Starting A Fowlr Tank, Need Sdvice

[banditpowdercoat]

OK, First off, Hi all. Have been a lurker here fro a while now. Have had freshwater aquaria for 7-8 years now, and am finally venturing into Salt. Just got a 190L corner unit Aquarium, Fluval brand, with a Fluval 205 canister filter. I will get a sump eventually, when time and tank requires it. The problem is, I am in a slightly remote town in Central British Columbia and the LFS does not have Salt supplies in stock. Mo rock, sand or fish. But, they can order in anythign I want, and it comes in pretty quick, 3 days. My question is, what should I be telling them to order for me? I will be eventually gettign a pair or Percula Clowns, and the rest, well, havnt gtoen that far yet LOL. Pretty much the norm, huh, Wanting to get into salt with Percula's. But Daughter has told me how it is going to be HAHAHA. Also, waiting longer to get tank to cycle is not a problem so if I could use more base rock, or just regular aragonite instead of live sand, that would be ok. I am gettign overwhelmed with the different choices there is out there, Aragonite, crushjed coral, types of live rock, etc. Would like a little 'push' in the right direction for product/brand selection.

Ohh ya, I would liek a healthy cleanup crew too, Hermits and the like. I think the cleanup crews are just the coolest thing, watching them work away..

 

[SkiFletch]

to the section

I just wanna get this question out of the way first: Are you dead-set on keeping this tank FOWLR, or would you like to get into corals a little down the road? If you're not looking into corals and/or are thinking a new tank down the road for them, that makes the reccomendations a little different . Btw, check out bigalsonline.com, that's a pretty big online canadian retailer. And make sure you buddy up with Lynden, he's from Vancouver

 

[new_world_disorder]

basics u really need are :

salt
a few powerheads
live sand ( deep sand bed or not )
live rock 1.5lb per gallon of the tank
full saltwater test kit
RO unit. ( i always use RO water.. i rekon its safer )
refractometer

as for the canister filter. id take ALL the media out. and meber just put phosban. or carbon bags or nothing in there. as its just going to harbour nitrites in the end.

 

[Musho3210]

no need for live sand nor live rock, but i wouldnt suggest fully sterile things lol, if you REALLY want to save money but have a fairly ugly tank for a while and not have a mature tank until a LONG time, then you can get mostly base rock and no live sand, just get like one or two pounds of the highest quality live rock you can find.

Oh, and remember about your filter, mechanical filtration is awsome, especially considering just how messy saltwater fish are, but if they are messy, the filter gets clogged fast, even a half clogged filter and only nitrifying bacteria around with no de-nitrifying bacteria, its gonna become a nitrate factory, so you will need to clean the filter once ever 1-3 days. If you dont think you have time for that, you can skip the mechanical filtration.

 

[banditpowdercoat]

SKI, I am not Dead set against Coral, or reef, just figure its best to start with FOWLR for starters. I have parused J&L Aquatics site and have thought of the following, it's a 45 Gallon corner unit tank.

45Lbs Love Tonga rock
40 Lbs Bahama's Oloite Sand
Instant Ocean Salt

RO/DI unit is on its way allready, great score on a 60GPD Kent unit form Ebay, $50

I am planing on making a Sump or refugeeum later, just not right away. I have the in tank Overflow built that should handle the Sump. The tank has 2 holes drilled, 1" I belive. Should be enough flow?


NWD, are you saying just use the filter as a circularion pump? not put anything at all in it? Is it the fact that there is no light in the canister unit that makes it bad? I dont want to clean it every 3 days, once a week is ok, but 3 days....I know I will forget a time or 2. If I take all the media out, what do you use to filter the detritus out? Or is there not much that gets into there with a in tank overflow system? I know my freshwater tank filter gets lots of detritus in it, abd has foam, carbon and BioMax, but is also clear and gets light into it.

