FOWLR plumbed to Reef??? Anyone do it???

[Marc]

I had to make a decision today based on that my Emperor is growing larger and has been picking at my mushroom corals and leather toadstool. I went ahead and setup a 58 gallon next to the 125 gallon FOWLR tank and plumbed it in a way that both tanks share the same sump. Has anyone done this? I put all the coral in the 58 and I could not be happier of how much more attractive it looks. The 58 reef will remain fishless. As for my 125 gallon FOLWR the fish have a lot more room to swim and the corals are safe from the Imperator. :rollface: :rollface:
How many hobbyists done this??? What are the pros and cons of this setup?

Marc

 

[gflat65]

Pros are less water volumes to control. That's the biggie for me (I'm about to combine several systems for that reason, but they are all reef systems). The biggest con I can think of is the overpollution of the reef from the FOWLR. If you have decent filtration and don't go nuts on feeding like crazy and filling the FOWLR, I'd think you should be fine with a softie/LPS type tank on the side (they tolerate dirty water better than most without tons of negative effects).

 

[Marc]

gflat65,

That is exactly what I was thinking as well. I do have only soft corals in that tank anyway with some mushrooms. It looks great! I did replace my lifreef skimmer with an ETSS Evo 500 I had laying around because it extracts organics much faster. So I think it will work out. The fish have more room the corals are safe from the Emperor, the 58 gallon looks great, everybodys happy. :rollface: What type of skimmer will you run if you combine several reef tanks? Sounds like a job.

Marc

 

[Marc]

gflat65,

That is exactly what I was thinking as well. I do have only soft corals in that tank anyway with some mushrooms. It looks great! I did replace my lifreef skimmer with an ETSS Evo 500 I had laying around because it extracts organics much faster. So I think it will work out. The fish have more room the corals are safe from the Emperor, the 58 gallon looks great, everybodys happy. :rollface: What type of skimmer will you run if you combine several reef tanks? Sounds like a job.

Marc

 

[gflat65]

I'm running MRC's on my reefs right now. I have a 125 with a 22 plumbed into it (and a 50 gallon sump) and a 120 with a 40 breeder plumbed into it (with a 50 gallon sump) that I plan to combine soon. I found it easier to piggyback the smaller systems (22 and 40 breeder) by runnign a PH out of the overflows, into the samller tank, then drilled the smaller tanks so they could drain to sump of the feed tank. I plan to run the drain lines from the 125 and 120 together and through a wall to a filtration system (frags, etc, as well). I'm running an MRC MR4 on the 125 (it's the sps tank) and an MR2 on the 120. I'll likely run them both once I have the tanks combined, too. I don't know much about the ETSS skimmers, though. I started with a Berlin Turbo and have tried bak paks and seaclones (years ago) and when I bought the MR2 used about three years ago, I never looked back...