Converting 30G to FOWLR Setup

[FishEdGirl]

OK all you salt lickers:

I have a 30G tank that I want to convert to FOWLR. I have never ventured into saline before so I need all the help I can get. I have been reading up on FOWLR tanks for several months now, but I always prefer advice directly from the experienced.

I don't have any equipment except for the standard FW paraphernalia; Pengiun Bio-wheel HOB filter, Magnum Hot Canister filter, heaters and thermometers, flourescent hood.

Including the obvious, what am I gonna need to get this venture up and running? List, please? Best places to buy the supplies? And where on earth does one get Live Rock from (I don't buy from BA's so don't suggest it)?? Since Edmonton is woefully lacking in quality fish stores, where is the best place to purchase your SW fish and/or paraphernalia?

Any tips for starting up? Things I should prep for? I am not in any rush to get this done but I want to do it right.

TIA for any and all help!

[Marcin]

OK all you salt lickers:

I have a 30G tank that I want to convert to FOWLR. I have never ventured into saline before so I need all the help I can get. I have been reading up on FOWLR tanks for several months now, but I always prefer advice directly from the experienced.

I don't have any equipment except for the standard FW paraphernalia; Pengiun Bio-wheel HOB filter, Magnum Hot Canister filter, heaters and thermometers, flourescent hood.

Including the obvious, what am I gonna need to get this venture up and running? List, please? Best places to buy the supplies? And where on earth does one get Live Rock from (I don't buy from BA's so don't suggest it)?? Since Edmonton is woefully lacking in quality fish stores, where is the best place to purchase your SW fish and/or paraphernalia?

Any tips for starting up? Things I should prep for? I am not in any rush to get this done but I want to do it right.

TIA for any and all help!

Hey. This is my opinion on what you need I converted from FW to SW about 3 months ago-except I went the extra mile into coral keeping.

Basically all you need is some power heads if you want some I have some good ones with adjustable flow for 10 dollars a pieces- you can use one of your filters from FW but only put some bioballs in-can get 100 for 5 dollars at aquagiant in the westend. Then you need some salt. You can get that anywhere. For live rock you should first check out canreef.com or any other edmonton forum for people who are selling because you will get it for the cheapest price (about 4 dollars a pound) Otherwise go to Brian at little oceans on 50st and argyl he sells rock for 7.99 a pound (good price). Use your origional heater will work good. Get yourself a hydrometer I think its called to check for salinity- You can get it from Brian if you want or you can go to Trident pet supply by princess auto in the westend (Also if you dont want my powerheads or any other ones you can get them at about 20-25 dollars a piece at trident except they arent adjustable flow at trident.) For sand if your going to buy all live rock dont bother buying live sand just buy some sand in the bag or look on the forums again because most people are giving it away. Also if you want to save money on live rock- you can buy like 30-50% live rock and then buy the rest tufa rock from Canar rock products on 75st. You will pay like 1.80 for 5 pounds if you buy tufa. The thing with tufa is that it will take time for it to be seeded by the live rock. Also it will most likely have a diffent shape to it- Tufa looks more like a rock while most live rock looks like branches of rock or other stuff like that. Anyway I for example used 60% tufa and the rest live rock and it works great. As for lighting since you are going Fish only it doesnt matter what kind of lighting you have. You can use your origional lighting from your freshwater- If you dont have fluorescent lighting from your freshwater setup I have 2 NO fluorescent setups lying around that Im not using. That should basically be it. If you have any more questions just ask.

By the way I dont remember if I mentioned you dont really need a skimmer for fish only- others may have a different opinion but once you start using a skimmer you have to start adding additives to your water since the skimmer takes out both the good minerals and the bad stuff at the same time. Most of the time if your live rock should do your skimming work for you as well as regular water changes (every two weeks or so).

Enjoy the hobby- I can tell you you will soon want to go into corals most likely- If you do decide I can tell you a very good place to buy cheap lighting required for that- (Very cheap)

[FishEdGirl]

Thanks for the great suggestions, Marcin!

So it sounds like a filter is not necessary on the setup; what are the benefits of having one? Is it strictly for biological filtration? Is it possible to use ceramic rings in place of bioballs?

How many powerheads would be required for my tank? Is there a trick to placement? Thank you for offering yours; how old are they and what kind?

I was not aware that a protein skimmer wasn't necessary! I have to admit, after everything that I've read, I'd be hesitant not to use one. It'd be great to get some other opinions on this...

[Willfishguy]

I have a couple of questions first.

What's the budget like?

What's the wanted fish list like?

[jvision]

Head on down to Little Oceans - 50st and about 81ave... just north of the Sherwood Park Fwy in the House of Tools mall. Best price on LR you're going to find and a couple of the nicest guys around. I think they even have a banner on this site - check it out!

