Advise please

[gareth.hubbarde]

Hi I'm looking for a bit (lot) of advise. I just got a 300 litre (80 us gallon) tank and have begun cycling with live rock out of my small reef tank. I will be adding more live rock hopefully soon. I'm thinking of doing fowlr tank rather than reef with this tank. Only I have questions, I would really appreciate your advise please?

So far I have 40kg of sand on bottom, roughly 15kg live rock to start cycle. The tank is a juwel rio 300 with the bioflow filter, at present it just has floss in to help with dust from the sand. I have 4 54w t5 tubes all white, I have a fluval sea 3 pump, hydor koralia 3200 pump and the juwel filter pump, in total around 6500 lph. I have a tmc v2 hang on protein skimmer that's not switched on yet.

So my questions ;

Do I need blue lights, I was going to buy 2 blue tubes but do I need them for fowlr?

Do I need a lot of live rock? In a reef tank it quite a lot but is it the same for fowlr?

Silly question, do I need a clean up crew or is fowlr not for crabs and snails? The name fowlr suggest not but thought I'd ask.

I fancy having one or two stand out fish with a few tank mates, any advice? Id love a lionfish but will it be OK in my tank size or should I go for dwarf? If I went for volition what other fish could I put in? That would be my choice for show stopper fish but open to other ideas.

Thank you in advance for your answers I appreciate them all.

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[billdogg]

Originally Posted by gareth.hubbarde

hi i'm looking for a bit (lot) of advise. I just got a 300 litre (80 us gallon) tank and have begun cycling with live rock out of my small reef tank. I will be adding more live rock hopefully soon. I'm thinking of doing fowlr tank rather than reef with this tank. Only i have questions, i would really appreciate your advise please?

So far i have 40kg of sand on bottom, roughly 15kg live rock to start cycle. The tank is a juwel rio 300 with the bioflow filter, at present it just has floss in to help with dust from the sand. I have 4 54w t5 tubes all white, i have a fluval sea 3 pump, hydor koralia 3200 pump and the juwel filter pump, in total around 6500 lph. I have a tmc v2 hang on protein skimmer that's not switched on yet.

So my questions ;

do i need blue lights, i was going to buy 2 blue tubes but do i need them for fowlr?

if it's going to be fowlr, then whatever color you like. The fish won't care. I'd go with at least one actinic . It won't add a lot of blue (some) but will make the colors on whatever fish you end up with really pop.

do i need a lot of live rock? In a reef tank it quite a lot but is it the same for fowlr?

remember that a significant amount of biological filtration takes place in/on the live rock. You have the opportunity to arrange it so that there is both enough rock for good filtration and to allow for plenty of swim-throughs/cave areas so that the fish can all find a place to call "theirs"

silly question, do i need a clean up crew or is fowlr not for crabs and snails? The name fowlr suggest not but thought i'd ask.

yes, but it will depend on what fish you stock. I'd avoid hermits just because they are opportunistic feeders.

i fancy having one or two stand out fish with a few tank mates, any advice? Id love a lionfish but will it be ok in my tank size or should i go for dwarf? If i went for volition what other fish could i put in? That would be my choice for show stopper fish but open to other ideas.

a volitan lion can get very large and in addition are very messy feeders. A fuzzy dwarf would work well but either way, a lion will eat anything that might fit in it's mouth. In a 80g tank that will limit what else you could add, and at least imo, a single fish makes a tank look rather empty. A bristle tooth tang (tomini, etc) would fit (probably) and they look nice. You could also have a group of flasher wrasses or a dwarf angel. A african flameback or other pygmy angel would be eye catching and they tend to be active swimmers.

thank you in advance for your answers i appreciate them all.

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hth!

[gareth.hubbarde]

Thanks for the reply. Currently in my small tank I have

A pair of percula clowns
A purple firefish
A black sailfin blenny
A red shrimp

If I wanted to move them into the new big tank in a few weeks what other fish would look good with them, obviously lionfish would be out but still would want something that stands out. Not decided yet, I still might transfer my corals in as well yet, in that case I'd appreciate similar fish advice please.

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[billdogg]

With what you have already, A yellow watchman goby/shrimp pair would be nice. Any of the fairy or flasher wrasses would look nice as well as a leopard wrasse, but they can be difficult to acclimate although they seem to be quite hardy once established. A trio of lyretail anthias would work. There are plenty of really nice looking reef safe fishes that stay fairly small that would work. You might want to peruse liveaquaria or other online retailers to get an idea of whats out there that will work for you.

[cvrle1]

Only thing I would add in regards to the lights. If you are 100000% sure that you will never have corals, then billdogg's feedback is perfect. However, if you feel that at some point you may want to start adding some corals, you may want to look into different light fixtures. This way you buy them once and call it a day. Unit like Viparspectra/Bloomspect is cheap, and will grow corals just fine. You can get 2 of those for around $250 or so, and they will grow anything you decide to put into your tank coral wise down the road

[gareth.hubbarde]

Originally Posted by cvrle1

Only thing I would add in regards to the lights. If you are 100000% sure that you will never have corals, then billdogg's feedback is perfect. However, if you feel that at some point you may want to start adding some corals, you may want to look into different light fixtures. This way you buy them once and call it a day. Unit like Viparspectra/Bloomspect is cheap, and will grow corals just fine. You can get 2 of those for around $250 or so, and they will grow anything you decide to put into your tank coral wise down the road

Hi, wouldn't I just replace the t5 bulbs in my current tank? Not sure we have those lights in the UK.

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[cvrle1]

Originally Posted by gareth.hubbarde

Hi, wouldn't I just replace the t5 bulbs in my current tank? Not sure we have those lights in the UK.

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Sorry, my mistake. i missed part where you said you have 4 T5s already. T5s are good, a lot of folks still use them with great success. I think one of the reasons some are moving away from just T5s is because bulbs have to be replaced every 12-18 months, and it becomes expensive. But if it is a FO tank, you can use those bulbs until they croak on you. As mentioned, fish dont care about color and intensity and spectrum and so on.