Johnny Reefer's FOWLR
 

Just thought I’d share a little chronology on how things have gone, and are going, with this new FOWLR system.

Some specs first…
135g FOWLR. 72"L x 18"W x 24"H.
4 – MaxiJet 1200 Powerheads, 2 of which are diffused at the surface.
1 – Ebo Jager 250W heater.
1 – Rena 200W heater.
1 – Fluval 404 canister filter.
1 – Rainbow Lifegard 600 fluidized bed filter.
1 – Red Sea Prizm Pro Deluxe skimmer.
2 – Sea Star lightstrips running 2 x 30W Power Glo and 2 x 30W Marine Glo bulbs in each strip.

Day One-Sunday November 27:
Shut down 135g Reef Tank. Everything moved to 70g & 45g holding tanks.
135g tank moved from “Dining Room” area to bedroom. (180g tank to assume “Dining Room” space and Reef specimens, etc.).
140 lbs of aragonite placed. (120 lbs of new rinsed CaribSea medium grade and 20 lbs of live sand from the previous set up).
Filled tank to approx. 80% capacity with new saltwater. (Tapwater, not RO/DI).
Ran up two surface agitating powerheads, one heater, and one lightstrip.
Even though the sand was rinsed, the water is very cloudy. Turbidity allows for a visibility of about only 1”.
66 cups of IO salt was used. I did not use any water from the previous setup.

Day Two-Monday November 28:
Hooked up the Fluval 404 canister, but just running the foam and polywool for now. This is to trap all the aragonite dust that is still leftover from the rinse job. Amazing how much of it there still is. Even after rinsing it first.
180g stand delivered. Attention diverted to that.

Day Three-Tuesday November 29:
Bacteria bloom already. This I attribute to the 20 lbs of live sand.

Water test results:
Temp: 79.3F
Ammonia: 1.8
Nitrites 0.1
Nitrates < 5;
pH 7.7.

Added approx. 100 lbs. of live rock.
Got the Fluidized Bed running.
Replaced the polywool in the canister filter.

Day Four-Wednesday November 30:
Got the skimmer up and running, although it is not skimming yet. (1 ChemiPure in skimmer).
Replenished the Fluval 404 canister with carbon; BioMax; & 2 ChemiPure (3 ChemiPure total). Continuing polywool, for now, and holding off on RowaPhos, for now.
As well, hooked up a PinPoint temperature monitor.
180g tank delivered. Attention diverted to that.

Day Five-Thursday December 1:
Bacteria bloom dissipated.
Aragonite cloudiness pretty much neutralized.
More water readings. Things are good.
Ammonia is way down. From 1.8 to 0.3. I attribute this to the addition of the LR. Amazing stuff. Instant cycle.
Temp: 79.9 F
pH 7.9
NO2 0.1
NO3 5
NH3 0.3
Alk 7.28 dKH
SG measured in the AM to be 1.0295. Removed water down to 90%. Added 10% freshwater to lower SG. Tank now full.
The remaining live rock put in place for a total of 136 ½ lbs, or 1 lb/ gallon.
PM SG reading 1.026.
Second lightstrip added. Commence gradual photoperiod sched. Starting with 4 hours light/day, increasing by 1 hour /day to a total of twelve hours/day.

Cheers,

We are setting up a 110 FOWLR... thanks for the post! It'll be helpful :mrgreen:

Thanx and no problem. I don't claim to be a guru, by any means, but the intent of the thread/post is just that...to be helpful. If others can gain from this in anyway then it's worth it.

Cheers,

Day Six-Friday December 2:

Temp. 80.8F
SG 1.026
pH 8.0
NO2 0.1
NO3 5
NH3 0.1

Fish introduced! :biggrin:
2 - Blue Chin Triggers. One male and one female. Both approx. 2.5" long.
1 - Clown Trigger. Approx. 2.5" long as well.

