350G FO System - What do you think?

[WANANO]

Hi Everyone,

My FO plans are coming together slowly. I want to try something new. I love the look of shallow tanks; you know when you can look down on the fish as if they are in a rock pool.

My plans are to take up most of the length of my garage with 2 tanks running of a common sump, containing a DSB and refuge. Skimmer will be a large recirculating needle wheel skimmer run with ozone. I plan on running 2 phosban reactors containing phosban.

My tanks will be placed next to each other with no space between them. The tank lengths will be 87 inches long each, 35 inches wide and 12 inches high. Total length of the tanks will be 174 inches.

Tank 1 will contain:-

1 Clown trigger
1 Niger trigger
1 Picasso trigger
1 Undulate trigger

Tank 2 will contain

1 naso tang
1 yellow tang
1 blue tang
1 sohol tang
1 emperor angel
1 scribble angel



Now for the return pumps I was thinking of using a Sequence Dart for the return. Should I use one pump for both tank (split the flow) or buy 2 pumps, one for each tank. If I go this way with 2 pumps would additional power heads inside the tank be required?


Tank will have a very shallow sand bed (less than 1 CM that will get vacuumed / replaced regularly).


Can I have your comments on this please. I have been keeping reefs for 15 years and in all honesty I'm over coral tanks. I want fish will good personalities.


Cheers

[Geoff]

12" is a bit shallow for some of the fish you have listed. a full grown yellow tang is nearly that tall. if you could go 18", i think that would be better.

do you have a certain total height in mind?

i would use a pump per tank. that way if a pump were to go out, both systems will not be adversly affected. there is also the tiny risk of something blocking a return or overflow and causing more water going to one system than the other and overrunning the overflow.

you might also want to think about using higher pressure pumps and using eductors instead of high flow pumps. that way you can keep your overflows a reasonable size yet still have enough flow to keep the fish happy.

i also think trying to skimm 3600gph would be difficult. i like to match the flow through the sump to what my skimmer can process.

G~

[WANANO]

Thanks Geoff,

Good point about the pumps, I will most likely run 2 for peace of mind.

If i skimped the yellow tang and maybe the angels, do you think the tank would be deep enogth for slender tangs such as naso, blue and triggers?

Cheers

[Geoff]

is there a reason why you are dead set on a 12" deep tank? i just think that depth is limiting you on the fish you can keep.

you should be fine if you keep with the more slender fish though. maybe even a vlamingi.

G~

[WANANO]

Originally Posted by Geoff

is there a reason why you are dead set on a 12" deep tank? i just think that depth is limiting you on the fish you can keep.

you should be fine if you keep with the more slender fish though. maybe even a vlamingi.

G~

Hi Geoff,

I'm wanting to go 12 inches in depth due to the fact that i can pick these up second hand from a LFS for a good price.

Cheers
Che

[Geoff]

and that is a very fine reason to go with a 12" deep tank.

[reiple]

12" high and 87" long? hmmmm. I hope the Shark police are not reading....

why not a shark? if it is bare bottom and 35" wide, well a shark would do nicely. I think (I could be dead wrong!).

seriously the other fishes might jump out. unless you add some glass above these. I assume these will be coverless to allow viewing from above.

kinda cool your project here. good luck!

[Geoff]

that tank would be fine for several of the smaller Elasmobranchs. if you can find some of the stingeretts, that would be a great tank.

G~

[WANANO]

Well I have the tank (only got one). It's gone through the ammonia cycle and I expect the nitrites to be zero by early next week. Got a RDSB with 240LB of Caribsea sand (20CM deep). Lighting is by NO fluros only. Return pump Ocean Runner 3500.

Skimmer still to arrive but I went a large dual recirculating beckett skimmer. Should turn up in the next week or so.

Expected stocking list as follows:-

clown trigger, picasso trigger, emperor angel, lip stick tang, sohol tang, and one other large angel. Fish will be purchased on the smaller side (say 4-5 inches).

Any coments on stocking list? Would you change, add anything.

Cheers

[Geoff]

do you have a pic?

what stocking order are you thinking? being small will prolly solve a lot of the problems with stocking order, but it is still a good idea to think ahead for this.

G~

[beach bum]

the emp. angel, clown trigger and sohal tang should be the last to go in, in that order imo. depending on what your last "large angel" will be.

although you might reconsider having so many large and/or dominant fish, total tank volume is only about 150 gallons, right? I would probably suggest only one max from each type of fish - one trigger, one tang, one angel just to avoid problems.

How deep is the tank after the sand bed was put in? 20cm = 4" so 12" - 4" = 8". I think that many large angels will be sticking out the top of the tank and rubbing the sandbed at the same time. food for thought. gl

[WANANO]

No pics yet Geoff, Will post one when I have a few fish in there.

Sand in the tank will be about 1mm only, Just enogth to cover the glass.

Stocking order will be

First Lipstick tang
Second Other large angel (Either scribble or Navarcus). If I decide to go a queen then that will be later.
Third Emperor angel
Forth Picasso trigger
Fifth Sohol tang (still not 100% sure on this, if not I will most likely go a yellow tang and maybe a hippo tang)
Sixth Clown trigger

The above stocking list will be dependent on what comes available when of course. Sometime you need to get the fish when they appear as sohol tangs may only become available in Australia like once / twice a yer. Queen angels once a year, maybe less.

[WANANO]

Hi All,

Well the tank now has some fish in there. Stocking order went out of the window as in Australia you always seem to have months when clown triggers are available and then nothing for 9 months. We have not seen Sohols in the shops for a good year and my LFS was kind to sell me his established fish in his tank so I took it. More may not be available for another year or so. Picasso triggers are not even on the collectors list at the moment. Seems to be seasonal trends.

So I now have:-

1 x 3 inch clown trigger
1x 5 inch Sohol
1 x 6-7 inch Lunare wrase (M)

I tried adding a blue line angel to the mix (8 inches) but the nasty clown trigger started to fin nip him. So I took the blue line angel back to the shop.

Would like a large lip stick tang but I think the sohol may smash him?

The sohol and clown trigger are fighting a bit but nothing over the top. This aggresion seems to be geting less.

So new fish that I'm thinking about are:-
small red line trigger
small niger triggers
small picasso trigger
Harlequin tusk
Lip stick tang
yellow tang
Centropage angels that could escape into the rock work (unlike large angels that hide but can still be attacked by the clown trigger).
Or a group of blue devil damsels / domino damsels?

What are you thoughts.

Cheers

Che

[Geoff]

the triggers are going to be the problem fish. they can be quite aggressive. you might want to segregate the tank a bit untill all the fish are aquired than do a massive tank reaquascaping and let them all figure it out from there.

G~

[WANANO]

Hi All,

Well I have not added any new fish yet, but the new plan is to add an identical tank onto this system. So I will have 2 x 87 inch long, 32 wide, 12 inch high tanks. They will both run of a common filter (my 240 lb remote deep sand bed) and use the same skimmer (Deltec 702).

I will run 1 separate pump for each system and both drains will go into the same filter system.

Tank 1

Juv clown trigger
Juv red line trigger
Niger trigger
Picasso trigger
Sohol tang
Lunare wrase

Tank 2

Emperor angel (small adult)
Blue face angel (small adult)
Lip stick tang
Vlamingi tang
Pair of common clowns
Morrish Idol???

Do you think this will work OK. Each tank will have a Tunze 6080 running on it for tank circulation. Ocean runners 3500 will be used as the return pumps.

Cheers
Che