Need help going from reef to F/O

[unclemuskie]

Hi all I have a 125 that I am thinking of changing from reef to fish only to simplify things,but I have a few questions with it and was looking for advice or ideas before I do this.I know that all fish and corals will have to be removed first.
1.The tank has about 180-200 pounds of well established live rock.I would like to keep some of the larger pieces for aquascaping and filteration instead of going all fake coral.Can I do this?? What kind of tank cycle will happen by removing alot of the bio-load?
2.My sump is currently set up as a refugium.Will I have to switch back to the bio-ball tower that I had earlier?
3.If I decide to downgrade my lighting(2 250w metal halides) will the remaining live rock still function?
4. Should I clean or change out my sand bed once everything opens up or will this cause me more problems?
5.Salinity?

 

[DrBDC]

Everything is the same on both. The only difference is lower lighting requrements and lower ca/alk demand. Same filtration process and less flow required although good flow is beneficial to liver rock filtration. Fuges with macro are still a great idea for nitrate reduction. You won't need to worry as much about nitrate levels and phosphate levels. If you have a ca reactor or a constant kalk evaporation replacment you can ditch those for evaporation replacment with regular water. I'd keep the salinity at NSW levels (1.026ish) with either type of tank.

Really all you need to do is start sellilng the corals and then when they're all gone, sell the lights and replace with some lower output lights. You may get a turnover on corraline algae from a high light loving variety to a lower light variety and the intermediate result will be some die off/flaking off of the existing corraline. If you really wanted you could do a scraping off of the back glass to speed up the removal but I'd just let it be.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What is it that you want simplified?

Why remove any rock? Just for space?

 

[unclemuskie]

yes.I am tired of going to the lfs and having to shell out good money for a fish that has a minimal guarantee and if it disappears there is no chance of getting it back out because of the amount of rock and limited access.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Ah, OK. Well if you cut down the rock too much, you may need some sort of nitrification filter, yes.

 

[unclemuskie]

What if I move as much rock into the sump that it will allow and then subtract as much as I need from the display to allow me the space I need and then cut back,think that will work.Possibly eliminating 1/4 or 1/3 of the total L/R volume????

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Moving the rock to a sump will retain the nitrifying capacity, but will cause some die off of photosynthetic organisms. That may be OK, depending on what is on the rock.

I do not know how much you can cut back on the rock.