FISH ONLY OR REEF????

[Guest vatbrew]

I would love to have a FOWL setup but my wife would like to set up a reef tank b/c she says she has never seen a FO setup that looked attractive. she wants to see a picture of a good looking FOWL setup in order to be convinced. anybody have any pics or know of any links to such a picture?

[madmax7774]

Considering how few corals I have at this point, you could really consider my system a FOWLR, but I am intending to gets lots of corals in the future.

Here's my recently built 110G

 

http://www.wamas.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=12072

[rrubberbandman]

This is a very complex question you asked ...and it has a ton of variables that can come in too play when making decision.

What do you and wife want to spend on this adventure ???

Bryan

[Guest vatbrew]

Trying to stay under the $2k range. So far I've got a 125 RR tank with 4 vho's I'm picking up saturday in reston. I've heard I could have some softies with a fish only.

[SteveM]

My 2 cents is that you go ahead and plan for a reef tank now, it will be less expensive in the long run. Take it from someone who learned the hard way. I thought I was going to have aFOWLR tank. The I started with the softies, then the LPS then I wanted SPS...... ect....

[SDBDRZ]

I have seen some very attractive FOWLR tanks and you can get away with some species of fish that are unsuitable for a reef tank.

 

Having said that I will also say that a reef tank does not need to be complex or extremely expensive. I have seen some beautiful reef tanks set up with a variety of easy to keep soft corals (mushrooms, polyps, etc) It really just comes down to what you and your wife really want. If you are unsure do some more research, ask questions and decide before you get too far into the set up.

[Guest vatbrew]

Here's a question. My wife really wants a dog face puffer. That is the most important thing. What kind of corals if any can I get with that species of fish?

[SDBDRZ]

Here's a question. My wife really wants a dog face puffer. That is the most important thing. What kind of corals if any can I get with that species of fish?

 

I am not a puffer expert but to be honest you can keep things like mushrooms, cabbage coral, some polyps with just about anything. Your bigger issue with something like a dog face puffer are going to be compatibility

with other fish, the eventual size that the puffer will achieve, etc. They grow up to about 16" in the wild and are predators. In addition they will eat most crustaceans.

[Jager]

anything in with a dogface will be munched on at some point. thats all corals.

 

porcupine puffers are a bit more forgiving but they still get 18"

 

if you want any puffer get a 180 gallon fish tank to start, then a very well built skimmer rated for over 180 gallons. thats about 1k ish right there cost wise.

 

i have pics of my porc in her semireef tank, but i know full well that anything i put in there at some point might become a meal, in your case go FOWLR or do two tanks. one smaller reef and one larger fowlr, if you connect them to the same sump, its easier to maintain them and you get the best of both worlds

[inedukated]

Here's a pic of my old tank before I got into (WAMAS) corals and moved on to something bigger.

 

It's about 1.5 years ago.

 

 

Not necessarily the prettiest, but with a few colorful fish, you can do a lot with FOWLR.

 

-Ben

[SDBDRZ]

You might also want to take a look at some of the forums on reefcentral to get an idea of what some people have done with FOWLR, I think there is a FOWLR forum over there

Edited January 26, 2007 by SDBDRZ

[Guest beatle]

I'm in the same boat as madmax, as I have only 4 corals right now. I started with fish only back in June last year with no intention to get corals, but the fish I chose happened to be reef safe (ocellaris clown, midas blenny, royal gramma) so I could add corals later if I wanted to.

[extreme_tooth_decay]

My input:

 

I've seen plenty of really nice FOWLR.

 

I've had a porcupine in a 46 reef tank with no problems, other

than he did accidentally kill a blenny one time when feeding.

 

 

tim

[Guest vatbrew]

I've bonded with this puffer. It's great. It's only about 5" long right now, so I'm gonna pick it up. I don't plan on stocking this tank with anything larger.

[fab]

I see a lot of references on the web that say these guys get up to 16" in the wild.

 

Well, I've personally seen them a lot bigger, at least 24"-30" in the Indian Ocean near East Africa and in the Maldives, near the equator south of India.

 

Certainly, they won't likely get that big in a captive system, but a 16" puffer is not unusual in the wild. I'd expect that in a large enough tank they could get close to that size if well tended. It could be difficult to get rid of one that large if you needed to.

 

fab

Edited January 27, 2007 by fab

[Grav]

My suggestion is to do whatever your wife wants.

 

Put a Puffer in a 30g SPS tank.

 

Run with no skimmer (loud) or lights (bright)

 

Use tap water (cost)

 

Get a nice stand... if it makes her happy.

 

Granted, this is all TERRIBLE reef keeping advice, but making your wife happy that is more important.

 

Seriously, a FOWLR preditor tank with some soft coral never got above a 4 (1 to 10 scale) for me. I built a 90g FOWLER once with someone else's $. It was just "okay." You would be shocked at how soon seeing big fish suck down food gets old. SO IMHO, your wife is right for the most part. You just need to do some reaserch and find what kind of fish go well in the type of tank you are able to get.