I currently have a 125 gallon FOWLR and now want a reef tank. I am thinking of 180 gallon (or maybe slightly larger), but it will take many MONTHS of convincing my wife.
Anyway, for now I will be doing a lot of research until I annoy my wife enough to let me get the new tank.
So, I have a couple of questions:
1) Would it be a good idea to connect my 125 gallon FOWLR and my new 180 gallon Reef (this way I will only need 1 sump, although will probably need to upgrade my skimmer)? There will be about 12 feet between the 2 aquariums (I might not get the wife approval here because the pipe will have to run across the floor, even though my tanks are in the basement).
2) I do not want large fish (as I already have large fish in my FOWLR) and would much prefer many, many smaller fish. So, I imagine my stocking options are pretty large. I am guessing I could fit like 30-35 small (2-4 inches) fish. That's A LOT of fish. So, can anyone recommend a reef-safe schooling fish? I've heard mixed reviews about the chromis (they are schooling fish, but they can kill each other in the aquarium). I do not have any ideas of what I want in the tank yet (except I KNOW that I want a mandarin goby (with lots of copepods of course) and all kinds of corals (LPS, SPS) and maybe even sponges. So I want the fish to not munch on any of these.
Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Anyway, for now I will be doing a lot of research until I annoy my wife enough to let me get the new tank.
So, I have a couple of questions:
1) Would it be a good idea to connect my 125 gallon FOWLR and my new 180 gallon Reef (this way I will only need 1 sump, although will probably need to upgrade my skimmer)? There will be about 12 feet between the 2 aquariums (I might not get the wife approval here because the pipe will have to run across the floor, even though my tanks are in the basement).
2) I do not want large fish (as I already have large fish in my FOWLR) and would much prefer many, many smaller fish. So, I imagine my stocking options are pretty large. I am guessing I could fit like 30-35 small (2-4 inches) fish. That's A LOT of fish. So, can anyone recommend a reef-safe schooling fish? I've heard mixed reviews about the chromis (they are schooling fish, but they can kill each other in the aquarium). I do not have any ideas of what I want in the tank yet (except I KNOW that I want a mandarin goby (with lots of copepods of course) and all kinds of corals (LPS, SPS) and maybe even sponges. So I want the fish to not munch on any of these.
Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.