[FishEdGirl]

What's the budget like?

Budget is flexible. I'm in no rush so I'm not looking at spending hundreds of dollars in one weekend

What's the wanted fish list like?

No concrete list at this point. I want to hit a couple of stores and see what the stock is like, get some ideas. What I like and what will fit aren't necessarily the same thing

[Marcin]

Thanks for the great suggestions, Marcin!

So it sounds like a filter is not necessary on the setup; what are the benefits of having one? Is it strictly for biological filtration? Is it possible to use ceramic rings in place of bioballs?

How many powerheads would be required for my tank? Is there a trick to placement? Thank you for offering yours; how old are they and what kind?

I was not aware that a protein skimmer wasn't necessary! I have to admit, after everything that I've read, I'd be hesitant not to use one. It'd be great to get some other opinions on this...

Well a filter is not really necessary its just there to take larger particles out of your water so they arent floating around making your aquarium look bad. As for the ceramic rings if they work for you then go for it. Reason I suggested bioballs is that I bought ceramic rings and they said on the box that they dont melt or whatever but once I had them in my 27 degree tank water they kinda started dissolving a bit- which I didnt really like so I went for the plastic bioballs but both works fine. The powerheads I have Im not sure how old they are but I just bought them off a person on canreef except I decided I was going to just use the ones I had. The powerheads I believe are maxi jets or something like that. Depending on your tank length you may be able to get away with one and a filter on the other end of the tank but its always better to have to facing eachother to create current going different ways rather than the same way(I guess thats better dont ask me why ) Anyway in regards to the skimmer it just makes water changes less frequent but like I said personally I dont think its necessary since more frequent water changes are a good idea. But its all up to your budget if you can afford it then why not have it right? Cant hurt. Placement I would place the powerheads so they create a sort of cross current like I said above. Also as for the brand of the powerheads I took a look at them and it says Powerhead 402 and on the side it says Askoll- made in italy so I assume it is an Askoll powerhead. One of the powerheads has been sold (the larger 802) so if you were interested there is only the 402 size left.

Edited November 4, 2006 by Marcin

[BlkWolfe]

Keep the tank, heaters, and fluorescent hood. You should be able to find "marine" bulbs if you like the blue look most people do on their salty tanks, just replace the bulb.

You can run the penguin if you like, although it will be solely for adding flow to the tank. Ceramic beads, bioballs etc usually just lead to headaches down the road. You'll be relying on the live rock as your biofilter. The magnum also wont be any use for this, it'll clog way too often.

Things youll need...

Marine Salt - Instant ocean is an old standby, Kent as well. Both are cheap, although they've both had problems with "bad mixes" over the years, this can be monitored however. I've interchanged between the two in my 140g reef and now in the 400g

Hydrometer - I'd recommend just going straight to a Refractometer, either way they'll allow you to accurately mix your new saltwater

Mixing Barrel - Depending on your water change habit, this can either be a 5g pail with a powerhead borrowed from the 30g to mix it for 24 hours, or a rubbermaid with its own to keep water on standby. Again, depends of you

Power Heads - I'd recommend a couple seio 620's, maybe 820's. I've got at least 2 of them from 1100's to 2600's. They're easy to clean, put out alot more flow than maxijets and you'll only need two. Maxijets are cheaper but youll need more

Live Rock - I cant really vouch for anyone in Edmonton, but i havent had a chance to see Brian at Little Oceans since his move. 90% of my rock has come from J&L aquatics in Vancouver. Depending on the "look" you like, 30lbs should do for a more sparse look, 50+lbs for the rock wall look. Expect to pay between $4.50 and $7 per pound, depending on the rocks origin and where you buy it. Calgary is also good, if your ever there.

Test Kits - This is kind of subjective, as i havent used test kits aside from testing my newly mixed saltwater in a few years. Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate kits to monitor your cycle. Calcium and KH kits to test new batches of saltwater to make sure theres nothing wrong with the mix.

As for livestock, that will depend on what you want.

For startup, get the tank setup, lights, powerheads, and the tank about 3/4 full of saltwater mixed to about 1.024. Buy your rock (all at once would be ideal, but you can add small amounts later) and throw it in. You may need to do one or possible two big water changes while the rock cycles. It WILL stink. You dont need to add any shrimp, and NEVER add any fish or inverts at this point. There's plenty of dead stuff in the rock that will fuel the cycle. Give it at least 4 weeks, 6-8 being better. Once the cycle is over you'll get a diatom bloom (everything turns brown), then a hair algea bloom (everything turns green), and a cyanobacteria bloom (kind of a brown/green mix). You can start adding snails and hermits at the beginning if youd like. Try to hold off on fish as feeding them will just make the blooms worse and prolonged. You might not get all the blooms either.

hth, and goodluck

[Willfishguy]

What's the budget like?