Cheers,

Day Eight-Sunday December 4:

Temp. 80.4F
SG 1.025
NO2 0.1
NO3 5
NH3 0.1

The female Blue Chin Trigger is constantly out and about.

The Clown Trigger is out and about around half the time. (It actually likes to come out when the lights are on).

The male Blue Chin has taken to hiding 100% of the time. Keeping an eye on this.

Cheers,

PICS!???

Full length.
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/IMG_0184.jpg

Right side.
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/IMG_0185.jpg

Left side.
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/IMG_0186.jpg

Cheers,

man look at all that pretty rock and no corals :razz:

Better than ugly rock and no corals. :razz: :razz:

Cheers,

Looking good so far - nice coralline growth on you rocks. What fish are you planning to stock?

Well, I have the three Triggers in there already...

I'd also like to get two large Angels...there is a nice Personifer (Chaetodontoplus personifer) at my LFS that I would like to get if it is still available in January...undecided on a second Angel species.

Thinkin' of a Tang for Algae control...maybe a Purple Tang.

And a Ladder Glider Goby (Valenciennea sexguttata) to keep the substrate sifted.

I would also dearly love to get a Butterfly of some kind. We'll see about that one! :smile:

Cheers,

Day Ten-Tuesday December 6:

Temp: 81.0F
SG 1.025
pH 8.0
NO2 0.1
NO3 5
NH3 0.1

Cheers,

Day 13-Friday December 9:

Female Blue Chin and Clown Triggers have Marine Ich.
Introduced a Cleaner Wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus) to aid in eradication of Cryptocaryon from female Blue Chin and Clown Triggers.
Cleaner begins cleaning Triggers within 1 hour of introduction.

Also begin lowering SG for hyposalinity treatment. SG measures 1.024. Intend to lower .002/day to 1.015. Intend to maintain 1.015 for one week.

Day 14-Saturday December 10:

AM SG reading: 1.0225.
Remove another 10 gallons and replace with FW.

Other readings this day:
Temp: 81.1F
pH: 8.0
NO2: 0.1
NO3: 5
NH3: 0.1
Alk: 5.04 ( will get this up tomorrow).

Male Blue Chin came out for PM feeding and decided to stick around for after dinner mints. Looks healthy.

Brown diatom algae beginning to set in.

3 weeks, no update on ick problem.

Mark the tank looks great

Thanx Mike.
Sorry. Yes, it has been awhile.
I have two excuses. HaHa.:lol:
I've been workin' 12 hour shifts, daily, since Dec 14th. Doesn't leave much time for CanReef.:cry:
Also, I tried makin' a post onto this thread on Dec. 11th. This was right after the CanReef new software was installed. The post didn't take. As if the thread was locked, or something. I queried about it but the answer didn't make sense. Something about "Display Options" at the "bottom of the page". Couldn't find "Display Options" at the bottom of the page so I'm not sure what I was missing. Didn't have time to bounce posts back and forth about it so I pretty much just walked away from it, figurin' "Well, there goes that thread".
Anyhoo, thanx much for bringin' it back to life!:biggrin:

Update? Sure! Good news and bad.
Good: The ick appears gone, although I can't be 100% certain because the Cleaner Wrasse continues to peck at the female Blue Chin and the Clown Triggers. Looks to me like the Cleaner and the hypo-salinity has done the trick, though. All three of those fish are doin' very well. I just recently started to slowly bring the salinity back up. Today it was 1.017. Aiming for 1.022.
Bad:The male Blue Chin died. i just removed him tonight, actually. I don't know what it was but I don't think it was ick. I never saw any spots on him, when I did see him, which was pretty rare. In hindsight I should never have bought that fish in the first place. I had an unsettling feeling about him at the store, actually. He and the female were in the same tank, but the male seemed to be hiding all the time, while the female was always out and about. But I bought it anyway 'cause I wanted a male and a female together. When I had it in my tank I saw the male all of two times, when it came out to feed on some mysis. The rest of the time, the whole rest of the time, all four weeks, it just hid in amongst the LR.
Live and learn. I'll never buy another fish unless it is showing obvious signs of healthy, robust activity.

