Coverting FOWLR to light reef

A

Ashlar

Hi folks. I've got a 175g aquarium that I inherited from a friend that has decided to get out of the hobby. He was out of town during the runup to the non-event that was Rita (he lives about 90 miles north of Houston) and he had me rescue his fish in case the power went out. He had it running as a FOWLR tank with only about 30lb of LR, a monodactylus, a leopard puffer, and a small horseshoe crab. He started out this tank as brackish and slowly moved to full marine. (The live rock was completely dead, and is only good as base.)

Equipment w/ the tank is a hang-on dual overflow, relatively small 20-30g trickle sump w/ filter media and bio-balls. (yes, the bio balls are gone.) He had a crappy hang-on protein skimmer (never set up - it'll be setting on the freebie table if I can make the meeting). I've since gotten a SeaLife Systems skimmer rated for a 150g tank. Skimmer and return pump are unknown sumbersibles (the skimmer is sitting outside the sump due to space constraints in the small sump.) Add in a couple of powerheads, and two 400w submersible heaters.

I started setting it up as a FOWLR, adding another 90lb of fiji LR, and 3-5" of mixed argonite / live sand, for a total of about 120lb of LR (I'll add more as budget allows).

I've had a small FOWLR tank for a couple of years, but I've gotten interestered in reef (inverts more than corals) recently. I plan on adding a detrivore pack and algae attack pack once the tank finishes cycling.

Other than removing the bio-balls from the tiny sump, is there anything short of getting a better sump that I should do to eventually move to a reef tank? There's a big cavity where the bio-balls used to sit, I could convert that to a amall refugium fairly easily by adding a baffle.

Thanks,
-Ashlar

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current tanks:
20g marine w/ 30lb LR, various snails, crabs, and sea stars
20g rescue tank w/ leopard puffer, monodactylus, horseshoe crab
30g fresh w/ 2 yo-yo loach, 1 red tailed loach, 2 silver dollars, ropefish, gold corlor morph gourami
 
Sounds like you are on the right track. you will have to decide what kind of corals you want to keep, and get the appropriate lighting for what you want to keep(t5,pc,vho,halides). That will also help you determine what kind of flow/powerheads for inside the tank also.
 
You noted that the current live rock is dead. Do you know if that liverock was ever exposed to copper or other certain medicines? I would want to know that before you added that to any tank, that you were going to add additional live rock or any invertebrae. Certain things can become attached to live rock and comtaminate it. Copper is one that frequently gets used and is one of the worst.
 
Nope, no medicines. He was a water-conditioning junkie, though.. rather than let the tank cycle with his admittedly small amount of LR / live sand, he poured this bacterial supplement, that amquel / tap conditioner / stress coat / blah additive to avoid having to wait to add fish. (Nothing copper based, I cleaned out his cabinets on the pre-Rita run to pick up the fish.)

Overall, I think he got bad advice from the LFS, and had good luck with livestock anyway. I added a couple of chunks of his dead LR into the rescue tank I set up, and transferred a chunk from my 20g FOWLR tank, and it's already coming back and getting encrusted after only two weeks.

I'll add a couple of trochus or turbo snails and a few hermits in there to act as canaries in the coal mine, just to be on the safe side.

At this point, I'm not even sure I'm going to add corals- at least not until I'm a lot more knowledgeable. I've got a handle on upkeep of a FOWLR tank, and I'm not going to jump into a whole new set of requirements blind.

Right now, the lights on the tank are two 30" 40w 50/50 FS / Actinic blues. I have two 4' double fixtures (4 bulbs total) that he gave me, but these look like home depot specials- not sure the ballasts can handle big bulbs. (My FOWLR tank has done well with just 50/50 bulbs, so lighting is not an area that I'm up to date on.)

Thanks!
-Ashlar

P.S. He was also a powerhead junkie.. I've counted three mp1200s, one mp900, one unidentifiable one about the same size as a mp1200, and a monster PH901. Just checked the sticker on the sump return pump, it's a RIO 3100 (900gph rated). For a 175g reef, what would be the recommended flow rate through the sump? and in tank?
 
return pump flow should be 3-5 times tank volume.
As for in the tank for a FOWLR the power heads you have should work fine. Just need to keep water moving so there is no stagnant area.
 
And...

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I'm sure the members will continue to help you move forward on this project. Your lighting won't support any corals or anemones, but crabs, shrimp, snails, starfish, etc will be fine.

You could probably add mushrooms and button polyps if you liked them, but not Ricordia. A suncoral or dendrophyllia could be added as they don't need light to live but rather they need to be fed.
 
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