New 300 gallon tank

[huma-huma]

Marine bettas are gorgeous and offer a unique "lurking the shadows" swimming habit, the tusk is a beautiful fish as we'll but they don't seem to be too active as adults (at least that I've seen) the dragon wrasse gets my vote. Mine is constantly looping,twirling, flipping etc and it's so fun to watch. He also has one of the craziest bedtime antics I've ever seen. Not to mention about 95% of the time, he goes to bed at 9-915. Weird fish right there

[Fishman007]

Heres a link to dragon wrasse-http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+1379+314&pcatid=314

[erichm20]

Looking great I would love to eventually do a large aggressive species tank. You should do Queen angel, unicorn tang and harlequin tusk.

[Airgoose2222]

I forgot to add that they'll be a lunar wrasse as well. Not sure how I left him off the list. I had a marine betta years ago and worry it would get beat up by the other groupers. The Angels and tangs are something I've thought about. How fast do they grow? I usually see them locally in smaller sizes and would have to keep them in my 150 until they get big enough to transfer. Would the dragon wrasse and lunar wrasse get along? And I've always wanted the harlequin tusk. Thank you for the input!! As for feeding, they get crab on a regular basis. Once a week they get krill. The lion gets frozen silversides. And the eel gets uncooked raw shrimp. They all eat like horses which is good. The king of the tank is the miniatus. He's about 8" currently. I can't have anything too small in there, or he'll eat it.

[Gregcoyote]

I would be somewhat cautious about stocking. Even a 300 gets full fast when considering the fish on your list.

[Airgoose2222]

Good point. I may do another eel or trigger. That dragon wrasse looks pretty awesome too though. Well I just sold some Tanganyikan cichlids I had listed on Craigslist which slowed my progress a bit. I have one side of the tank's bulkheads on. Slight leak after thrifty minutes. Gave it another slight twist and hoping it is done. So far so good. Now on to the other side.

[Airgoose2222]

Plumbed the return. As usual, there were a few bumps. Got it all connected though. Outlets will get plumbed tomorrow. Break time for the rest of the night.

[Airgoose2222]

Plumbing is done. (Hopefully, no water in it yet). Just waiting for the pvc glue to cure. Now the problem now is that I can't get the substrate rinsed. We haven't been above 7 degrees since Tuesday, so hose is frozen solid. We warm up to 20 degrees today though.

[MJSerik]

Isn't the cold great?

[Airgoose2222]

RODI unit is working overtime. I'm about 40% done with the water so far. Put 100 lbs of sand in yesterday and have another 100 lbs to go. If that's not enough, I'll buy another 100 lbs. so far plumbing is good with only the return lines yet to be checked. Waiting for enough water to check that part. Getting there.

[Airgoose2222]

200 lbs of sand in the tank. Have me about an inch of depth on average. I think that should be good for a FOWLR. Just my thoughts. Anybody think I should do more? Not looking to do a deep sand bed, but do you think an inch is okay?

[Airgoose2222]

Getting there with the water level. Comes out to 12.5 gallons per inch. Moved almost 90 lbs of live rock into it this afternoon and using water from my 150 gallon tank. Between the tank and the sump, I need about 120 more gallons o saltwater (roughly). There will be another 150 lbs of live rock being added too, so that should cut down a little for this tank. I'll still need to add it to the 150 gallon since that's where the rock is coming from.

[Fishman007]

Looks good, man thats alot of sand,rock, and water!

[Airgoose2222]

Added about 70 more lbs of live rock this morning. I'm thinking about having two islands instead of one long line of them. The eel and grouper are the main fish I'm thinking about with this rock placement. What do you guys think would be best from you experience or knowledge?

[Airgoose2222]

Well there's about 220 lbs of rock in now. Made two islands. What do you guys think??

[huma-huma]

This tank is so excessively large that you could put 500 lbs of rock in there and it would still look empty lol

[MJSerik]

Looks good, maybe you could find a large slab of rock and make a bridge lookin thing. Just a thought

[Airgoose2222]

I agree, Huma. Not sure my wallet would like buying 500 lbs. though... Lol. And the bridge idea, MJ, would be awesome! A rock that size would easily weigh over 100 lbs by itself, but if I could find one, I might consider it. There are several 20+ lb rocks in there now, and they don't even look that big. Hmmm... How to make a bridge????

[MJSerik]

You could have "supports" every foot and buy shelf rock. Sort of like this.

[Fishman007]

I have a small piece of bridge rock, about 8lbs in my 37. My invertabrates and starry blenny actually use it for a bridge lol, until i covered it up under another piece.