37 Gallon XH FOWLR Tank!

Hey guys! This tank is still in the planning phase, but the ball is already rolling on it - got rock ordered through a store a few hours away, and will be going to order in some fish to QT tomorrow.

I have this tank laying around and have decided I want to do some more saltwater. I've had quite a few salty tanks, but I always end up doing the same stuff. I wanna try some new stuff! Never had a FOWLR tank before, so I do want this to be FOWLR (also it's cheaper lol). I'd also like to keep most of the fish in here reef-safe, although if one or two is non reef-safe that's okay too.

I'm sorting out equipment and such now, but here's the skeleton of what I'm building on:

30 lbs of dry base rock
HOB Filter (I'm trying to decide whether to cheap out and use a Top Fin HOB for a while or if I should bite the bullet and go straight for an Aquaclear 110)
Maybe a powerhead, if you guys think I'll need it.
Fluval 300W Heater
Cheap stock LED lighting, because I'm cheap
25 lbs of aragonite sand

Other than that, everything is adjustable. Here's a few fish I'm interested in:

A trio of mollies (these are definitely going in)
ClarkiI Clownfish (just one)
Chalk Bass
Coral Beauty Angel
Blue spotted puffer/Central Amreican Puffer/ValentinI Puffer
Chromis

Any other recommendations?

 

Between the coral beauty and the two puffers I think that’s a lot of large fish especially for a high tank. There’s not much left to right swimming room. The puffers might be ok because they aren’t super active but the angel concerns me. Also clarkiI clowns get rather large too and can get aggressive in a tank that size. I’d ditch the angel and the clown.
I also think your original plan is fairly over stocked. I didn’t have that many fish in my 75 reef tank.
Also I’d just get the better filter to start off with.

 

That wasn't a stocking plan - it was a list of fish I was looking at.

 

That wasn't a stocking plan - it was a list of fish I was looking at.

Sorry read it first thing in the am.

 

It's all good! I do have a tendency to overstock my tanks a bit, so I'll definitely keep it in mind.

I've decided against the Clarkii, after more reading - I love them, but I think that having a pair in their own tank will probably be a better environment for everyone involved. I might replace them with some Ocellaris or maybe some Perculas, I'm not sure. Same goes with the angel - I'm not sure about keeping them in a 30" tank. I might keep something a little smaller and less active instead.

I went to my LFS and picked up some stuff - a frag for my reef, and a Blue Spot puffer. This will be the only puffer in the tank, and I'm excited to have him. He seems healthy (he's chubby, and put up a good fight in the store), but he'll be QT'd for a month or so to be sure. Pictures will be coming tonight!

 

Good plan. Ocellaris clowns have great personalities. I had a breeding pair for years and raised out their dry and sold them. It was fun. They used to get mad when I went out of town for work. My wife would feed them for me and they recognized it wasn’t me. They would dark at the top of the water and turn around right at the surface to splash water at her. Never did it to me. There’s lots of good options out there and we all over stocked our tanks. I just saw a bunch of bigger fish and thought oh that could be trouble.

 

Ocellaris would be my first choice, probably - unless I found a decent size pair of Perculas. I'd consider that too. When I had my last pair of clowns they got pretty aggressive towards me, not so much other people.

How's this plan sound?

1 Blue Spot Puffer
2 Ocellaris Clowns
3 Mollies
1 more small fish

 

Perfect. Can I reccomend a yasha hasha shrimp goby or a clown goby. Love them both.

 

A yasha goby would be cool! I actually already have a pair of Yellow Clown Gobies.

 

Alright guys, here he is! My Blue Spotted Puffer.








He's a beautiful little guy, and is insanely healthy for a puffer - most of the salty puffers I find around here are starved to death. This guy is chunky, active, and spunky. Canthigaster puffers "flare" just like bettas do - they stiffen up their bodies and elongate themselves, and change their swimming pattern so that they consistently have their largest side towards the "enemy". In this case, he really didn't like the camera - I couldn't get a picture of him flaring at it because he was moving too fast, but I might try and get it on video one day.

