do you think this will work?

[tcarola154]

Ok, my dad likes my tank a lot, and wants a large system in our new house we are building... I'm going to be setting it up and all, and doing maintenance on the weekends when im home from school. The only thing is, he wants a lot of fish, beyond the normal "recommendations" and Im wondering if there is a way to increase the capacity. The actual show tank is going to be 178 gallons. Im going to have it plumbed to a large fish room in the basement. What im thinking about doing is getting one of the large 150 gallon rubbermaid stock tanks and filling it with LR rubble. This way I would have a whole lot of space for denitrifying bacteria to live, therefore increasing my bioload. Im also going to have a 70 gallon fuge on the system. Do you think this would help increase my capacity? Now, I do know that Im going to have to worry about capatibility a little more, especially when it comes to territorial fish.

Also, I need recommendations on a pump that will be able to have a good turnover rate at about 18 feet of head, and a protein skimmer that will handle this load.

 

[swissfish]

think about getting two (different) protein skimmers. Like a Aqua C or and a Needlewheel skimmer to get all kind of different stuff out.
The more LR and filtration you have the more fish you'll be able to keep.

 

[tcarola154]

I had actually just thought about doing that, I was thinking about the set up in my LFS and they have a separate skimmer running in their live rock tank... sounds like a good idea to me

 

[robertfah]

To keep the fish from fighting, setup your aquascape so that no fish has a clear line of sight all the way across the tank. If a fish doesn't see other fish then the less likely they are to fight. Make sure there are plenty of caves and canals for fish to swim through and you should be alright.

Another way to solve the 'many' fish issue is to get schools. Like Anthias' and Yellow Tangs. They school nice together and make the tank look good as well.

 

[tcarola154]

yea the original thing i wanted to do was get 2 or 3 yellow tangs, because they are nice active and bright fish, but its also like... 16-24 adult inches. That naturally took up a lot of space, hence why I'm here trying to figure out ways to do more. I also wanted to either get a few chromis or anthias too, and then the 2 perc clowns, goby and royal gramma I have now are going to go in there too. I would like to squeeze a BHT or some other blue fish, to kinda round out the color variety, but I dunno if that would be pushing my luck.

so far I have it down to this: AquaC Ev-240, coralife super skimmer 220, 100 gal sump fillled with LR, and the 70 gallon fuge (some LR and caulerpa). that seem like it'll work?