fishrule101

I really want a marine tank ,but i don't really have the money. I'm wanting a FOWLR, but theres many stories on how to start one. I know you will need live rock, sand or crush coral, powers heads,and high lighting. The powers heads, lighting, and subtrate are not a problem. The live rock kinda isn't ethier. The problem is the skimmer. I was wacthing a video on youtube and this person said skimmers were are not important as long as you have enough surface agitation. IS this true?? He said that skimmers are helpful just because they help push nirate levels down. Other webs sites said skimmers are super important. Which story is helpful??

Tumbleweed

Both are correct. Protein skmmers are imortant. what they do is help remove excessive waste from the tank through ariation of the water in a confinde chamber which traps the waste in the bubles created by the skimmer and pulls them out of the water. the smaller the bubbles the better teh skimmer and more it can collect. Now if you are doing a FOWLR tank you do not have to have a skimmer. With enough live rock and water movement your water conditions will be ok. If you ever wanted to and and coral or anenomies to the tank, you would need a skimmer to help clean the tank to make the water more stable the them.

fishrule101

Can i keep a bicolor angelfish with a ocellaris clowfish?

What will be the max number of fish i can have?

agsansoo

What size is your tank ? How long has it be setup ?

Tumbleweed

In a 6gal tank you are very limited to the # of fish and what fish you can have. You defenetly can't have the angel your tank is not large enough. You could get 2 ocellaris clowns and be ok, but that would be the max you could get for that tank.

fishrule101

I have a 28 gallon fish tank. It has not been a SW tank yet. I'm just doing reseach.

Tumbleweed

Sorry got this post and another post mixed up.

fishrule101

What is the max number of fish i can have??

ThisGuy

depends on the type of fish some fish grow bigger than others and less is usually better.

Have you read the profile for the angel and the clown?

http://www.fishlore.com/profile_bicolor_angelfish.htm
http://www.fishlore.com/Profiles-ClownFish.htm

Tumbleweed

There is no strict rule of thumb for salt water tanks. If you are going to do a FOWLR tank and have the standard of 28-42lbs of live rock "correct amount for your tank size", the problem becomes the amount of swimming room that you have. I would say that you could have 6-8 small fish or 1 medium fish and 2-3 small fish. These #'s depend on which fish you want. This is just a rough idea

fishrule101

Would hermit crabs count as a fish cause they don't have much of a bio load?

If i don't have a skimmer how will i take care of my tank because people are saying that without one your fish will died no doubt??

sirdarksol

Without a skimmer, you will have more protein in the water that will then break down into nitrogen in the water. You can get around this, it will just take extra work (in the form of water changes).

fishrule101

I can handle water changes. How many would i have to do a week?

Tumbleweed

Hermit crabs do not count in that number so 3-5 will be ok.

As for how many water changes, it depends on what your test results are. But at most I would say a 5-10gal a week. It all depends on how many fish you put in the tank. More fish more bio-load

sirdarksol

As many as would be needed to keep the nitrates within an acceptable level (can't remember what that is for saltwater. It's 10-20ppm for freshwater). This will depend on the stock of the tank, its size, etc...

fishrule101

What would be a good active fish to have in a28? Like a clownfish they move alot and stay active. I'm thinking to get about 4-6 hemint crabs , a biocolor angel defintly snails cuase i heard they do an awesome cleaning job and two orcellaris clownfish.This is isn't going to be added just one day. I'm thinking of adding the biocolor angel fish last scince i read that they need to be in a established tank about 6 months. What should i add after my tank is cycled? Fish first or invertabrates??

fishrule101

Would two 160 GPH powerheads be good enough for a 28 FOWLR? And i'm also adding sea salt reef crystals I read that there better than salt becuase they contain stuff like uh.......i forgot but stuff that corals and live rock need. Is this a good chose?

Tumbleweed

28gal is a little small for a bicolor angel. Even though they are a dward angel they still get to be a pretty good size and need a decent amount of room to swim. But if all you are going to add is the angel and the clown fish it might be ok.

I would add the invertibrates first then the 2 clown fish at the same time and last the angel fish.

What kind of filter do you have? What is its GPH rate? For a FOWLR tank I would am for around 300-400gph. That is all you really need. So those 2 power heads should be ok.

fishrule101

I have a marineland bio wheel filter. The gph is 150.will all the bactria died that was for freshwater?? or does the bacteria survie in both FW and SW??

fishrule101

What about my question on reef crystals??

Tumbleweed

Bacteria is different, so it will all die.

I don't use reaf crystals and I would recomend that you get a reef water test kit and test your water before adding and suplements to it. I use Instant Ocean salt mix, and have not as of yet needed to add any minerals to the water.
My rule of thumb is don't add it if you can't test for it.

fishrule101

You said that i can add 1 medium fish and 2-3 small ones. What would be the small fish??

fishrule101

I'm also getting a skimmr a cheap one. I wasen't planning on getting a skimmer anyways,but tell me if this one is ok. At least tell me if it would do something cause i read the reviews for it and many people are saying it is an awesome skimmmer and should be worth more. The name of the skimmer is Visi-Jet Protein Skimmer. i'm getting all my new fish supplies from drsfosterandsmith.

Tumbleweed

a small fish would be something like Chromis. that would be a good choice.

The protein skimmer looks ok. Anything is better then nothing, it is whether you want to spend the money on it or not.

fishrule101

OK i am just one final step from having my FOWLR, but i need to make a hard chose. I was looking at RO Units in drsfostersmith.com and notice RO Units are not that expensive. I found one that is named Corallife Pure-Flo 2 and found that i want to have an RO Unit but if i buy that i won't have any money left for my life rock. So should i buy the RO Unit or live rock?? If i do buy the RO Unit i won't be able to buy live rock for like a week and my fish supplies will arrive sometime this week. Can I setup my tank and then add live rock a week later??

Tumbleweed

You want to buy the RO unit first. You actually want an RO/DI unit, not just an RO unit. Yes you an add the live rock later, just make sure you cure it in a seperate tank first, or if there is no fish in the tank yet you can cure it in your main tank. You want to use the RO/DI water in your tank from the start. This will make everything else easier later.

Here is a link to the RO/DI unit that i bought. It works great and it produces 100gph. I think that the Corallife only does 24gph. These are both at optimal conditions, but that is still roughly 4X faster. It may not sound important, but just think of it as an emergancy back up. You can make new water a lot faster in case of an emergancy.

http://www.melevsreef.com/ro_di.html

ray

is there an article on RO/DI units that you could link us too or anything... I understand needing RO but i'm still unclear what that DI takes out of the watter...

ray

http://www.fishlore.com/reverse_osmo...ionization.htm
this is a little article on it... it still gives very little on deionization... if RO will make the water 99% pure do we really need the DI to make it that 99.9% pure? i know water quality is a big deal... but how much of a big deal is this DI thing?

fishrule101

Would 22 lbs of live rock be enough to help get the tank cycled?? I 'll add more later and does it matter what kind of live rock it is??

ray

oh yeah that should be fine... then maybe just add a few more lbs when you can... the recomended is 1-1.5lb per gal. but usually with smaller tanks i think everyone recomends staying around the 1lb mark or so... but thats should start you cycleing...
from what i understand not all rock is created equal... so in many ways it does matter what kind of live rock it is... but i'm gonna leave that part of the question up to some of the people that have been doing this a little longer than a month! haha
good luck with everything fishrule101!