Oh, and he's already eating! I brought some ghost shrimp home from work, and he ate two as soon as he found them in the tank. He had a few pond snails, too. I think I'll be feeding this guy mostly frozen salad shrimp, frozen scallops, frozen krill, and live ghost shrimp. Canthigaster puffers have such tiny mouths that most snails are a challenge unless they're pre-crushed.

I think this guy does have internal parasites (all puffers do), so I'll be treating him for that. For size reference, he's in a 5 gallon - so he's pretty tiny! I'll get him healthy over the next month, and let him loose into the 37. Can't wait!

 

Alright guys, here he is! My Blue Spotted Puffer.

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He's a beautiful little guy, and is insanely healthy for a puffer - most of the salty puffers I find around here are starved to death. This guy is chunky, active, and spunky. Canthigaster puffers "flare" just like bettas do - they stiffen up their bodies and elongate themselves, and change their swimming pattern so that they consistently have their largest side towards the "enemy". In this case, he really didn't like the camera - I couldn't get a picture of him flaring at it because he was moving too fast, but I might try and get it on video one day.

Oh, and he's already eating! I brought some ghost shrimp home from work, and he ate two as soon as he found them in the tank. He had a few pond snails, too. I think I'll be feeding this guy mostly frozen salad shrimp, frozen scallops, frozen krill, and live ghost shrimp. Canthigaster puffers have such tiny mouths that most snails are a challenge unless they're pre-crushed.

I think this guy does have internal parasites (all puffers do), so I'll be treating him for that. For size reference, he's in a 5 gallon - so he's pretty tiny! I'll get him healthy over the next month, and let him loose into the 37. Can't wait!

Wow cool. He is a little guy. Watch him and him eating is a great sign. Clear up those parasites and you’ll do him a world of good.

 

Treated the tank with PraziPro this morning - I don't have any Metro, so I'm hoping that the PrazI will take care of the internal parasites. If not, I'll order some Metro.

 

Prazipro is good stuff. Works on lots of parasites.

 

Ugh...

So, I noticed the puffer was a bit more skittish this morning, and I decided to test the water just to make sure I didn't have a bit of an ammonia spike or something. I used a bunch of well-cycled media, but anything can happen I guess. I got a reading of around 1 PPM.

That didn't make sense after like 24 hours of having a little puffer in what should be a clean tank, so I tested my tap water. Boom - 1.5 PPM out of the tap.

I went to Kroger after work and picked up a bunch of distilled water since the LFS I buy RODI from is closed for the week. I did a 3 gallon WC, and will probably change out a couple more gallons tomorrow.

 

Get yourself and RO filter for yourself. It’s much easier and cheaper in the long run. Good heads up play testing. You likely saved his life.

 

Only been living on my own for a couple months, and when I was at home, an RODI unit wasn't in the cards. Now, I'm just sorta waiting on the "OK" from my landlord.

Ammonia is around 0.25 PPM this morning, so I re-dosed Prime and started mixing 2 more gallons of water. I'll change it out around lunch, and we should be back on course by then.

Little guy seems better today - he came out of his "cave" (a solo cup that I use in my QT's lol), and he went ham on a couple pieces of krill. All nice and fat, now. His poo looks better, too - he's getting rid of all those worms.

 

For equipment on the tank, I was planning on starting off with the cheapo HOB filter and combining that with 1 OR 2 Aqueon 950 powerheads that I have laying around. Think I should go for two? Or will the one be plenty?

 

I’d start off right and get a good filter. You’re probably fine with one powerhead.

 

I think this HOB will do just fine. I'll replace if/when it fails - or when I have a chance at a decent price on an Aquaclear 110.

I threw some hermits into the QT to see if the puffer would go after them. A couple nips at the shell and he gave up, same as my ValentinI used to do. So I guess I'll be doing an all-crab CUC in the 37. I'm sure he'll get the occasional crab, but I'm cool with that.

I guess throwing the crabs in there was a break of QT, but they're from an established tank with QT'd fish. I think it'll be okay.

 

Rock is in the tank!

Okay, not ALL of it. I put in around 12 lbs of live rock, and around 20 lbs of dry rock. 32 lbs of rock looks like nothing in here - I think I'll be adding at least another 10 lbs or so, if not 20. The rock really only gets halfway up the rock, leaving the tank looking pretty empty.

