Need advice whether to go FOWLR

[pecan2phat]

Okay guys, I need your advice whether to turn my 90g FO tank with a ton of dead coral into a FOWLR tank or not. Here's my concerns: the tank is running fine for the past 15 yrs with minimal water changes (I'm talking maybe 4 per year, but since my R/O-DI purchase, I will be more dilligent) and my ammonia, nitite are 0, with nitrate @ 10 ppm & phosphate @ 0.1 ppm all without R/O water and the tank is heavily stocked. If I decide to remove all the dead coral and place LR in, will I gain much advantage based on my current levels? Will I gain disadvantages such as detrius build up near the base of the foundation LR? My fear is that the LR does not take off and becomes a natural source for hair algae. This happened 10 yrs ago when I tried to turn my 58g into a FOWLR and soon afterwards, I had to take out the LR and replace with dead corals. As with the dead corals, I never have a hair algae problem.
If you guys recommend I do this than here's another ?, I know my large Angels will pick off a lot of stuff of the rocks & my Harlequin Tusk will devour any crabs that hitch hike ( no cleanup crew for me), but will they leave mushrooms alone?
Please give me all the pros & cons guys. Thanks.

Also, if I go with FOWLR & have an outbreak of Ich, I cannot treat the tank with copper but how does the reef safe stuff work?

 

[fishfreek]

If I decide to remove all the dead coral and place LR in, will I gain much advantage based on my current levels?

Well its hard to get much better than no ammonia and nitrite and 10ppm of nitrate. The live rock will enhance your bio filtration but honestly with those water levels that benifit is mute. With proper water flow around the rock you wont have the problem with detrius buildup.

One of the keys is to get as high quality live rock as possible that is either precured or cure the rock in a seperate container till its cured so you dont have any kind of spike in your ammonia or nitrite levels.

 

[cj10488]

Well its hard to get much better than no ammonia and nitrite and 10ppm of nitrate

I agree.. If your levels are such about the only effect your going to have is the Natural look of the ocean..

One of the keys is to get as high quality live rock as possible

I would recommend Liverocks.com I just posted a bunch of pics in their sponsor forum..

FWIW adding LR to the tank makes the fish feel more at home.. And with LR from what Liverocks.com sells you get alot more LIFE that you can enjoy. Something my wife said was why is this rock so expensive.. A few days after it arrived she said WOW everytime i look into the tank there is something new... I can see now why its so expensive.. Its not expensive per say but if you tell someone that knows nothing about SW that you spent almost 5.00lb on rock they are going to be think man thats some expensive rock.. Is it gold??? lol

James

 

[pecan2phat]

If I switch to a FOWLR, I do plan to get the majority of LR from Zack @ liverock.com
I've corresponded with him on price via email & have asked him a lot of questions. Surprisingly, Zack told me that his LR is fresh, meaning no pre-cure or full curing, yet some members say that Zack's LR is as "close to cured rock as it gets". Zack said that he tries to keep it as fresh as possible, so does this mean that die off occurs due to amount of days that LR is out of water due to the trans global handling and shipping? Is the theory that there is no need to cure if you take it out of the ocean and place into your tank within lets say 24 hrs?
Please enlighten me........
Also, Zack said he can try to get me sizes that I specify. When I asked about sm, med & lg, he told me to just specify as in inches.
What do you guys recommend for the novice LR wall builder? Is large (10"-12") pieces better for building in regards to stability or say med (5"-7") pieces better or a mix like 70% large & 30% med?
So many questions, so little time. Thanks guys.

 

[cj10488]

yet some members say that Zack's LR is as "close to cured rock as it gets". Zack said that he tries to keep it as fresh as possible,

My levels spiked due to the dieoff in shipping but My levels were almost perfect.. I think .25 ammonia and .5 nitrites for about 12hours. on the second delivery.. The first delivery came in and ammonia went to .25 and nitrites to .5 and was gone I believe 2 days later.. Any LR that you order online will not get you the same results.. I think most of the Dieoff depends on weather, haldling, ect that are out of Liverocks.com's control.. IMO it is the Freshest that you can get.. I believe bearfan just got some as well.. maybe he can enlighten on his levels as well.. I know he said he got a goby as a Hitchhiker if I remember correctly...

HTH,
James

 

[TheMadNucleus]

Pecan2Phat,

Good to see a Long Island friend here. I was born and raised there. Moved up to Westchester about 5 years ago.

