FOWLR setup

sumpfinfishe · #1 05-28-2003, 04:39 AM

Just in the planning stages of setting up a FOWLR tank for a friend of mine.
The tank is going to be a 33gl with 30lbs of live rock and another 30lbs of aragnite sugar sand. It's also going to be sumpless.

My question is what are your opinions on skimming. Will he need to skim, or is the LR and DSB going to be fine without skimming. Mechancial filtration is going to be done with a Fluval 304 canister filter.

If I do decide to set him up with a skimmer I was thinking of either the Remora, Bakpak, or the Prizm hang-on models.

Any opinions or thoughts would be great

cheers, Rich

PFisher · #2 05-28-2003, 02:38 PM

I had a similar setup to this for a while. It was fine without a skimmer for the first few months, but after that it started to accumulate a nasty skin on the surface of the water. I looked into skimmers and was down to those same 3, then I decided to build my own. I had enough room behind the tank to hide a 3 foot tall DIY skimmer, you may not. The Big Al's here in Edmonton has these skimmers set up on a tank so that you can see them in operation, they may have a similar setup around you. It helped in planning my own, and may help in your decision.

Patrick

Samw · #3 05-28-2003, 07:57 PM

I'm not a big fan of external cannister filters because I don't like the cleaning part of it. I have a magnum HOT filter still in the box because it is time consuming to assembly, disassemble, clean, reassemble. Too many parts compared to an Aquaclear.

My preference would be to add a skimmer and an aquaclear for housing carbon. I've tried both Remora and Bakpak and both work well. I like the waterfall type of output on the Remora better than the pipe output on the Bakpak.