The "dry rock" came out of a curing bin, and looked pretty clean - I decided to go ahead and move my mollies over, as I have a cycled sponge in the HOB and some well-seasoned LR in the tank too. I'll test for ammonia tonight and tomorrow, to make sure it doesn't spike.

These mollies have been troopers - acclimated to saltwater, going through ammonia spikes, etc... pretty cool! They're already grazing on the rock like I wanted them too, so I think they'll work out well.

Oh, and I ended up switching the Aqueon 950 out for a MJ1200. Not nearly as strong as the Aqueon pump, but the mounting system is absolutely horrid on the Aqueon. The suction cup is weak out of the box, even on clean glass. I'll be using it for mixing Saltwater only.

 

Wow that’s 32 lbs of rock. That looks like way less. Looks good though.

 

Thanks! Mollies seem pretty happy tonight - nice, full bellies from all the grazing!

 

Had to move over a Yellow Clown Goby from my 5.5. I was trying to pair two of them, and after a month, had no luck. They weren't really fighting, but the bigger guy definitely had the smaller one pinned into a corner. I felt bad, so I moved the smaller one into this tank. Didn't really want him in here, but hey, gotta provide the best care I can, right? Plus, I figure he won't add much to the bioload anyway.

Loving the mollies in here! They're constantly eating - they cleaned up the algae on the piece of live rock I put in there in basically a day, and are constantly sifting through detritus on the bottom as well. The golden molly even looks like she's about to pop, so maybe I'll have some fry soon!

 

Long time no see!

This tank was kinda put on the backburner while I was putting all of my stand racks together and such over the past couple months. Yesterday, I drained it down and moved it to it's new spot, and added what's likely to be this tank's last addition for a while - a coral beauty angel. She'll get moved into a bigger tank, but for now, she's only 3" or so, and is doing pretty well in here. All of the other fish are doing great as well - I ended up losing the male molly, but I think he might have just been having issues with the flow in the tank. So the stocking list is as follows:

1 Blue Spotted Puffer
2 Female Mollies
1 Coral Beauty Angelfish
1 Yellow Clown Goby (who's finding a new home soon, as I'm always afraid he's not getting enough to eat)
1 Marimo Moss Ball

Yes, a Marimo moss ball! I heard that they can handle full-strength saltwater, so I tossed this one in here. So far, so good after a month!

 

Can I get a pic of the coral beauty? Are you going to put any sand in?

 

Sure! She's fast, so these are the best I can do. I need to invest in a camera!




I'm going to keep this tank barebottom, for a few reasons:

1) It's so much easier to keep nitrates and phosphates down in a barebottom tank than it is a sandbottom tank. There's a bunch of debris on the tank floor right now from the rock where I moved the tank, but usually, it's cleaner, so I can siphon out waste before it rots.

2) The puffer I have in there is a Canthigaster species - meaning that he has this tiny, tiny mouth. Any snails larger than his mouth can only be cracked open by him ramming his beak into it repeatedly - with a sandbed, the snail just gets pushed into the sand, and the puffer loses his meal (and doesn't trim his beak). With a glass bottom, he has something to press the snail against, making it easier for him.

3) I like the look of a barebottom tank. Not all the time, and not in every tank - but in some of mine, for sure.

 

I added in a male molly this morning. He's a Sailfin Lyretail Dalmation - kind of a mutt molly, but very pleasing to the eye.

I brought him home from work last night around 10, temperature acclimated him into a gallon of freshwater in a bucket, and let him sit in that freshwater for about an hour. Then I started adding saltwater at to increase the SG by 0.008. I got him up to 1.016 last night, and finished him up this morning. Then I poured him back into a bag and temperature acclimated him to the tank, and let him loose. Within 5 minutes of being in the tank, he was chasing around the silver female

Pics to come after I clean off the glass and such.

 

Cleaned up the front glass - I need to do the same for the back. I'm considering using window tint on the back glass, although I'm not set on it. I just don't want to take the tank down. I'm not a tall guy (I'm 5' 8"), and this tank is on the top rack of my 52" tall stand. The tank itself is 23" tall - meaning the top of this tank is over 6' in the air. I had a heck of a time lifting the tank above my head.

