some advice please

[realmswalker]

Hi everyone

Im fairly new to the marine scene. heres my set up as follows.

60 gallon tank
30 pounds live rock
60 pounds live sand ( it cam in a bag and probably really hasnt cycled up yet, tank is 1.5 months old)
fluval 403 canister filter
bakpak cpr 2 ( airstone mod to be added tonight)
1 3 inch volitan
1 3 inch yellow tang
1 baseball sized hermit crab.
2 6000k coralife 50/50 bulbs

I am going to upgrade to 100 gallons in maybe 6 to 8 months depending on how fast my fish grow.

My question for now is, is my cpr backpack with the mod going to be enough?

I heard its ok to go with wet dry for FO, anyone like using theirs with a wet dry?

should i throw in a deep sand bed now or wait till i get the 100?

someone mentioned using 60 pounds of live rock, keeping the skimmer, and using an empty fluval for circulation, has anyone done anything similar to this?

I may add one morefish, anyone have any ideas for a nice looking fish?

Thanks for any replies

Adam

[realmswalker]

i added the airstone mod last night, and man talk about some serious foam. i put a control valve on my air pump so i have complete control and have the collection cup raised all the way to the top and it seems so far like im getting some nice dry foam, but nothing nasty coming out yet.

i also seeded my sand with about three pounds of live sand from the LFS, so i hope that kicks my sand up faster.

Anyway, can anyone help on the previous questions? it would be much appreciated. ive posted a couple times in the new to the hobby, but figured my questions were more for the FO people, thanks again

adam

[Wolverine]

If you go by what CPR says, you'll be fine with that 100g tank. However, I've found that, without modifications, about 55g with a moderately stocked tank is the limit. You can probably go up to 100g and moderate stocking with modifications. In your case, you have a volitans lion, which pretty much single handedly puts you above the realm of moderate stocking, so I think you might run into some water quality issues. But, of course, you're not keeping a reef, so you might be able to get away with it.

As for the DSB, I would just put that in when you upgrade tank size. You could do it now, but I think life will be a lot easier if you do it in the new tank. Then you don't have to worry about transferring it and all those problems.

Dave

[Mad Scientist]

Not to start a debate, but, I would consider adding a wet/dry, sure it will churn out nitrate, but, it will give you a little margin of saftey given that you are going to throwing a lot of food for that volitan, and your tank is pretty new, wet/drys are great at getting rid of NH4 and NO2 because they allow the bacteria to thrive in high O2 condtions, their drawback is that they turn out tons of nitrate, not acceptable for a reef, but you can deal with it in a FO.

How about an eel for another fish?

[realmswalker]

Thank you both for your advice. i am going to add a wet dry system, hopefully today in fact, found some nice deals on the recycler. someone mentioned that they used a product called nitragon, and that it lowered his levels dramatically, i'll have to check that out.

an eel would be cool, but i dont want my big hermit crab to make a meal out of him when hes sleeping, so far he hasnt even gone near any of my fish, so i may chance it, any ideas on a nice eel?

Adam

[Mad Scientist]

Be careful with big hermits, I had a decent sized kill a dwarf angel on me, although I have seen softball sized hermits housed with eels in large systems with out incident.


There alot of nice kinds of eels out there and if your rockwork is good you could house a good sized one, I like zebra morays.

I also would consider a small UV on a FOLR tank once everything is settled, mainly for algae control as the tanks matures.

Good luck, sounds like a nice setup.