Otherwise, the brown algae is still present and has not started to recede yet. There is a scant amount of green algae. Very scant. I have been running the lights for six hours daily (3:30-9:30) for the last three weeks. I'll begin to increase the lighting when I am off work on Jan 11th.

More updates to follow and thanx again for opening this thread up again.
It lives!, but not the male Blue Chin, unfortunately.:cry:

Cheers,

PS I just had to get rid of three smilies from this post. Somethin' else to figure out. I wonder if that is in Display Options? Haha. (Limited out on smilies).

Cheers,

Johnny Reefer's 135 FOWLR
 

Two things:
1). Changed the name of this thread. (Original title: “Setting Up a 135 FOWLR.” Originally in Newbie Creation). It sorta didn’t evolve the way I intended. That being an experience in setting up an FOWLR. I guess it’s a Tank Spec now.

2). Update:
Things are good. SG is 1.019, and I have the lighting going for 8 ½ hours/day. Continue to slowly increase both.
The brown diatom algae has begun to recede, but there is still some present.
Still no green algae to speak of at all.:smile:
My LFS was gracious enough to replace the male Blue Chin Trigger with a 2 ½” Picasso (aka Humuhumu) Trigger, even though the death of the Blue Chin was not their fault. (I think the Blue Chin died from stress due to shipping). The Humuhumu was introduced today. (Freshwater dipped for 1 ½ minutes, in lieu of QT’ing). The new Trigger took to it’s new surroundings almost immediately, and is actually the “Boss” of the tank. It’s certainly telling the female Blue Chin who’s boss, by givin’ her a good chase once in a while. Oh behave!:lol: Hopefully, after a day or two, the Humuhumu will be satisfied that the Blue Chin understands the hierarchy and things will settle down. I certainly don’t want it to progress into anything further.
The Humuhumu doesn’t bother the Clown Trigger at all and the Cleaner Wrasse is doing very well. The Cleaner Wrasse eats voraciously at every feeding. Whether it be Mysis; Krill; Brine Shrimp; Formulas One & Two; Silverside bits…it goes after it.:biggrin:

Well that’s all for now…

Cheers,:smile:

Tank is looking great.. looking forward to more updates :)

Mark,

Your my inspiration to make my reef, 110gal into a FOWLR to. Besides I think all the cool fish are not reef safe anyway.

Your tanks lookin good!


Thanks a bunch,

Lee

Couldn't agree more. I have thought about ditching the reef when I can setup a bigger tank and just go FOWLR myself. We'll see what happens when that day comes :razz:

Gosh, I'm flattered! Thanx much, and yes I agree, there are so many cool non-reefsafe fish.

Good luck when you get going on it and cheers,:smile:

2 month update.

Bought another Trigger. A Pink Tail this time. Introduced it on Wednesday the 25th.
Freshwater dipped again, in lieu of QT. Beauty fish!

Also bought two Ladder Glider Gobies to stir up the sand, but unfortunately they became an expensive lunch for the Clown, Blue Chin and Humuhumu Triggers. Should have known better than to put the Gobies in before giving the others their Silversides lunch. Doh! I’m gonna research some various snail types for this instead.

The brown algae is still hangin’ around, a bit, and the green algae is increasing. Originally I was planning on getting a Tang for algae control, but I think I’m maxed out on the population capacity with the 4 Triggers. So, I bought a PhosBan reactor instead, for algae control. I’ll be hookin’ that up tomorrow. I’ll be runnin’ RowaPhos in it.

As for coralline algae...no signs of new growth yet.


Otherwise, not much to say other than there is either a Mantis or a Pistol in there. I can hear it clicking at night.