Budget is flexible. I'm in no rush so I'm not looking at spending hundreds of dollars in one weekend

What's the wanted fish list like?

No concrete list at this point. I want to hit a couple of stores and see what the stock is like, get some ideas. What I like and what will fit aren't necessarily the same thing

Other then choice of equipment, and the addition of a good skimmer, I think the procedure BlkWolfe described is a good lead to follow. I do however recommend a couple or three good reads, Natural Reef Aquarium by Tullock, The New Marine Aquarium by Paletta, and The Conscientious Aquarist by Fenner, if you haven't already checked them out.

[Murminator]

I'm not a believer in sponges, bio-ball, ceramic rings etc... to me they are a nitrate factory. To me live rock, live sand and water changes is what I rely.....if I don't get to lazy. Here is a chep reef I set up a while back That has gone through many many changes. basicly rock, sand, light, flow it did me good financed a bigger reef gained experienced. You will just have to find out what works for you.

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthrea...ght=ghetto+reef

[FishEdGirl]

Awesome! Thanks Josh (do you mind if I call you Josh?)

You've anticipated a lot of my questions, so now I'll bounce a couple more around.

Should I skip the filter completely? I'm going to kibosh the ceramic beads/bioballs and just stick with the live rock for biological filtering...if I get two of the powerheads that you suggest, Josh, is it even necessary to have a filter on there for flow?

Am I correct in assuming that you need to run a heater on the water in your mixing barrel?

What is your stand on protein skimmers? Necessary or unnecessary?

Would I be alright to do small water changes weekly (ie: 10%) while the live rock is curing?

Man, I haven't even started this yet and I've already decided to do a larger tank... This is gonna be worse than the FW bug, isn't it??

Keep the tank, heaters, and fluorescent hood. You should be able to find "marine" bulbs if you like the blue look most people do on their salty tanks, just replace the bulb.

You can run the penguin if you like, although it will be solely for adding flow to the tank. Ceramic beads, bioballs etc usually just lead to headaches down the road. You'll be relying on the live rock as your biofilter. The magnum also wont be any use for this, it'll clog way too often.

Things youll need...

Marine Salt - Instant ocean is an old standby, Kent as well. Both are cheap, although they've both had problems with "bad mixes" over the years, this can be monitored however. I've interchanged between the two in my 140g reef and now in the 400g

Hydrometer - I'd recommend just going straight to a Refractometer, either way they'll allow you to accurately mix your new saltwater

Mixing Barrel - Depending on your water change habit, this can either be a 5g pail with a powerhead borrowed from the 30g to mix it for 24 hours, or a rubbermaid with its own to keep water on standby. Again, depends of you

Power Heads - I'd recommend a couple seio 620's, maybe 820's. I've got at least 2 of them from 1100's to 2600's. They're easy to clean, put out alot more flow than maxijets and you'll only need two. Maxijets are cheaper but youll need more

Live Rock - I cant really vouch for anyone in Edmonton, but i havent had a chance to see Brian at Little Oceans since his move. 90% of my rock has come from J&L aquatics in Vancouver. Depending on the "look" you like, 30lbs should do for a more sparse look, 50+lbs for the rock wall look. Expect to pay between $4.50 and $7 per pound, depending on the rocks origin and where you buy it. Calgary is also good, if your ever there.

Test Kits - This is kind of subjective, as i havent used test kits aside from testing my newly mixed saltwater in a few years. Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate kits to monitor your cycle. Calcium and KH kits to test new batches of saltwater to make sure theres nothing wrong with the mix.

As for livestock, that will depend on what you want.

For startup, get the tank setup, lights, powerheads, and the tank about 3/4 full of saltwater mixed to about 1.024. Buy your rock (all at once would be ideal, but you can add small amounts later) and throw it in. You may need to do one or possible two big water changes while the rock cycles. It WILL stink. You dont need to add any shrimp, and NEVER add any fish or inverts at this point. There's plenty of dead stuff in the rock that will fuel the cycle. Give it at least 4 weeks, 6-8 being better. Once the cycle is over you'll get a diatom bloom (everything turns brown), then a hair algea bloom (everything turns green), and a cyanobacteria bloom (kind of a brown/green mix). You can start adding snails and hermits at the beginning if youd like. Try to hold off on fish as feeding them will just make the blooms worse and prolonged. You might not get all the blooms either.

hth, and goodluck

[BlkWolfe]

Man, I haven't even started this yet and I've already decided to do a larger tank... This is gonna be worse than the FW bug, isn't it??

