Converting FOWLR to Reef

[Jace_242]

So I have a 75 gallon FOWLR tank that has been set up since last spring. I'm currently wanting to get it set up so it can handle some corals. It is fairly heavily stocked and I don't want to turn it into a full blown reef tank, pretty much just enough to make it a little more colorful. Currently I have roughly 75 pounds of live rock in the tank. I have a coralife 48 inch light with Two 65 watt 10,000K and two 65 watt True Actinic 03 Blue fluorescent lamps. I got a bak-pak 2 protein skimmer from a friend that was upgrading. I have a koralia 4 powerhead, heater that keeps the tank at a constant 80 degrees and an emperor 400 filter. Do I have what is necessary to support some corals or do I need to do any adjusting to my tank? I know I'm going to have to get a little more serious about my daily top offs since I have been a little lax on them in the past with no corals in my tank.

Also I want to know if I have any livestock that would harm any corals. I currently have:
Yellow tang, Blue Pacific tang (1" juvenille), Firefish, Purple firefish, blue damsel, neon goby, yellow clown goby, blue spotted jawfish, false percula clownfish, two fireshrimp, three emerald crabs, two turbo snails, and about a dozen hermit crabs. Pretty much everything in the tank is a juvenille, my largest fish is the yellow tang and he's at about 3".

Thanks for any help.

 

[austinsdad]

What are your nitrate readings? I see no livestock that'll be a problem. if no nitrate problems now. full grown tangs might give you one.

You're gonna need more lighting for corals and another 50 75 lbs of LR IMO.

 

[melosu58]

I`m thinking your livestock looks OK. Your equipment looks OK. Your lighting will only be able to handle low to medium lighting corals like Soft and LPS corals. BTW what is the nitrates reading in your tank?

 

[austinsdad]

Missed that light. Leathers, mushrooms, zoas can do in that light. I had frogspawn and xenia also in my 72g with the same lighting.

 

[sooju]

I have the same lights and have been able to keep zoas, mushrooms, xenia, frogspawn (or other euphyllia - torch, anchor, hammer), and finger leather. No SPS corals though...

 

[Jace_242]

Nitrates are a little high at the moment, 20 PPM. I was out of town for three weeks at a military training school so I'm a week off on my PWC (figured with fish only I wouldn't hassle my roommate with it.) I have enough water mixed to do a 75% water change but I'm gonna space it out over the next couple of days.
PH is 8.2, ammonia and nitrites are 0. I'm still in the research stages of what I'm going to get first in order to learn on so thanks for all of the input on what my lighting will sustain. I currently only have testing kits for what I just mentioned, what else is important to test for?
I've only had the protein skimmer hooked up for about 72 hours so it's pulling out tons of extremely dark water. I'll probably continue to do research for another week or two before actually taking the plunge and buying anything to put into the tank, will that be enough time for the protein skimmer to clean up the water enough?