Algae Growth.
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/IMG_0191.jpg


Algae Growth 2.
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/IMG_0202.jpg


Pink Tail.
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/IMG_0201.jpg


Feeding Time.
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/IMG_0214.jpg


Cheers, (insert smiley here)

4 months.
Some Cyano in the tank. Been there for about 4 weeks now.
I think it's part of the new tank syndrome and I think it's dissipating on its own. It's not getting worse, at least.
Treated my Reef Tank for Cyano with Chemi-Clean, but not this tank.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/IMG_0229.jpg

Also here...upper left and lower right.
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/IMG_0230.jpg

And the fish are doin' first rate.
They get mostly feeder Goldfish and Silversides, but I also feed them Krill, Mysis, and HBH Spirulina and Krill pellets.

Blue Chin
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/IMG_0282.jpg

Humuhumu and Cleaner Wrasse
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/IMG_0300.jpg

Clown Trigger
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/IMG_0285.jpg

And my favorite...the Pink Tail
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...3/IMG_0264.jpg

Cheers:smile:,

Nice Looking Tank!
 

This thread has been a great reference for me in the planning of my 135 gallon FOWLR. Great work so far on the setting up of this tank. It is looking real good. I have one question for you. How much live rock do you have in the tank? I know the live rock is highly effective for biological filtration but purchasing enough live rock for a 135 gallon tank is a very expensive endeavor especially when many of the LFS charge 10 dollars a pound for cured LR where I live. Might have to order a box from J&L or somewhere online and cure it myself.

Hey, glad to hear your getting something out of this thread. That was my initial intent. Not so much as teachings, as I am learning SW too, but rather a documentation of my experience with setting up a FOWLR tank. Your feedback has made it worthwhile.

As for the LR I have in there....it is 136 lbs (1lb/gal.) of Bali LR. It's pretty good stuff and is not very dense. (Meaning lighter and more porous than some LR).

You don't have to stock all the LR at once. You could start with say 35-40 lbs and work up from there. Just make sure that your bio-load is very low to start with, too, if you do it that way. (IMHO). When I set this tank up originally as a reef, one year ago, I started with about 34lbs LR and 5 Chromis. The tank cycled right away. Or another way of looking at it is that it didn't cycle at all. The magic of LR.:biggrin:

Good luck and cheers:smile:,

absolutely beautiful work. i really like the aquascaping. looks like you really took time to choose your rocks. nice job

Introduced 2 Green Brittle Stars (Ophiarachna incrassata), last week, as part of the clean up crew. (Wanted more crabs but LFS's LR orders having been lacking in hitchhiker crabs, lately).
Nitrates are on the rise, as I suspected they would. There at 20 ppm now.
Bought a Rena XP3 canister today and I am going to run strictly Kent Nitrate Sponge in it. Settin' that up tomorrow. A temporary procedure, until I can get a sump going on this tank with a proper skimmer.

Cheers:smile:,

PS: Thanx niloc16.:smile:

Hey Johnny,

I went FOWLR when I started my tank 2 years ago though I went a lot smaller, 46 g. I run a Remora C skimmer (that I have had a love/hate relationship with over the years) and I have 50 lbs of live rock. I ran a filstar canister filter on it for the first year and a half until it leaked and I disconnected it. I did order the part I needed but I never did get around to connecting it up again. I don't have the messy eaters you have (2 clowns, a royal gamma, a bi-colour angel, keyhole angel, goby) but man I have to say I love running that tank without that canister. I routinely do a 10% water change every two weeks and at first there was a bit of brown stuff on the glass (cyno I guess) but after the initial adjustment, the tank is way easier to maintain. My nitrates are down, the sandbed is white and the tank well, looks as good as it ever has - even better. I do have a good clean up crew that includes 2 shrimp, a sandsifting starfish and various crabs/snails that you may be can't have with your fish.

As a note, I did clean out the filter every two weeks. I would empty, rinse the foam pads and clean it out every time I did a water change. It grew to be a real PITA and I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that I don't have to hook it up again.

Hey Mark! Your tank is looking/looks really nice! We are in the process of setting up our FOWLR 120 and was looking through your thread for ideas on stocking it....LOVE your trigger selections especially the Pink Tail. I think that's what we are going to get and your pics confirmed it. :biggrin:

Well it's been two months since my last post so I thought it's time for an update.

