Common problem with fish only tank.

[mansiz]

what is the common problem with "fish only" aquarium? what should we do to maintain the water quality without the presence of LR?

[fishfreek]

The common problem with FO tanks is probably overstocking and under filtration. Tanks that are FOWLR or reef have a tremendious amount of surface area for biological filtration because of the sand bed and the surface area on and in the live rocks.

Fish Only setups often are overcrowded putting an even greater load on the biological filtration system. Adding a sand bed will increase the surface area for the bactera to populate and even though reefers might say that wet/drys are bad they really can be of great benifit for a fish only setup because the bioball chamber is an excellent ammonia and nitrite removal facility.

Even fish only systems will benifit from the use of a skimmer and regular water changes.

[loganj]

In addition to what fishfreek has already mentioned, another common problem with FO systems is excess nitrates. The skimmer and regular water changes will help with this more than anything. I'd get a nitrate kit and try to keep them as low as possible. Nitrate=algae.

[DamselnDistress]

How do you control the algae? I've started getting brown algae.