You have no idea :P

You really dont need any kind of HOB or filter on sw tanks. You can if you'd like, but the powerheads are really all you need. Just get a nice flow going through the tank, which you should have plenty of with a couple seio's.

a heater in the mixing barrel would be ideal, but if your going to do something like 10% (even a full 5g bucket in a 33g) then there wont be much of a temp swing even if the buckets at room temp. Your doing a fowler tank, so you dont have to worry about corals, and unless you get some really temperamental fish that small swing wont hurt them. Not necessary, but i'd recommend it.

Skimmers are always nice, but not really necessary. There are tradeoffs. If you run skimmerless, you'll need to compensate by either keeping a lower fish load, limiting feedings (which can limit some fish choices, wrasses especially), or upping your water changes. Ill post a pic of my 140g SPS reef. It had about a dozen fish ranging from clowns to wrasses to an angel and tang. No skimmer, and not even a calc reactor until 6 months before i ended up tearing it down. I did have to do 100g water changes every 2 weeks because of the amount i was feeding, but i just kept coming home with fish. You can plan to make yours more manageable. For me the extra salt i was going through was offset by not having to buy a skimmer.

and before i forget, you'll almost certainly want at least a light dusting of sand, at least for aesthetics (thanks for bringing that up Murray). Anything aragonite based, look for either sugar sand, reef select, or reef floor special. Anything bigger is a PITA.

Water changes on the rock while its curing, again, is up to you. When i started out i threw all the rock in and just left it for the 6 weeks. Still had plenty of life on it. Now i like to at least do a couple 100% water changes to try and save some of the critters from huge amounts of ammonia while it cycles. Honestly i dont know how much good it actually did for my last batch. You might want to do the changes solely to help with the smell

The biggest thing to avoiding a tank "crash" or having it turn into an algea bowl is really patience. Let the tank adjust to every new addition, dont overfeed (or at least have the export to manage it if you do), and keep up your maintenance. Starting with a fowler is better as well since they arent as touchy as reef setups.

hth

[FishEdGirl]

and before i forget, you'll almost certainly want at least a light dusting of sand, at least for aesthetics (thanks for bringing that up Murray). Anything aragonite based, look for either sugar sand, reef select, or reef floor special. Anything bigger is a PITA.

I hate bare-bottomed tanks. U-G-L-Y. I am thinking about a 1" substrate depth, since everything I've read says to either go deep or extremely shallow with the sand.

Ill post a pic of my 140g SPS reef. It had about a dozen fish ranging from clowns to wrasses to an angel and tang. No skimmer, and not even a calc reactor until 6 months before i ended up tearing it down. I did have to do 100g water changes every 2 weeks because of the amount i was feeding, but i just kept coming home with fish.

WOW. I am totally crowning you king of interior fish design. That is gorgeous!

Hmmm...new question...how stable is live rock when you're stacking it? Any tips? With my luck I'd have an avalanche...how do you feel about in locum designing, Josh? Pro bono, of course

So how easy is it to turn a FOWLR tank into a reef?

(egad, that picture is giving me ideas now...perhaps we should assume this as a rhetorical question lol)

OK I'm gonna do a 45G FOWLR now. (maybe a reef in the future lol) Two powerheads still ok? Are there any real downsides to running a protein skimmer? I want to make things as efficient and easy as possible on myself at first, so if there's no real reason not to have one, I'll buy a protein skimmer.

Heater on the mixing barrel...check.

No filter...check.

Just remembered...R/O water has to be used from everything I've read. Where do you guys get yours from?

[BlkWolfe]

The design has to be credited to AndyL. As for stacking rock, all depends on how picky and patient you are. I didnt want to build a PVC support structure or glue everything together, so the two of us ended up spending about 8 hours finding each rocks sweet spot. We were both picky about the aquascaping.

Barring any problems with existing fish and their compatibility with corals, all you really gotta do to go reef from fowler is upgrade the lighting.

Two powerheads will be fine. If your thinking of possibly going reef, look into a couple seio 1100's instead of the smaller ones. You can always throttle them back if they're too much flow, but the more the better and they'd be good for a first time reef. Can also use them if you upgraded later on.

Not really any downsides to a skimmer. Remoras can be hit or miss (i have one thats good and ones thats poop), aside from those i can really recommend anything. I never ran a skimmer aside from one of the remora pros on a predator tank (my folks have the other), and ended up going to a custom built one for the big tank.

I have my own RO unit, but theres lots of people that just dechlorinate Edmonton tap water and use that. Just dont switch back and forth.

[FishEdGirl]

I have my own RO unit, but theres lots of people that just dechlorinate Edmonton tap water and use that. Just dont switch back and forth.

Is there any risk of harming the fish using tap water? What about the pH?

Should the powerheads be placed at or just below the water line for surface agitation?