Sarah: Thanx for the good words. I think you'll be happy with a Pinktail. I know I am. It's my fave. The Clown and the Humuhumu are the toughest in the tank and they exhibit some interesting behaviour toward each other at times, particularly at feeding time. A little agressive, competitive rough housing, but nothing serious.

Goby1: Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the website know as CanReef, my friend. Ah yes....nitrates. A problem, yes, but I think I have that at acceptable levels in my tank. More below.

So....the Green Brittle Stars....uh, not a good idea with Triggerfish. At least not Clown and/or Humuhumu Triggers. The legs on both were pretty much devoured. I put them in the sump of my Reeftank, but as they had no legs they couldn't move around to get food. Lesson learned.

Nitrates. To help with this problem I bought and hooked up a Rena XP3 solely for the purpose of using Kent Nitrate Sponge and filled this filter with said product. It worked. Got the nitrates down from 50mg/l (and climbing) to 20mg/l. Stiil high, I know, but better than 50.

Cyano: That got real bad in late May so I did a Chemi-Clean routine on the tank. It worked, .....but it looks like it's coming back.:cry:

Anyhoo, maybe I'll pull the camera out again in a day or two and post another pic. (Although it kinda looks the same, really).

(Typing like mad right now to beat the time-out!)

Cheers:smile:,

Heya Mark...

50 mg/l Nitrate = Cyano... :mrgreen:

I gotta get down and see it someday!

Hey Mark,

Thanks for the tip (re: nitrate sponge in the filter). I was just running it with the foam pads that came with the filter. If my nitrates go up and I decide to run the filter again, I'll have the option of running something different in it. I just hated cleaning that thing and as long as I keep up with the water changes, things seem to be going okay without it. I just have to watch I don't overfeed the tank.

Just wondering why there are no longer any pictures in this thread.
Were they removed for some reason?

Thanx much,

Check your links... maybe Photobucket changed something..?!? :confused:

or did you delete them from your Photobucket account..?!?

Well, by Jiminy, yes I did. What I don't get, though, is that I deleted a whack of photos out of Photobucket and yet other threads, such as my "Upgrades Done" thread, are not affected. :confused:.

Oh well. No biggie. I guess I can reload them. This FOWLR is in for big changes soon anyways, so maybe I'll just start a new thread.

EDIT: AW, CRAP!!! I just checked a few of my other threads. Pics gone. What a downer! I was not aware that this would happen. Now I know. Sheesh. :cry: That's what I get for trying to be too meticulous. :rolleyes:

Thanx much and cheers,

Well getting the pictures back in wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. Just had to re-upload them into Photobucket. Did not have to copy/paste them into the thread here.
Phew. Don't do that again. :neutral:

Cheers:smile:,

Changes soon forthcoming in December.
Here’s a “before” shot of the FOWLR tank. (135g to be upgraded to a 180g).
No sump running at all.
Water circ is by way of 4 MaxiJet 1200s only.
Been running skimmerless since mid September due to unreliable HOB skimmer.
Fluidized Bed filter removed and gone for good.
XP3 filter on the bottom left running nothing but Nitrate Sponge for nitrate control.
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...reUpgrades.jpg



Here’s a shot of the new 70g sump.
(It will not be used on this stand, as photographed. The sump will sit down on the floor, beside the display tank).
Live Rock will go in the first chamber and the second chamber, in those baskets under the skimmer.
The ‘fuge will have a 2” sandbed and I’m going to use Chaeto as the nutrient exporter.
The canister will run carbon and RowaPhos.
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...er3/70Sump.jpg



More...

Here’s a detail shot of the right side of the sump.
The only thing missing is the top-off float valve and stanchion, which are still in use on my reef tank 33g sump.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...SumpDetail.jpg

I’ll post “After” pics when the time comes.

Cheers,