JC's 3ft Fowlr

[cutebarra77]

Hi,

Finally found the time now (stay at home Dad) to document and share my 5 months old Fowlr tank.

Actually, I started this addictive hobby back in mid 2011 with a Fowlr tank consists of lionfishes and mushrooms. Then got a bit ambitious and tried softies & zoas. Then major disaster struck my tank – sandbed poisoning and wiped out all my fishes and corals in 2012.

Learnt valuable lessons and gained knowledge to do a restart in Jan 2013 – back to Fowlr tank to celebrate the arrival of my son…

Technical

Tank: 90 x 60 x 60 (324L/85G) – Display tank at Aquarama 2011

Sump: 45 x 30 x 30 (3 compartments: from DT – Filter Sock – Cotton wool - Skimmer – FR – Return)

Return: Eheim 1264 (Connects to external UV to chiller and back to DT)

Lightings: AquaticLife’s T5HO - 4 x ATI 39W + 3 LED (Only using 2 x 39W – Purple Plus and BluePlus, switch on from 7am to 2pm, LEDs is switched on from 7pm to 10pm)

Skimmer: 2^nd hand Deltec APF 600 (External) connected to Eheim 1260 (Sump)

Chiller: Resun 650 (switch on from 7am to 2pm)

Reactor: Some taiwanese brand with NP pellets, connected to Eheim Compact 600

UV – Aquazonic 39W

Wavemaker: WP40 (24hrs) + 2 x Tunze 6015 (switch on from 10am to 12pm daily to blast the bottom)

Media: some unknown brand bacteria media + The Water Cleanser by Marine Easy Clean (Gemsurf)

Electronics: pH and Salinity monitor - Some MIC brand from Gemsurf

Water Parameters

pH – 7.9 to 8.1

Salinity – 26ppt/1.019

NO3 – 0

Maintenance

• Change 17% (3 big red pails) every 2 weeks. And I used tap water treated with Nutrafin AquaPlus.
• Salt: D&D H2Ocean Pro+
• Wash Filter sock every week

Fishes

Tangs – Naso Blondie, AT, Blue Hippo, Yellow, Yellow eyed Kole

Angels – African back, yellow bellied Regal, juvenile Koran

Cardinals – Banggai and Black

Chromis – 2 x Green and 1 x Blue reef

Others – 1 x paired common clown, 1 x pair green Mandarin, red spotted goby, Royal Gamma, hybrid gold and blue neon goby, Naoko's Fairy Wrasse, Fire Shrimp, Red Scarlet Reef Hermit Crab

Feeding

Breakfast – Henry’s reef gourmet (Garlic flavor) mixed with spirulina powder + Henry’s Life pellets

Lunch – Nori + Dainichi marine pellets

Dinner – 1 x cube of Hikari frozen mysis + Henry’s Color Pellets

(Everything is soaked with Garlic water – I’m using chopped garlic from NTUC. In addition, I will also soak every Monday’s breakfast with Ocean Free’s Multi-vitamin complex.)

Here is a poorly taken (handphone quality) picture of my tank.

[cutebarra77]

Hmmm...how come pic did not go through???

Here is a video link:

[cutebarra77]

Now, some of you may wonder the following:

Q1: How come got mirror in the tank?

A1: That was used to distract and tame the naso tang. It got aggressive towards my regal and AT when I intro them. Result is so far so good. I’m quite surprised that Naso can show such aggression.

Q2: How come got a stick in the tank?

A2: That was some cheapo DIY using a cooking wood chopstick with a clothes peg to feed nori. A fishing weight is tied at the stick end to keep it upright. Just loved seeing the tangs tearing the nori madly…

Q3: How come there is a plastic box at the top right?

A3: That is the “copepod condo” experiment I adopted from ReefCentral. Basically it housed some liverock rubbles and cheato. I bought some live copepods and dumped them into the box to create a ‘safe’ habitat for them to grow and breed as food for my Mandarins. So far, I observed there are some copepods surviving in the box, but not thriving as fast to meet the mandarins’ demand. Luckily, the mandarins are trained to eat the food I used for the fishes.

Q4: Is your tank overcrowded?

A4: I think so too. My plan is to let go the tangs and regal angel once they get too big. Naso and the regal are growing fast and fat…

That’s all, folks.

[Guest]

Interesting setup , now i learn something new from you today as well on the Mirror

Care to share how did you manage to keep your AT ich free ?

[xeneryx]

Very nice AT

[cutebarra77]

Interesting setup , now i learn something new from you today as well on the Mirror

Care to share how did you manage to keep your AT ich free ?

On the mirror part, my personal opinion is that these fishes by right shd not show aggression towards other types of fishes. The mirror provides an image of their own kind and hence, they will turn their attention to 'fight' their same kind.

On the ich part, i am no expert but this is what works for me:

- I do not QT (Bad practice!)

- Acclaimatization method: place the bag of fish into a transparent box in the DT. The box should be placed against the tank wall and at the same water level. Place an airstone to into the bag to aerate the water, and add 10ml of DT water into the bag every 15mins for 3 hrs. Then use a net to catch the fish and transfer into DT.

- Buy from reliable LFS

- Fowlr easier to control the salinity in DT at 1.019 or 1.018.

- Feed them well and stress free.

- A lot of literature on using UV and garlic. I'm not totally convinced but still, I have been practicing them.

- Good water quality; I will siphon away the dirt at the bottom. But my 2 x tunze did a decent job to circulate the bottom to ensure the fish poo are not trapped at dead spots. Bare bottom tank has this advantage.

Hope this helps.

[cutebarra77]

Very nice AT

Thanks! I got this babe from LCK201. Good quality fishes at very reasonable prices.

[ezman]

hey bro, very nice fowlr setup....i have the urge to follow your footsteps now..........

[cutebarra77]

hey bro, very nice fowlr setup....i have the urge to follow your footsteps now..........

Thanks, bro.

Fowlr setup easy and low maintenance.

if you have the space, resources and a bit more time, go for it man!!!

[ezman]

Thanks, bro.

Fowlr setup easy and low maintenance.

if you have the space, resources and a bit more time, go for it man!!!

i m seriously considering it.......will ctc u if i need your advise. cheers

[cutebarra77]

An interesting observation. My yellow eyed Kole Tang is eating the Naso's poo and it seemed to like it. Not that I am under feeding them, but I find this very interesting. Any of you have this observation too?

[digibee]

Hey bro, nice tank! My cherub angelfish likes to eat poo as well; Maybe these fish are recyclist...... Environmentally friendly fish!

[cutebarra77]

Hey bro, nice tank! My cherub angelfish likes to eat poo as well; Maybe these fish are recyclist...... Environmentally friendly fish!

I certainly hope more of such recyclist fishes ard...

[dom07]

need setup

[cutebarra77]

need setup

far from your's. I like 522, will do that upgrade once I renovate my place.

[Admiraltian]

All your fishes r fat and healthy, nice.

[cutebarra77]

All your fishes r fat and healthy, nice.

Thanks, bro.

Thanks to all the high quality food...

[cutebarra77]

http://youtu.be/THhQyD_StbQ Nori time! Sure an enjoyment to watch them tearing the nori sheets...

[cutebarra77]

http://youtu.be/DLKPYo_uDNA Just love Mother Nature at work...a symbiotic relationship.

[jket88]

Nice