Any large predator tank owners?

[hEcToR1520]

I've been a member here for a very long time, I mostly lurk and read and 99% of the time my questions are answered by searching the forums but dear God! Getting anywhere on this site takes days all of a sudden! The search engine is slower than my wife's old civic.

Anyway, I figure I need to be a little more active in here anyway. I was always limited to nano tanks at my parent's house so now that I have my own home, I'd like to try a stab at a large predator tank, 90-150 gallon area.

A Lionfish is of course at the top of my list, and I do have my "dream" livestock planned out for the most part depending on the exact size of the tank, but just wanted to know to any of you guys that had predator tanks with minimal/no corals what to expect maintenance wise?

Seems like the area that would require the most focus is filtration, I'm sure lighting doesn't have to be anything out of the ordinary. Other than frequent water changes and strong mech. filtration, anything I miss? Seems like it would be relatively cheap tank to start, especially if I find a good deal on craigslist. Open to advice, recommendations and two pennies!

 

[keithhays]

You will need a significant bio filter as well, big fish produce lots of direct ammonia. I am not currently speaking from experience more from research, I have just finished setting up a large system which has multiple 135 gallon 6x2 tanks one of which is very soon to be a predator tank. I had to do a lot of research to get the system setup as you are now. What does your list look like? I have been trying to put one together, but many on my list are rarely available.

 

[hEcToR1520]

Well a Volitans Lionfish, panther grouper, clown trigger and a compatible eel are definitely the "must haves". Like you say, depending on availability and how territorial the fish get I may add another fish or two. I did take into account the bio filter, I forgot to mention the skimmer and a wet/dry would surely take care of the bio/mech side of it!

 

[keithhays]

That should do it, I actually had to do overkill because my predator tank attaches to the same sump as my reef tank. So I have everything you would normally have reef, but twice as large and I added a bioball/degassing area to the mix to help with the predator side.

I did find a great site for combinations of predators for particular tank sizes, I haven't been able to find any other sites that do this:
http://en.microcosmaquariumexplorer.com/wiki/Marine_Model_Aquarium_Communities

 

[mrcyrus]

Personally I think wet/dry are really old tech. Use a skimmer for double the size of your tank. I.e. I had a 240g with a 600g skimmer on it. I now have a skimmer that is rated for 180g and its on a 75g. Current stock, Picasso trigger, 2 yellow tangs, a hippo, 2 black clowns, 2 mandarins, pinkface wrasse, ghost eel, blue ribbon eel, peppermint shrimp (don't know why they are still around) and a chromi in a pear tree! Lol. I feed a seafood mix I got in the frozen section blended down, mixed with vitamin supplements, nori, and refrozen. I also feed goldfish and ghost shrimp. Corals are white tip bubble anemone , some other nem, paly weeds, and a leather all brown but growing off 2 t5s.

 

[keithhays]

It's not so much that wet/dry is old tech, it is the use case for it; it has a specific strength aside from biological filtration. I use all the new methods for nitrification and denitrification as well. Wet/dry if constructed well has the ability to degass ammonia prior to nitrification. Now having said that, not all wet/dry are ideal for this. Mine is not as efficient as it will be; i.e. degassing requires a vast amount of air forced from a fan in the opposite direction of the water falling through the bioballs which must be kept clean, but something is better than nothing.

It can also be used for straight biological filtration, but what I would do is place Seachem pond matrix below the water line and the bioballs above the water line; Matrix is expensive, bioballs are cheap. Since I already use Matrix as my primary biological filter (live rocks are so yesterday ), I use the bioballs in my protein skimmer sump instead of my primary sump.