300 gallon fo tank

[mayday_mayday]

I would like some info from some people on what it takes to do a fish only set up. I have a 300 gallon acylic tank. I would like to go sumpless and just get a nice skimmer bubble king external 250 and a couple of tunze 6080`s for flow. planning 4" sand bed with about 200 lbs of rock . lighting just some t5`s thats it. what are your thoughts. thanks p.s trying to keep electric bill way down 400- 500 watts max

 

[splateee]

Sounds good. If your just foing FO then really only a few hundred watts of light will work.

I have a 240 FOWLR and just a few corals and i am using 3 x 96 watt power compacts. I too am not running a sump. I have a Octopus DNW-150 skimmer and a fluval 404 for filtration. THe bubble king should work good.

Good luck

 

[Monkeyfish]

If you want to have a deep sand bed for de-nitrification purposes you're probably better off making it 6" deep.

 

[kirkaz]

Sounds like a good plan, I have 520 total watts compact florescent (half in true actinic 03 blue and half 10,000k.) in my 240 (can't say I have really noticed the electricity bill going up since I started the tank). I have right around 200lbs of LR total 20 in a refugium. Not a fan of the deep sand bed personally, there are other ways of keeping nitrates down.

How aggressive is your stock list?....i.e. will you be able to have a clean up crew?

 

[mayday_mayday]

Thanks for the replys i had a 300 gallon reef set up and my electric bill increased by $160.00 a month wife hated it because it was loud and to much work. so i have her talked into a fish only very little noise and small increase in electric bill. going to start the build in a few weeks. i will post the details

 

[limitdown]

I've got 4x60" regular T5 pulling 40watts each to light my 200g FO display. Fish don't need lights, so I only turn the lights on when I get home from work for 4-5hrs. During the day, natural sunlight in my living room signals to the fish that it's day time.

I don't want to start a discussion about whether T5's are cooler than metal halides, but because my lights are only on for 4-5hrs a day, the amount of heat they add is so small that I don't even need a chiller. For a 300g display, you'd probably need a 1000watt chiller if you ran it as a reef with full halides.

 

[killershark4560]

i use a light when i wake up and when i have people over for display

 

[StayPuft]

With a deep sand bed you have to be careful of what fish you plan to keep. A deep sand bed must not be disturbed in order to be affective and if you get something like a trigger, it'll dig into the sand, move it around and completely destroy its purpose.

 

[mayday_mayday]

thanks for the info what fish would you suggest that would not tear up my sad bed. would like to get most of the fish all at once that way it`s a even playing feild for all

 

[StayPuft]

Stay away from Triggers, as they all like to dig in the sand. Some Wrasses also dig in the sand to sleep at night. Certain blennies and gobies dig and maroon clowns like to wiggle and kick up sand.

Tangs, Angels, Foxface are fine. Not sure about puffers since I never had one.

 

[mayday_mayday]

ok thanks was thinking of doing a tang and angel tank