Mark V

4 48" VHO in a 55G

6 48" VHO in a 75G

What corals could I support with this lighting?

Is this tank 48 inches long or 36?

Pictures? Would you be willing to sell without livestock or live rock?

Thanks Dave and Robin. I enjoyed meeting you all. You have a beautiful tank. My wife enjoyed the friendly atmosphere and likes the idea of hosting in the future once we actually have a tank

Awesome stuff. Who made your overflow box and who drilled your tank?

One thing if yOu plan on keeping feeders in especially if you have a trigger (Which I would not recommend for this size tank) is that triggers will nip or fish will escape so your feeder could be injured and getting infections. Also triggers enjoy decapitating feeders so you will have fish heads and parts in your aquarium so watch for waste and rot in the tank. The trigger I had in the past loved to maim feeders and especially was fond of decapitating feeders.

Also if you keep feeders in the tank expect your eels and lions to be very lazy around the tank. A lion will typically follow you around the tank begging for food even if you just fed him when there are no fish to eat. They become a lot more active when follow you around. Also far easier to train to prepared food this way since they will eat anything that touches the water.

For some reason I thought they were 3 or 4 dollar a pop. Yeah one dollar isn't that bad. A good full size predator tank would probably go through 50 feeders a week and you always have to watch for diseases passing to your display fish. In general most people keep their feeder tanks in poor condition or buy as they need both I which are risk to diseases. I personally didn't like maintaining a feeder and a display tank myself.

You honestly could get damsels for free from many hobbyist who want to get rid of them joking of course. I did get a few offers from people when my predators were big enough to eat adult damsels

Wow good luck. I live in Shadowglen. What area are you moving to?

I moved a 55G tank years ago and it was a bit stressful with no losses 200G is insane. I only had LR so didn't have the coral issues

Aren't mollies more expensive than using frozen food? I really like the ability of mixing foods an not have a feeder tank when I had all my predators on prepared food. Plus hand feeding a 10 inch lion fish and 2 foot eel is always eye catching to guests lol

Which is better? I've heard both sides of the argument and curious to hear what everyone's opinion is

I personally didn't brother with a lion until I found one that ate frozen food and it just happened to be very small. Same with the snowflake I ha I just waited until I found one that was hand fed and it also was very small. A good lfs will have them. I have seen a handful when I live in California at a few lfs when I used to live there

Typically the younger the easier to train them.

When I ha a lion and an eel both were very active but I think that was because they were getting too big for my tank. My eel freely swam and was the boss of the tank.

I love them but if I did it again I wouldn't try unless I had a 120G tank or larger mostly because I would have to get a Triggerfish

Wouldn't a 65G be a little small for a predator tank? Unless he is going to get smaller predators like a fuzzy lion, indigo hamlet, anglers, etc?

I would think a 6 foot tank would be best to house fish like triggers adult lion fish and groupers

And I would say no to feeders. You should get your predators to eat prepared food. Feeders will shorten their lifespan. When I had a predator tank all my predators could be hand fed because I got them all when they were tiny. My lion fish was so small whenI got him he could only eat brine shrimp I had a trigger loinfish and eel all where hand fed. I stopped hand feeding the trigger because he would go after my fingers lol

Get the biggest skimmer you can afford. If you can't go with a sump go with a reef octopus HOB skimmer. You can save lots of money on the live rock by getting macro rock or base rock and cycling with All in One and then getting some live rock or live sand from one of the members here or from a LFS to seed the critters

I was not able to keep my predator tank very long because my fish outgrew my 55 gallon tank. About a year and a half later I was forced to either upgrade or give them away so I ended up finding them new homes.

I second the eel comment. My snowflake jumped out twice and survived both times. Both times I foun him crawling in the tile and picked him back up.

What are te advantages of a metal stand vs a wood stand? I've always been used to wood stands when I was in the hobby years ago

Aside from getting them used where can you get a good deal on a high quality tank? There does not seem to be a lot of online dealers for mid to large sized tanks. The only two that show up on forums is glass cages and fish tanks direct. I haven't heard much about these but I wanted to know where te group have gotten there tanks and stands from

I would love to go and meet everyone. Topic sounds exciting

Hello

I have been debating on a sump setup for a 40 to 75G setup and was thinking of a HOB as a alternative setup.

The only HOB slimmer I would consider would be a Reef Octopus BH 2000. I have no experience with sump setups as when I ran my previous 55G FOWLR setup I used a high quality HOB (it wasn't an Aqua C but it was similar qualtity then) and had a few zoas and mushrooms with great success.

I want a softie setup and want to keep my bio load light. I'm not sure at what point would I consider stuff like controllers, chillers, media reactors, etc has these things back then werent the rage then. Same with reefariums which I heard need to be quite large to provide a sizable benefit.

What would your thoughts on this? I think with this type of skimmer I could upgrade to a sump in the future and drop it in the sump area.

I spelled the Damsel's name wrong here is te short description from live aquaria. It's supposed to less aggressive though that isn't saying much .

The Starcki Damsel, also known as the Starck’s Demoiselle, comes from the reefs of the Coral Sea.

The Chromis I am talking about isnt the blue green chromis. It's a dark blue color and they are suppose to grow around 5 inches.

Chromis cyaneus is the scientific name

Hello

I've being lookin at smaller fish in planning out a 55 to 75 gallon reef setup. I found the basic fish I like like Royal Gamma True Perc Clowns and Yellow prawn Goby. However I'm really stuck on finding a good blue fish that isn't an aggressive damsel or a Tang.

I heard a Starki Damsel could work and if I wanted to risk it it would be the last fish to add, but I heard a blue reef Chromis might work.

I heard you should keep them in a school but they are agressive towards each other and they a bit big at 5 inches so I'm not l sure if a group of them would overload a smaller tank like this.

What's everyone's opinion on blue reef chromis or your experience with them? What about Starki damsels?

Nice I actually live in Shadow Glen. 200G is crazy. I thought about going for a 6 foot long 100G but the thought of the extra maintance made me think twice. I really liked the ability to make water changes with a bucket

Hello all. I've been out of saltwater fish since I went to college. I started out with a 55G tank and made many newb mistakes and was very limited in funds. I finally got everything done with what I heard went I went with a FOWLR setup with a few hardy corals like mushrooms.

10 years later, I'm looking to get back into the hobby but with much better equipment and more knowledge. I found out about this forum on a blog site from a reefer who used to live in Austin and would love to meet experienced hobbist and make a few meetings. I'm in the research state right now planning everything out.