Here's a picture of the molly - I think he's still in the process of acclimating. He'll be fine, chasing females and eating algae, and then he'll stop and kind of do the molly "waggle" - mollies and guppies seem to swim oddly when under stress. Then he'll straighten back out and return to his normal duties.




The puffer decided to check out the camera - he's a very curious fish. HI'm and the angel are becoming buddies, it seems like. This hermit crab has been in here the whole time, too - the puffer just never goes after him.




And here's a pic of the angel. She's eating, very colorful, and very active. An amazing fish, although I can imagine her eventually outgrowing this tank - good thing it's not her forever home.

 

Alright, I cleaned up the side and back glass as much as I could (or was willing to...), and it looks a bit better. This tank is getting a 5 gallon water change tonight, and I'm gonna try and siphon out some detritus from the bottom glass.

This picture came out SUPER dark for some reason - I might have accidentally changed a setting on my phone. Whoops.




Here are a couple pics I snapped from my guppy/macroalgae tank and my reef tank, as well:

All the guppies you can see in this picture were born in mid-brackish water, and were acclimated to full salt a couple days ago. No losses! I'll be adding in some basic macros next week, I hope.




Here's a picture of my Wyoming White Clownfish pair, as well as a random zoa that's growing a new head. In the picture, the tank looks a bit cloudy, but it's not in person. I don't know why!

 

That last picture the stock light or did you upgrade? Living jealously over you for a few more months

 

The last picture is in a 20" tall tank (10 gallon) under a Wattshine 150W LED setup. More than enough for softies, LPS, and some SPS near the top. I strongly, strongly recommend looking into Chinese lighting when selecting a light for your tank. You don't usually get all the bells and whistles that you do with a name-brand light, but you get more than enough bang for your buck.

 

I have to light a 120. So I am trying to find a good option for 4ftx2ft and 2 ft deep. I'm on the fence with high end LEDs or a couple black boxes. If I had the money tonight it would be a reefbreeder photon. I have 3 kessil a80 that won't do so I'll have to sell them and the controller

 

I think it comes down to your budget, what features are important to you, and what you want to keep.

If it were me, on a tank that size, I'd just build my own fixture. It gets way cheaper to do it that way with bigger tanks, and you get full control over spectrum and features. You can even get solderless LEDs now, that are plug-n-play.

 

Yeah I have thought about that but. Idk if I can make it attractive and wouldn't have any idea how to make it I guess I could research alot. But I Invision a big bulky mess of wires above the tank lol.

 

Yeah I have thought about that but. Idk if I can make it attractive and wouldn't have any idea how to make it I guess I could research alot. But I Invision a big bulky mess of wires above the tank lol.

Lol, if you look around, it's actually not so bad - especially if you go with a basic setup. I've done it on a small, proof-of-concept scale (I soldered 3 LEDs onto a puck heatsink with a basic driver/dimmer combo), and I had that done in less than an hour. If I had built a canopy for it as well, it would have looked fine.

I just did a nitrate test, and holy ! I'm reading up around 40. Yikes. I'm thinking when I knocked all that crud off of the rocks, I caused a spike. Ammonia and nitrite are at 0, though, and all the fish look great. I'll go ahead and do another 5 gallon water change (maybe 10?), and see how things are. I'll post pics once everything is up.

Do you guys think that some Caulerpa Prolifera could grow under these stock LEDs? I think it'd be cool to have some greenery in the scape.

 

I threw a few Mexican Turbo Snails in here to act as a CUC, and the puffer had a ball trying to get at them! He'll give up eventually - he always does, lol.

The music in this video is SUPER LOUD! I apologize in advance.

 

What do you feed the puffer?

 

Generally, a mix of mysis, ramshorn/pond snails, clams, ghost shrimp, all kinds of stuff. He has trouble with any snails bigger than a pea, though.

 

Sad news. Had the yellow molly die tonight. She was acting kinda funky this morning, and I found her lying on the tank floor tonight. I'm not sure what happened - no signs of disease, and all of the other fish are fine. I'd blame it on the saltwater, but she's been fine for months, and I'd expect a rather slow degredation of health if it was saltwater. Strange.

 

Sorry for the loss