Small 30gl tank F.O. what your opinon

should be ok, and I think you have the record for time required to write your thread

Welcome to AC.

I'm curious - why are you planning on waiting six months after the cycle to introduce your fish?

I'd recommend doing a fishless cycle instead of using mollies. You can drop a cocktail shrimp in the tank for a few days to get things going. This will give you a good strong cycle and won't harm any fish.

Lastly, Mandarins are very difficult to keep and need a very well established tank with lots of live rock. And, a refugium would also be very helpful. Waiting six months (or more) before introducing this fish would be a good idea.

Cheers

I agree with the fishless cycling. You might want to cut a fish or two off of your plan. I may be wrong, but that's seems like a pretty heavy load for only a 30. Good luck.

That's a really heavy stocking list. I'd cut the wrasse, the mandarin, and fishless cycle as well. The mandarin will require a huge amount of supplemental feeding, since there will be serious competition for copopods. It will likely starve. If you really want one, have just it, and have a refugium setup for pods, in addition to a reliable source of live brine. Even then, I wouldn't do it.

Typing without the random use of capitols would make it much easier for us to help you--it's just easier to read.

Thanks!

Fishless cycling is done by adding peices of raw shrimp (from the grocery store). This decompose and provide your tank with a healthy dose of ammonia.

The rule of fish inches/gallon is bunk in a Fw tank, and complete bunk in a SW system. Territory, life style and feeding habits must take preference over body size. I question that SW has less oxygen than comparably heated FW. The surface agitation of the ocean makes it unlikely, IMO. The simple fact is that SW fish live in and expect higher water quality than most FW fish. The ocean is just too big to suffer from the same problems as a smaller volume, like a river or lake, and even those volumes swamp even the largest home aquarium. However, damsels are nasty tempered buggers who will claim the entire tank if they can, and beat up all other fish. Wrasse tend to be active swimmers; your tank will be cramping it a lot.

Every fish you list will eat copos if they can. Your tank, no matter how long you let it mature while empty, will never be able to provide a self sustaining population of copos for a mandarin. We have one in a 65 with fish that don't eat copos, and we supplement feed him regularly. If you are able to find an adult, and can verify that it's taking prepared foods, you might be able to get away with it. With a juvenile (and I haven't heard of any juveniles taking prepared foods), it just won't be enough. You can find this out on your own, or take the advice of those who have been there.

I have a 29 gal and had two damsels in it - which terrorized my two clowns and my firefish goby - TO DEATH. I have a yellow (lemon) damsel that ruled the entire tank, they are very mean fish. Eventually he stressed out the other fish, they got ich, and all fish now dead. I will never get a damsel again unless I was only going to have damsels...... (not as expensive if they kill each other)