Keeping a semi-aggressive tank clean?

[Ocicat]

How do you keep an FO tank, in particular a somewhat aggressive tank (ie, with a Picasso trigger & panther grouper as centerpiece species), clean?

With an FO tank, is a canister filter + a skimmer sufficient?

Also, why not use LR? What advantage does FO have over FOWLR? The only thing I don't like about LR is the amount of real estate it takes up in the tank... Is that it?

Is it difficult to keep the water healthy without LR? Do you have to make more water changes?

Is something like a yellow tang sufficient to keep algae down, in the absence of snails / cleanup crew?

I know that's a lot of questions... Essentially I'd like to know the best method for running a tank to house a picasso trigger and a panther grouper et al. Ideally this would not involve scraping algae and siphoning the sand every day. The tank will be 180-gal, and I have an ASM G3 skimmer.

TIA!

 

[Brenden]

Is it difficult to keep the water healthy without LR? Do you have to make more water changes?

You pinned it. LR will greatly benefit your bio-filtration. Without it you will need to do more WC and add other means of filtration. Algae should not be a issue if you keep your water parameters in check.