I am brand new and armed with a 100 gallon FOWLR

[wood]

My tank has been up for about a month and a half with 50 lbs of live rock and 50 lbs of dead coral. A week ago I put a green Chromie in the tank as sort of a "test fish" and he is eating and hiding. Not the most friendly fish I'ver ever seen. My water tests have shown great numbers so far. I may be a little in over my head here in a day or two because I ordered a longhorn cowfish, 2 large banded shrimp and a mandarin. I read that large banded shrimp usually are okay if introduced before or at the same time as a small cowfish, we'll see. When I ordered the mandarin I was told they eat brine shrimp, after some more reading I learned this isn't completely true, more like 33% true. I have ordered some pods for time being, but I need to come up with a more permanent solution to feeding the mandarin before long. Hopefully I will be lucky and he will just be one of those that will eat frozen foods.
Now I have the question of "will the shrimp be competing with the mandarin for pods?"

Also, I plan on a nonaggresive fish tank and was wondering if Tangs and Clowns are considered passive, I know they are not real aggresive but the mandarin and cowfish won't deal with much aggresion from what I have read.

 

[Doc]

first off, welcome to the site. I hope you enjoy your time here.

Tangs and clown are quite aggressive as far as fish go. They are territorial and often nip at other fish. Usually FOWLR tanks are more aggressive fish as many of the passive fish are reef-safe.

Mandarin Gobies tend to die in new tanks. they are finicky eaters and often do not eat in captivity. Pods are their main source of food, but will devour all you put in long before you realize it and often die of starvation. If it does eat brine, you are lucky and it might live. I have found they fare best in a passive reef tank with nonaggressive tankmates.

Likely, the shrimp will be lunch. Do you have a master plan for your FOWLR? In a tank your size, certain angelfish would be striking. I would love to hear your fish plan

-Doc

 

[wood]

Well I'm going for a nonaggresive FOWLR since it is going to be revolving around the longhorn cowfish witch eats corals. I have heard of success putting a small porcupine puffer with the cow and I plan on trying that with the back up plan of returning the puffer. I want to get a couple anthias, a spotted cube, some grammas and possibly a red hawk fish. Right now I just have the one chromie and lots of fake coral. I am open to ideas at this point. I want to find out a bit more on the dwarf angels, like how aggresive they are, I think the coral beauty is a nice looking fish. Also, what you said about tangs is to bad, there are a quite a few different tangs that are very colorful.

Question for the experts, in a FOWLR tank, I have a large 3 chamber canister, besides biological filtration, what would be the best media to put in the other 2 chambers? I think charcoal is something I will be switching in soon, but right now I have some in my protein filter.

 

[yote]

Welcome to the reef.
Even though your running the canisters,I wouldnt depend on the biological filtration compartment for the bacteria.Your rock will provide that.I'd recommend to just use it for chemical filtration,stuff like phos-guard,chemi-pure elite and such.
You'll have to clean the canister on a regular basis also.Even though you going FOWLR,you still wont to keep nitrates down as much as possible.
I'd also suggest a good quality skimmer.
Good luck with it,and post pics when you can.

 

[Doc]

a good quality skimmer is a must. I run carbon all the time as it cleans the water nicely. I am also a fan of phosguard.

A puffer would look great in your tank. dwarf angels will not bother fish larger than they are. In a FOWLR, they will do great. A bicolor angel gets about 5-6 inches and is a striking fish, as is a lemon-peel angel, which stays around 4 inches. check those out. Cowfish have great personalities, I have seen many snorkling in Mexico. I can't wait to see pics. maybe even consider adding a small eel. they are really cool.

-Doc

 

[dustin_P74]

first off welcome and ask any question you need to and you will get some great answers. second what a shock doc is suggesting angels. and lastly be careful if you do decide to go with an eel as they are master escape artists

 

[Doc]

what a shock doc is suggesting angels

Hey, I have got to be true to my love! It is all about angelfish. Hell, I am going to add 2 more big pomacanthus angels when I upgrade my tank.

-Doc

 

[Bifferwine]

Hello and welcome!

You've chosen some very challenging fish to start off with. Like it's been pointed out, mandarins usually starve to death in tanks that are less than a year old. Most mandarins will refuse any food except for live food and since they are constantly foraging, even if you do dump in live pods, it probably won't be enough to sustain them.

Cowfish are also extremely difficult to keep alive. Not only are they very passive (as you have pointed out) which leads them to be bullied by pretty much everything, but they are also very difficult to get eating. Good luck with those two fish...

I would also suggest investing in a protein skimmer. A skimmer will provide much better filtration than any sort of canister filter.

