Help! Inheriting 40 gal FO tank

[Alaska_Phil]

The coworker who's been maintaining the 40 gal Long tank at work is retiring next month and has no intention of continuing to take care of it. And I'm the only other fish keeper in the office willing to take it over. I've never had a saltwater tank before, but have been doing a lot of reading in preparation for one.

Here's what I'm getting handed over to me.

Fish only, no live rock or sand.
Undergravel & Penquin 200 HOB.
1 banded coral shrimp.
1 yellow tang
1 tomato clown (I think)
2 ocellaris clowns
1 convict damsel
1 three spot or domino damsel.

Current maintenance is every 2 weeks 30% water change and gravel vac, plus he scrubs all the algae off the red lava rocks. This seems a bit excessive and I'd really like to lower it to 5 gal/week water change with no rock scrubbing.

Based on my reading I'd like to convert it to a FOWLR tank. The tank is owned by the office manager, and while he doesn't want to maintain it himself, he's hesitant to give me free reign. The previous maintainer spend a lot of money and killed a lot of fish in the past year. I've already suggested we lower the stocking, and definilty remove the tang and 3 spot damsel.

The very first thing I plan to do is add a good protein skimmer. The LFS owner, who's a friend of mine suggested a CPR skimmer, and has offered to loan me one for a while. He also suggested I cut holes in the uplift tubes for the undergravel filter to deactivate it, and just use the uplift tubes as mounts for the power heads.

I can get cured live rock in town, is there any danger in adding it to a populated tank? Is there a chance of an ammonia spike?

What lighting is needed for live rock?

Should I vacuum the sand when I do water changes or will that prevent me from ever getting a live sand bed established?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks.
AK Phil

 

[Blown 346]

If thr rock is cured really well then you ownt haveto worry about a cycle, But I would add the rock slowly just incase, since thre will be some die off.
Vacuuming the sand, you will be pulling out beneficial bacteria, and live critters.
You can add some nassarius, cerith snails to help keep th sand turned over as well as maybe a goby.
Liverock doesnt need any special light, the special light is used for the corraline algae. But you will get that even with normal bulbs.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

the fish list is good minus the tang, damsels are evil little fish, but they get along with each other just fine. clowns are a type of damsel. tangs eat macro algae from live rock and need a much larger tank. look into a aquac remora skimmer, from what ive read they are the best hang on back skimmer, and mine has had excellent results.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

double post, sorry :strooper:

 

[egdevilboy]

cured live rock can just be put into the tank. Like stated above, watch out for die-off. so a little at a time.

live rock doesnt need much light, id go with 3+ watts/gal as a general rule

sand vac wont necessarily kill the living organisms in the sand, but id recommend once every 2-3 months.

Be watchful of the clowns fighting (now 2 different kinds of clowns should be kept together) also removing the damsel might be a good idea cause they are quite aggressive.


IMO...

I just converted to a FO tank and decided to go with a theme, which was an all angel tank. In my reef tank i went with a green theme...

Also, instead of LR i used Base Rock/Coral (display pieces of white and blue coral) which actually turned out quite well.

 

[egdevilboy]

cured live rock can just be put into the tank. Like stated above, watch out for die-off. so a little at a time.

live rock doesnt need much light, id go with 3+ watts/gal as a general rule

sand vac wont necessarily kill the living organisms in the sand, but id recommend once every 2-3 months.

Be watchful of the clowns fighting (now 2 different kinds of clowns should be kept together) also removing the damsel might be a good idea cause they are quite aggressive.


IMO...

I just converted to a FO tank and decided to go with a theme, which was an all angel tank. In my reef tank i went with a green theme...

Also, instead of LR i used Base Rock/Coral (display pieces of white and blue coral) which actually turned out quite well.

 

[Alaska_Phil]

Thanks everyone.

I'm a little confused on the lighting bit though. The tank currently has standard starter kit lighting, 2x20W fluorescent I think. Is that going to be sufficient to keep the live rock and good algaes going, or will I need to upgrade it a bit?

3 watt/gal is a lot in the freshwater world, my planted tank only has 2w/gal.

AK Phil

 

[stelow]

That would be sufficent enough to keep the algae going; maybe upgrade the bulbs with some new T-8 or T-10, 10,000Ks.