300gallon FO

[suitcasey]

Hey everyone :)!

Well, if I am very very lucky in the next few weeks I will be aquiring a 300 (uk) gallon tank, 6 foot long, 4 foot high and 2 foot wide :D! I'm so excited, and its so cheap!! I just have to convince my parents of how amazing it will look in my room!

I just have a few questions:

For filtration, I will probably use a 40 gallon sump which will have lots of chambers for filter media, a protein skimmer, refugium and also a powerful canister filter. Would this be adequate?? Do you think an undergravel filter would be a good idea too? I will not be using live rock.

As far as stocking goes, I would like a very busy, colorful tank with mainly small-medium fishes which will swim about happily. But I would also like to make use of the space and add a few large beautiful fish.

Here's what I had in mind, and I'd like to know your thoughts and experiences with any creatures in this list:

1 Large angel, most likely an emperor (my favorite fish) or possibly bluefaced

1 Flame angel
1 Coral Beauty
1 Bicolor angel
1 Pygmy cherub angel
(would these be too much in this tank?)

1 Longfin bannerfish
1 Threadfin butterflyfish
1 Copperband butterflyfish

1 Regal tang
1 Powder blue tang
3 Yellow tang (I heard these fish might shoal, and they are my favorite tang)

10 Green chromis (or maybe more??)

3 Ocellaris clownfish
1 True percula
1 Tomato clownfish
1 Sebae clownfish
1 Clarkii clownfish
(I am a big fan of clownfish and would like to be able to keep quite a variety, would I get away with this or possibly even more?)

1 Lyretail anthias

2 Banggai cardinals

2 Firefish (mated)

1 Purple firefish

1 Lawnmower blenny
1 Clown goby
1 Yellow watchman goby
1 Twospot goby
1 Neon blue goby
1 Yellowhead jawfish

1 Longnose hawkfish

1 Yellow candy hogfish

1 Fairy wrasse
1 Filamented flasher wrasse

Now that I've got this all written down I am unsure whether it would be too much or not. I tried to pick my most favourite fish but also ones that mostly don't grow too big. Plenty of hiding places would be provided and from what I've read of most of these fish they appear to be quite compatible. I do not want any squabbling in this tank so could someone take a look at this list and tell me of any problems u see??

My experience so far has been with a 55gallon FO for the past couple of years, I absolutely love it but now wish to step up to this amazing tank. As far as stocking goes tho I'd like to know if this is going to be far too much or not.

Any help/tips/advice would be greatly appreciated, thankyou very much :)

Casey.

[46bfinGA]

well all i have to say is good luck cleaning it.i couldnt imagine having a tank that is 4' tall.you will have a hard time reaching the bottom without dunking your head in the tank. i would pass on the undergravel filter and you will probably need to reconsider the clownfish and angels.stick to one or two of each kind.your list of fish needs to be around 10 at the most.and you should get some live rock to give them places to hide.

[liamblair1987]

way too many fish man..and heck yes its gonna be hard cleaning it...and if u put that many fish in it.. ull always be in there cleaning out the deads one from overstocking...sorry not hating just looking out so u dont spend to much and get disappointed..!

[keefsama2003]

pick 2 clowns and go with them and pick 2 angels and go with that the small angels even in a 300 will eventually kill eachother off

[suitcasey]

Hey guys! Ok I understand a lot better now, sorry for my stupidity in my last post!! I thought with the size of the tank I could get away with a lot of fish. In my 55g I have 6 smallish fish that are doing absolutely fantastic, going by scale I thought in 300g tank I could keep around 30 (I realise now that is definitely not the case!!)

Also, if it makes much of a difference I am talking UK gallons, this tank is actually 360 US gallons.

I based having a lot of fish like angels and tangs in this tank on hdtvguy's 300g tank. It is probably the most amazing fish tank I've ever seen and I hoped to recreate something like it. I think he has 5 large angels and 8 large tangs along with a few other fish and has been getting on brilliantly. It looks spectacular and as my tank is even slightly bigger, I kinda went a bit crazy with the previous list...

So would this be a little more acceptable?

1 Emperor angel
1 Flame angel
1 Coral beauty/Bicolor angel

1 Bannerfish
1 Copperband butterfly

3 Ocellaris clownfish (I already have these in my other tank)
2 Any other type of clownfish (mated pair)

1 Regal tang
2 Yellow tangs

Finally maybe a goby or jawfish for some character on the bottom and a very small shoal of green chromis.