The tank stand has smallish sides, so it will take me a bit to find something that will fit in there nicely to use as a Sump. Also, for a FOWLR, what do you feel about Wet/dry sumps? the ones that run the taink drain over filter floss, then Bioballs

 

[Musho3210]

if you dont think you will be able to clean it frequently, then just dont use it. The detritus will just be water-bourne and will lay on the sandbed and break down. Another great option of removal is the berlin method, its just a bare bottom tank (no sand) HUGE skimmer LOTS of live rock LOTS of flow. Crystal clear tank and pretty much the cleanest tank you can get. The high flow keeps the detritus in circulation, the huge skimmer skims out the detritus, the live rock performs bio-logical filtration. These types of tanks are normally for SPS corals simply because they require a lot of flow and sps love super clean tanks unlike most softies. The bare bottom is to prevent sand storms from the high flow and to vacuum detritus off it every water change.

They use a lot of electricity though..... So for a simple FOWLR tank, dont need to go berlin, go hybrid.

 

[SkiFletch]

Humm, where to begin. First off, if you're thinking FOWLR and maybe down the line picking up some easy softies/LPS, a sump is far from necessary. Furthermore sumps are difficult to fit in corner tanks, especially a smaller one like a 45g. What are the dimensions of it; height? and distance from back corner to side corner (radius)? You can figure out the volume and if there are any sump tanks that might stand a chance of fitting under there . Btw, are you sure that's not a typo? Usually corner tanks are either 54g or 96g (those are the mroe "common" standards).

Anyways, if you CAN have a sump, it really does make life much easier (especially in the future), but if not, no big deal.

I'd reccomend a couple things for filtration. First, use LR and at least 20x the tank volume in flowrate (~1000gph) for your main filtration. You can just use that plus an RO unit and a cheap light and you're set. Since you have it, I personally would run carbon and rowaphos/phosban in your canister filter as preventatives. I've seen plenty of tanks run that way for years and it does work, the only drawback will be that you will for almoast surely suffer algae problems early on in the tank's life.

If you want to really fight algae aggressively, I'd add, as musho mentioned, a skimmer is great to help keep DOCs (dissolved organic compounds) low. Low DOCs will help keep algae fuels (phosphates/nitrates) and will provide a healthier environment for corals in the future. Third and finally, a refugium (either in-sump, or HOB) with macroalgae again to keep phosphates/nitrates low.

Hope that helps

 

[banditpowdercoat]

Thx guys, Great help. I have decided to go Sump off the bat. I really dont want a bunch of Powderheads hanging inside the tank, so I am going with around 1200GPH flow pump. I have done some measuring and I can fit my 18Ga FW tank inside the stand. I'll just have to cut a little out of the center brace. Cneter brace doesnt support weight, as the tank bottom sits on a perimiter frame. It'll be all Good. This will also be a excellent opportunity to upgrade the FW guys to a 30 Ga. Here's a pic of the 45G. Yes it's 45. It's a Fluval Venezia 190. 190L which they say in th manual is 174L water cap, So 50G tank, 45G capacity.

I have just picked up all the fittings to make a closed loop perimiter system. Will have 7 1/2" Loc Line nozels around the top of the tank. Dual 3/4" Durso style drains into the Sump, and a 3/4" feeding the Perimiter spray sys. I know it's a little under sized for 1200 GPH, but I figure I got 4' head, if I use a 1200GPH submersable, like a Danner Mag drive(acctually use Danner on my Milling machine's and in my computer, for coolant) the 1200 through the 3/4" feed line should be around 800GPH. The perimiter ring is acctually 1/2" PVC and Loc line's. Any thicker pipe and it would protrude below the waterline and that will be unnaceptable. Loc Line nozels are ok, but the PVC plumbing is not. But with the 700-800 GPH flow through the sump, then I might only need a Hydor Koralia 3, or 2 to make up the rest of the circulation.

Does my calculations on flow sound adequate?

 

[SkiFletch]

So you want to run the sump off a mag 12? That's nutty...

I'd reccomend a 5 or 7 for the sump pump, a 12 is WAY too big. Then drop in a koralia in for re-circulation and you should be all set. Also remember, don't mince terms . A Closed Loop system operates to draw water directly off the display tank (not draining to a sump) and re-circulating it back to the tank. This is usually only done on larger systems, not small 45g's.