Thinking of going FOWLR in 25g. reef

[SPANKYSREEF]

Hi TRT
I have been thinking of moving my corals and shrimp to a 12 gallon JBJ Nano Cube, and turning my 25 into a FOWLR tank. Do you all think it is worth it?---What I mean is----Could I put a nice assortment of fish in a 25? If so, any suggestions come to mind----As you can tell I have trouble making up my mind so any and all input would be greatly appreciated....All the best...Anthony

[kwjones]

You could have a pretty nice assortment of fish in a 25. Here's my picks, keep in mind, you can't have all of them, but you should be able to mix and match a few...

Clownfish
Royal Gramma
Assorted Gobies
Firefish
Blue Green Chromis
Cardinalfish
Wrasse - Like a 6 line.

You'll have to do some research to see which ones are compatible, but there's a lot of brightly colored fish under 3" that you could keep. If you haven't decided on what type of LR, I can see a tank like this set up with some really nice branch to create lots of arches.

[SPANKYSREEF]

Thanks for the suggestions. I have deep water tonga in there now, but looking to add some tonga branch. How about Dwarf Angels?

[Phishnoob]

My list is pretty much identical. We did our 29g though last to house a troublemaking Coral Beauty and threw in a Lawnmower Blenny to keep him company.

Before upgrading Mrs. Phish to the 55 in the 29 we had a cardinalfish, a couple of percs and an anenome, a yellow watchman goby and a royal gramma in the 29. They were all puny and got along really well. The Coral Beauty was a nipper of the softies in the the 55 so we moved him out and upgraded the fish list to the bigger tank.

[SPANKYSREEF]

Thanks Perry---Do you have sand or BB? I currently have sand in the 25 but if I decide to go FOWLR I am thinking of BB....Anthony

[kwjones]

I really like Flame Angel fish, to bad they go for $50 around here. Personally, I would consider a 25 gallon tank borderline for that fish, but others might say you're ok for it.

My FOWLR is bare bottom with the white cutting board on the bottom with rock holding it down. Water changes are super fast now. Since all my parameters are normal, the only thing I've been doing for the past few weeks is siphoning out the snail poop in the display tank, which takes all of 2 or 3 minutes and doing 10% total volume water changes out of the sump...basicly just siphoning out and draining the low flow side.

My snails don't seem nearly as suicidal as they did when I had sand or CC. I might end up flipping over 5 snails a week instead of every day.

[SPANKYSREEF]

Thanks for all the input----It is helping me out BIGTIME!---What "cutting board" material do you use for the bottom?....Anthony

[kwjones]

LOL...I'll have to go look up one of the BB vs DSB threads to remember where I ordered it from. All I know is that is WAS white and I had it cut to fit the tank. I say WAS because it's getting covered in pink coraline.

I think one of them is called TheCuttingBoardFactory.com and the other is Cuttingboard.com. There's another product that just like the cutting board, but it's UV resistant, and it's called Starboard. If you get cutting board, call the company and make sure what you get does not have any anti-microbial or anti-fungal treatments on it. You can get it custom cut for the size of your tank, just make sure you get it cut small enought that it doesn't sit on the silicone seals on the bottom of your tank...you don't want to put them under stress.

You got a skimmer for the tank, or have you picked one out yet?

[SPANKYSREEF]

Thanks again---I will check it out. I have a simple RedSea Berlin Airlift 60 in use. It works great...It fills about 1/4 sludge every 2 weeks. I will upgrade eventually. What about the white eggcrate light covers? I have heard you can use them as a base bottom as well....Anthony

[rtgordon]

you could do a cool tank...

think about a valentini puffer or

dwarf fuzzy lion or
scorpionfish (leaf fish, frogfish, anglers, etc.)

[SPANKYSREEF]

If I go predator, I will not be able to keep that much of a selection---correct?

[kwjones]

You could use egg crate on the bottom of the tank supported with PVC legs, but how will you clean under it?. Personally I like the look of the solid cutting board across the bottom. It serves a couple of purposes.

1. It protects the bottom of the tank from falling rocks and rock slides.
2. It reflects light off the bottom of the tank. I have coraline growing in places on my rock that it never grew before because of the reflected light.
3. It's easy to clean. You'll get a little detritus underneath it, but not enough to make any difference in your water quality, so you only have to siphon the top and around the edges.

An older pic, but you get the idea:

[Phishnoob]

We pretty much do the 1-2" bed thang with lots of vacuuming at water change time.

Our coral beauty is okay in our tank but it is just him and blenny with four rocks. With more fish or stuff it would be too cramped.

[SPANKYSREEF]

I just visited "thecuttingboardfactory"---- what thickness would you recomend?....Thanks again for all of your help.....Anthony

[kwjones]

I have 1/2"