Should this not be ok?? I do not need live rock for hiding places as I already have a large collection of dead coral that should be really good for them!

Any advice is completely welcome, if you still think this is overstocked let me know, although I think it should hopefully be ok judging on the success of hdtvguys tank :)

Please give any comments of what you would do with this tank :)

Also I know this tank is huge, but it should also be incredible!! I realise cleaning could be tricky, but magnets can clean the glass and my LFS has longer equipment for reaching the substrate of tanks like this. Hopefully I should be ok.

Thanks for all the help and all comments are very welcome, so keep 'em coming :D ! Casey.

[clekchau]

i would personally do:

imperator
flame
bannerfish
long nose butterfly or racoon or auriga (copperbands are very sensitive)
ocellaris clown pair (2 pairs of clown fish not recommended imho)
hippo tang
yellow tang
powder blue tang (2 yellow tangs will probably fight ALOT)
smallish wrasse would be a nice addition or a blue throat trigger

[keefsama2003]

i would do 2 purple and a yellow or 2 yellow and a purple.

and if i could get a small flame angel and a large flame and hope for a pairing as thats a pretty good sight to see.
and 1 pair of clowns and the rest sound good except maybe a vlamingi tang.

[clekchau]

vlamingi tang in a 300? that's a little small imho

[keefsama2003]

his is 360 the extra 60gal should be ok even tho i think it should be ok. i have a vlamingi in my 300 usgal tank and it cruises the 8ft back and forth at a nice liesurly pace not r ushed and looks real majestic in there.

[clekchau]

how big is your vlamingi? i thought they get 24 inches???

[I like Triggers]

I have a 5" Vlamingi tang in my 225. It cruises the 8 ft slowly back and forth as well. It looks very happy, and I have a lot of flow pushing from many directions.

I think they push a little bigger than 24" really... I think 27" IIRC.

[clekchau]

i'd love to have one in my 8 footer

[keefsama2003]

yeah i have heard about 25-28 inches but either way they just llumber in the flow and the 8ft is awesome

[SDguy]

Get your equipment list together before your livestock list. That's a big tank. It's going to require big filtration. And a big electric bill. Make sure you have the tank properly outfitted with equipment before getting livestock. U/G filters are outdated. I'd suggest the biggest skimmer you can get. Why no live rock? In that case, look into the fluidized sand bed filters and such. How do you plan to control nitrates? Deep sand bed? Remote DSB? Denitrator?

It's going in your bedroom?? Make sure your floor can support it, and go buy yourself some earplugs just in case...

hth

[clekchau]

to minimize electric costs, i went with a sequence dart as my return and some custom eheim circulation pumps (kind of like a maxijet mod but twice the flow) and my skimmer also uses a dart needlewheel recirculating from one of the overflows, very low watt consumption. oh for lighting i am using t5's.

[suitcasey]

Wow everyone thanks so much for all the great comments!! I'm looking for everything you can give me at the moment and you have been a great help so far :)

Firstly just to clear any confusion, these are the fish I currently have in my 55UK gal (66US gal) tank and will definitely go into the big one:
1 Flame angel
1 Hippo tang
1 Yellow tang
3 Ocellaris clownfish

Both tangs are quite small, so for the moment they are ok in a tank this size. I have kept these three clowns together for about 7 years now, and never once seen one sign of aggression even in this tank and as far as I know none of them have paired off. That was the only reason I thought I could possibly get away with all those clowns, but if you all believe adding another species would be problematic I will definitely take your advice, even tho i love them :)! What about even one more of the same species as they are all so peaceful??
As for my other fish together, there has never even been as much as a slight angry gesture between a single one of them. Maybe I just got lucky with mine, but I admit I don't know for sure how they will react with other angels or tangs. I want to bring the peace I have in this tank to my new one so I will tread cautiously.

