae problem, but I declined. You cannot take them out of the water either.

This should tell you everything you need to know:

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/urchins.htm

[darkcirca]

Good luck getting those damsels out in the future. We had to remove 2 sergeant majors and a purple pseudochromis and it was a disaster. The chromis decided my cleaner shrimp looked like a snack, I liked the shrimp more than him so he went. The damsels are so fast too. We ended up having to remove all the rock from the tank and it still took 3 of us to catch those little tards.

[Germanman]

ok in order

No clown mixing in a tank that size
Stop adding cycle, useless product longterm
I dont think its legal to take an urchin from the ocean without a license.... And what type of urchin is it
agreeed

Oh I wasnt going to take it from the ocean. Gonna buy it from the LFS Im not sure possibly a tuxedo urchin or a long spined (which I know is venomous)
those urchins are good but mind u they will knock over corals and rocks, they eat up coralline algae, and the longspines get over 20inches.
i would highly recommend more rock as well i have over 85 lbs in my 55 u dont need that much but more would really benefit u and with all those damselfish ur gona need hiding places.
note on damsels everyone thinks they are cute and get along fine but they only do as young. it takes a few years for them to hit sexual maturity where they loose color and turn extremely territorial...they will wreak havoc in systems they have been fine in for 3 years its like they just snap. i used to service aquariums and i had to remove many damsels due to that fact....even some form a 550 gallon reef...the damsel was "nice" for over 3 years then started riping corals and attacking fish over 3 times his size.