Gift tank

[Jsscahd]

Or a bicolor dottyback (not sure if it pops up in video - It doesn’t open on the phone).

My best advice is to take it slow and do lots of research. The last thing you want to do is make a big mistake that could easily be avoided by a bit of reading.
Better pics would help for a lot of IDs, but in order I’m seeing a lobophytum leather, some type of clove polyp + the anemone (might be a bta, condy, or sebae nem), cyphastrea?, and a type of mushroom coral. I can’t make out what the coral behind the shrooms is.

As for good tankmates - clowns can be real psychos. Orange or white ones aren’t as bad as the black morphs though. I’d go for a smaller blenny like a Tailspot blenny and a type of shrimp goby + pistol shrimp (if you don’t already have one).
Welcome to the forum!

Sorry about the pics, I'm not sure why the quality is so much worse when it's uploaded. I'll try and get better pictures when I have a chance. Thank you for the response

 

[Jsscahd]

First - Welcome to R2R!

How long has this aquarium been setup and what are your parameters?

I'm not sure how long it was set up before I got it, I think a year or a bit more, but I've only had it a few weeks now. I think the alkalinity was around 8 and the calcium was somewhere in the mid 400s after it settled, but I need to go back to the LFS and get it checked again. I was told that most of the coral in the tank died for some "unknown reason" that was probably bleaching. She had the light set super bright and beaming directly down into the middle of the tank, for two extra hours a day than I do currently. I think the algae was all brown for the same reason, mixed with a lack of nutrition. I got the impression she wasn't super consistent with feeding her inverts. Luckily everything seems to be returning to normal colors and sizes with time though

 

[Jsscahd]

The first thing I would recommend going forward is to find out what the water parameters are. There are some dead/dying corals and a lot of algae in there. Something may be off.

Yeah, this tank was on the brink of death when I got it tbh. I didn't think any of the coral was going to come back, and evvvverything was brown as heck. The parameters are all good now though, and after some adjustments to the light things some to be greening up and the corals are polyping and apparently I have a whole extra anemone I couldn't even see before. I'm consistently amazed at life's will to continue

 

[Sharkbait19]

He's an African cichlid(named Spencer), but an anomaly in my experience. He'd rather hide from other fish and mostly just wants to interact with me now that he realizes I don't want to eat him. My gouramis are an anomaly as well, one of the larger ones is highly aggressive for them and so is the dwarf, who I've seen defending the non-aggressive big guy from the other one. Spencer is slightly larger than the dwarf gourami right now, so I was thinking he could hold his own with the two big guys and then the dwarf could go on his own so he doesn't get eaten as Spencer gets bigger. But bc the other guys were big fish to him before he'll be less likely to try and eat them if his temperament changes with his size and I don't get them their own tank before then. It's also a long tank as opposed to a cube, with the type of foliage they could all have their own dens in far away from each other as opposed to on top of one another.

I could easily see my occy being a brat about sharing space, and it's not really feasible to put the nem and new clown in the tank at the same time bc I need to quarantine the new fish so he'd have plenty of time to claim the new nem(even if I put it on the side of the tank he doesn't really hang out on). Seems the back right corner of my tank is where he's claimed his territory. My main reason for wanting more clowns was bc I know they're somewhat necessary for keeping nems and I want as many of them in my tank as I can healthily fit with all the coral I want(which is my main focus). While I love fish, I am *obsessed* with the entirety of the ecosystem of a reef and how even the rock is alive and playing a part. That's what I'm really trying to cultivate, the ecosystem itself.

The rift lake cichlids can get really bad, I definitely don’t trust them.
Clowns will be helpful for nems, but they don’t require them. Feedings is enough.

 

[\m/reefsnmetal\m/]

Yeah, this tank was on the brink of death when I got it tbh. I didn't think any of the coral was going to come back, and evvvverything was brown as heck. The parameters are all good now though, and after some adjustments to the light things some to be greening up and the corals are polyping and apparently I have a whole extra anemone I couldn't even see before. I'm consistently amazed at life's will to continue

Been there more than once with my tank. Sounds like you're on the right track. Good luck!