Wanting To Start Marine Tank

[jb12288]

Hey guys,
I have a 100 US gallong tank. Currently I have it running as a new world cichlid tank. I am wanting to turn it to a marine tank soon and I need to know what equipment I need to get. The deminsons are 60" x 20" x 20". I have two Emperor 280 filters and an undergravel filter with two Aqua Clear 50 powerheads. I only used the undergravel filtration system for about 2 months untill i changed over to sand. I want to know what equipment I need to buy and if any of my current equipment will be ok. I want a fowlr tank. Any help will be greatly appreciated. I plan on buying the equipment as my money will let me.

 

[@ombomb]

FOWLR is pretty low tech.

First thing to do is throw away the UGF.

What's the water turn over of the filters? FOWLR needs about 10x per hour as a minimum which is pretty easy to accomplish.

Other than that you'll need a refractometer and ideally an RO water filter (although you can get away with tap water for FOWLR if you're careful), aragonite sand and the rock itself.

Marine tanks, especially FOWLR, don't need to be anywhere near as complicated as people seem to think

 

[jb12288]

The filter does 280 gph. Would I be able to leave the powerheads in the tank to add current, but not have the undergravel sheet or tubes? This really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. So no protein skimmer?

EDIT: Also I have been reading that you do not need an external filter for a marine tank if you have live rock. Is this true?

 

[Musho3210]

yep, protein skimmer would be recommended in that size tank (a nice big high quality expensive one) since you can slack off a bit on water changes with the skimmer, saving you salt costs in the long run. Plus its a back up in case you arent around when something dies and starts to really foul up the water.

Look into drilling the tank (when its empty of course) and adding a sump to it, it would really help the water volume and keep most of the equipment in the sump rather than in the tank.

 

[jb12288]

The sump holes go towards the middle of the bottom part of the tank right? Also, would I be able to use my 20 gallon as a sump instead of my 55? I would like to be able to keep 2 sevs and my firemouths so, would that work out.

 

[Musho3210]

well, the drilled holes can technically go anywhere, as long as you would be able to build an overflow for that spot as well as not drilled on tempered glass.

 

[jb12288]

ok sounds easy enough. i will take the tank to my local glass shop and have them drill for me. how many holes do i need, just two?

 

[Musho3210]

do you have bulkheads yet? If i were you i would get the bulkheads, then ask the glass drilling place to drill a hole and place the bulkhead on it.

If you know how to make an overflow box, go ahead and drill.

 

[cynos]

Would I be able to leave the powerheads in the tank to add current, but not have the undergravel sheet or tubes?

You may want to make some sort of sieve and put it on them as I had 2 of them in my tank before and 1 fish and 1 shrimp got sucked into them in the 6months I had them lol