Originally posted by Johnic
I heard that if I plan on doing a FOWLR ..do not add live rock because the calcium, Argonates and salt levels will be too high for the fish, thats if I'm not keeping reef fish...any truth to this?
LFS Nonsence. Most fish that we keep with live rock will handle salinity levels of 1.021 to 1.025. In fact if you are going to keep snails they tend to do better at 1.025.
With a fowlr, you don't have to absolutly take care of the calcium and alkalinity but it should be watched and perhaps maintaned. A low alkalinity can cause some problems for a fish.
Many LFS keep the salinity lower than the above. Not quite hyposalinity but the lower salinity does deture parisites.
If your not going to have corals right away then you will have a very low bio load that eats up the caclium and buffers. Only the live rock will be utilizing the most of it.
Besides you would still be doing routien water changes (I hope) and this would replace the trace elements.
Thomas