Anyway, I'd like to give you some thoughts of mine. Clear that all the preceding comments are great and it is not likely you would find better advice and/or suggestions anywhere else.

It seems that you have a really successful FO tank. Therefore I think you should consider the addition of LR carefully. As some posts mentioned earlier, you are not likely to see gains in biological filtration as your Tank Stats are already excellent. The main advantage for you then from a functional point of view, as mentioned earlier, is the comfort level of your tank inhabitants (though this is a bit of a value judgement). My guess here is that fish behavior will be your best indicator, i.e., Is there currently plenty of activity, are they eagerly taking foods, is there plenty of curiosity in their tank, etc. Sort of like this - if they look happy then they probably are, and the comfort level from LR may be marginal at best. You would know this best.

So I'd just like to mention one disadvantage IMO, something I rarely see mentioned, the additional difficulty in maintenance. I say this because on the rare ocassion that you have to get an unruly or sick fish out of your tank or you have other large scale problems, you may be faced with an equally unruly task. Easy enough when you only have to remove a few pieces of dead coral, but big problems if you have to start digging through 100lbs of LR.

So the next question is why do you want to add LR - because you don't like the look of FO? because you have a few hundred dollars burning some holes, because you think it will help filtration, because you think it will make your fish happier, because you are looking for renewed interest in the hobby? Any of these are good enough reasons to go with LR.

Bottom line though, that seems to work so well with Aquariums: If it ain't broke, don't fix it

Tom

 

[pecan2phat]

Thanks for your input Tom. I needed an objective view like yours also. Your correct regarding renewed interest. The fish are healthy and eat like piggies, filtration is fine. It's just that I've read so much about FOWLR tanks but on the other hand I've been successful without it also. As stated before, my biggest fear is when I tried this 10 yrs ago on another tank. Mailed order 90 lbs of LR for about $400 and eventually the LR became a haven for hair & bubble algae. After countless efforts to rectify this, the LR was pulled out and have been cleaned & dried sitting in buckets for the last 9 or so yrs. Sometimes I look at them & think what a waste of money.
I guess what also drives me on the other hand is that I successfully maintain a 29g reef and viewing that tank is warmer and less harsh than the dead coral.
But your right about the added maintenance plus the bio load is a lot less on the 29g vs the 90g that I'm undecided whether to convert or not.

 

[TheMadNucleus]

Pecan2phat

np. and good luck whichever way you go.


Tom

 

[pecan2phat]

Thanks for all the replies. I decided to take the plunge and convert to FOWLR. During the time that I was undecided, I browsed eBay & saw that someone in Suffolk county (local) was selling 55 lbs of cured LR for $55. He wanted local pick up only so there were no bids. I asked for more pics & he told me that the tank was broken down & that the LR was in a garbage can with a powerhead and heater. I was invited to take a look @ the LR, so I did. Basically, it looked mostly like Fiji with green algae growth covering slight coralline growth. Looks like a failed attempt @ a FOWLR 150g setup. He converted to freshwater. The LR looked salvageable, so I bought the rocks & he ended the auction early. Spent about 2 hrs giving the LR a good scrubbing in matured tank water. Saw 1 snail and worms within the LR so the rocks are decent. Sizes were actually pretty good, not rubble. I figured if everything went south, than I would not have spent $300 on LR.
So I cleaned the LR and placed in a 35g container with water from the host tank & circulate, heat for about 5 days.
Spent last Sat. disrupting the entire tank by pulling out a ton of dead coral decorations, cleaning the tank and placing the 55 lbs of LR in. My guys went a bit nuts but after about 2 days, they seem to like the LR placement. Still needs more to create more coverage but that will be done with my second decision to order 60 lbs of aquacultured LR from liverocks.com
I've added a few mushroom rocks or corals from my reef tank to see how they would do and so far so good.
Okay for my anticipated question, with my large angels (Emperator, Majestic, Blue, & Koran) I know that they will pick off sponges & most life from the LR & with my Harlequin Tusk, he'll probably take care of small hitchhikers if any. Can I use any type of "clean up crew in a tank like this? Am I right about the Harlequin that he'll munch all day on crabs? Will snails get by in a tank setup like mines? Forget about shrimps, I know they will be a expensive appetizer, seen my red hawk gobble up 2 shrimps in my reef tank. (he's now in the FOWLR for the past 5 yrs)

TIA guys.