 

[wood]

I do have a protein filter already.

What do angels eat? I would be worried they might compete with the cowfish during feedings, and in that case the cowfish will lose to the faster fish.

Also, I have heard that a water pump (like that in my canister) can be damaged if the intake is obstructed at all but if the outflow is obstructed its no big deal. I am wondering if this true because the cowfish is so slow it does not prefer high flow tanks. And my canister is maybe a little big for my tank, I have a fluval FX5 rated for a 300 gallon tank. I am planning to retrict the outflow valve if the flow seems to bother the cowfish. I guess a fluid dynamics engineer would have to answer that one or someone who has been doing the same thing over an extended period of time with no ill effects.

Any other recommendations as far as tank mates. I prefer colorful fish but they need to be passive and not real aggresive during feedings as well.

Anyone know how well Anthias get along with Anthias? I may get quite a few of those, possibly different types, that sometimes keeps them from being aggresive to each other (fish in general that is).

 

[wood]

Also, I do have 50lbs of live rock for bio filtering as well as the canister bio filtering. I have this set up in advance to be prepared for a heavier fish load. Not that I will overstock but cowfish as well as eels (may get a snowflake) have extra "bio" loads themselves compared to your average tank resident.

 

[Doc]

Angelfish eat pretty much everything. they love meaty fare, such as mysis, plankton, krill and as they get older and bigger, up to silversides.

They are aggressive eaters and will be the king of every tank. SO worth it to me though.

Anthias get along with other anthias in pretty much every case, except for males vs females of the same variety. Anthias change sex and the largest one will become the alpha male and the rest will remain female. If you add them all together, it works best. For example. Bartlett's Anthias (my favorite) the first 3 you add will all get along and will create one male. if you add 2 squampinis anthias (always add more than one once established to balance out the beatings), they may get picked on if one is a male until it turns into a female. Reeffreak has had problems with his anthias killing each other due to fighting, but I have not

-Doc

 

[RyanG]

Welcome to the reef

 

[Keaton]

Welcome to the site! I'm new as well so I can't tell you anything you probably don't already know lol. Sounds like a cool plan for your FOWLR tho can't wait to see some pics. Good luck!

 

[wood]

I am happy to say my cowfish has started eating. He ate some brne shrimp enriched with vitamins and some regular shrimp, but he has ignored his seaweed and peas thus far. Maybe he just doesn't like his vegetables, I can relate.
My mandarin has started to come out more and appears to be eating, I just can't see the invisible things he keeps swallowing. He doesn't look real skinny and I just injected several hundred pods into the tank this evening, so hopefully he won't starve.
My two coral banded shrimp have been eating alot, but one seems to like to bully the other, hopefully it won't escalate into anything too violent. I think they will just pick out their own territories eventually.
I also have a green chromie and seems to keep approaching one of the shrimp. Is this normal behavior? Is he thinking the shrimp will clean him?

Thanks for all the advice and salutations! I am really enjoying my take thus far. I keep finding myself staring at it for upwards of an hour just watching them interact and eat. You should have seen the giddy little grin I got when the cowfish started eating!

 

[reeffreak]

Reeffreak has had problems with his anthias killing each other due to fighting, but I have not

-Doc

I haven't had any of my anthias(all 16 of them)die from fighting.I do find male lyretails to be aggressive boogers though.He is truly the boss of the anthias.All of them are well and kicking except the three original sunsets that starved from being to skittish.

 

[Bifferwine]

I am happy to say my cowfish has started eating. He ate some brne shrimp enriched with vitamins and some regular shrimp, but he has ignored his seaweed and peas thus far. Maybe he just doesn't like his vegetables, I can relate.
My mandarin has started to come out more and appears to be eating, I just can't see the invisible things he keeps swallowing. He doesn't look real skinny and I just injected several hundred pods into the tank this evening, so hopefully he won't starve.
My two coral banded shrimp have been eating alot, but one seems to like to bully the other, hopefully it won't escalate into anything too violent. I think they will just pick out their own territories eventually.
I also have a green chromie and seems to keep approaching one of the shrimp. Is this normal behavior? Is he thinking the shrimp will clean him?

That's good news. Be careful of the shrimp, though. Coral bandeds are known for killing fish, other shrimp, each other, etc. They are highly aggressive animals, so I would not be surprised if their aggression towards each other ended with one dead. Then the surviving shrimp would move on to your curious fish instead...

 

[LionFish]

Welcome to the reef.
dont be affraid of tangs there aggression only tends to be twards tangs of the same family.