SDguy - TBH I am still in the middle of finalising any filtering ideas. I realise I should get that sorted before my stocklist, but it will be a long time before I add any fish and im sorry im just excited already :(! There should be quite a large flow in the main tank, getting any junk out of their as quickly as possible and taking it down to the 40 gallon sump. As soon as it gets there, it will go into the protein skimmer where there is also a wet dry filter. It will then move through a series of chambers of different filter media (not sure what yet, any good suggestions?) and finally go into a 10 gallon refugium with some sort of macro algae, probably go through one last sponge filter and back into the tank. Also there will be a powerful EHEIM canister filter. At the minute, live rock on the scale that would take to be benificial to this size of tank is just out of the question for me I think. I have never tried it before and would like to set up a nano with it first to get used to the idea, that amount of rock would also be very very expenisive I think and I do not require it for hiding places. This set up is basically a large scale model of what I have in my smaller tank, I have never had any problems with nitrates or algae or anything at all really. What else would you reccomend? I'm not really familiar with fluidized sand bed or deep sand bed or anything like that :confused:
Also yes the floor will be checked soon to make sure it can hold this, but as far as we know it should be fine :)!

That vlamingi tang looks absolutely beautiful!! I have never seen one before. If it really does grow to that size I would be a bit worried about putting it in with an already large fish like an imperator but I would like to look into it!

Clekchau - If thats true about the Copperband I will go with the auriga instead, it is an absolutely beautiful fish :)!

keefsama2003 - Do you not think the 2 yellow tangs would fight then?? I would love to have either 1 yellow, 1 hippo and 1 PBT or 2 yellows and 1 hippo. My decision basically depends on whether you all think the 2 yellows would fight or not?? HDTVguy manages to keep 3 in his tank, and the one I have at the minute is so peaceful!

Sorry my posts are so long :(, i just want to make sure I get everything in them! and I appreciate so much all the help you have all given me, so thankyou very much :)

Casey.

[clekchau]

i wouldn't recommend a traditional "wet/dry", i used to have bioballs and switched to a remote deep sand filter along with a refugium, live rock and a good skimmer. nitrates are very low at all times with a medium bioload fish only aquarium.

more info on rdsb:
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=595109

[SDguy]

Well, since he doesn't plan to use LR, I actually would then look into using a traditional wet/dry system. Fish in general are much more forgiving than inverts of high nitrates. A fluidized sand filter is just what it sounds like...a biological filter utilizing a substrate in a suspension of aquarium water. It's like a remote, high capacity compact efficient under gravel filter.

http://www.marinedepot.com/aquarium_filters_pentair_aquatics_rainbow-lifegard_fluidized_bed_filter.asp?CartId=

This is what I was talking about for nitrate reduction, or something similar, in conjunction with water changes:
http://www.marinedepot.com/aquarium_filters_korallin_biodenitrator.asp?CartId=

[clekchau]

maybe it's just me but my fish always seemed happier with live rock :D

[keefsama2003]

I have 0 live rock in my display i do have a 90gal refugium with lr/ls in it but thats it. and my fish are doing just fine.

[SDguy]

I assumed that when the OP said "no live rock" that would pretty much include 90g worth of LR and sand, remote or otherwise :rolleyes: . Look, there's no magic going on here. Fish produce waste. Something has to be done with that waste. A skimmer to start. No skimmer is 100% efficient. So usually live rock takes up the slack. If there's no LR, I'd be concerned about biological filtration, especially depending on types/sizes of fish and feeding schedules.

I feel it is bad form to simply recommend no biological filtration whatsoever to someone setting up a new tank with obvious questions about such a setup. Sure, we all know why bioballs are bad for reefs. He's not setting up a reef.

[Justin/TiV]

although I agree your fish list is steep...I think you can do at least half of that list or more...I'd get a big bad skimmer...and prolly a carbon sourse to help the skimmer kick tail...

[clekchau]

i'm not saying it wouldn't work with bio balls, fluidize sand filter etc etc like you said it's just a place to hold bacteria to convert ammonia to nitrites to nitrates.

i've had both and with the live rock/rdsb/refugium route, my fish seem healthier and in a more natural environment, my nitrates are always below 5 ppm and my stocking levels and amount of feedings are high. another important factor you touched on was a skimmer, that is very important as is alot of flow in the tank to push everything to the skimmer/sump for cleanup.

that is MY experience after over 15 years of using bioballs and 2 years of using live rock/sand/refugium. my fish were healthy with bioballs but nitrates were always high, more maintenance and fish didn't seem as healthy. take it for what it's worth :D