Help with a 125 Gallon FOWLR

robbie59

robbie59

Member
Hey first post on the site and looking for some good advice for my set up. I have a 125 tall so that’s 5' wide by 2' high and I'm in the dark about lighting. Right now I have 4 - 20 watt Coralife 50/50 6000k bulbs on top. Is this enough to have a successful reef or do I need something else. I have been reading about all kinds of PC lights and all that but like I said I have no clue what does what. I need someone to tell me what’s best for this tank.
Also space is not a problem as the tank is in the garage with the front coming through the wall to view. I have 2 boxes that hold 2 of the lights in each.
Another thing, I often see reef tanks without to many fish. Is it not common to have to many fish with a reef setup? Do the fish tear up the expensive corals?
And one last question.....I have 20lbs of live rock in a my tank which is still cycling and I need to know if the bonus life that came with the rocks will continue to grow given I had the correct lights?
Thanks and I'm looking forward to your comments.
In the tank right now.....(cycling)
5 bags live sand.....weight unknown...
20 lbs live fiji rock
8 damsels
Setup..
wet/dry filter
and skimmer that's not on yet..
 
T

thomas712

Guest
Ok First things first. Welcome! :) .
Now. That pic does not include the figi rock right? Thats dead coral you have now.
I take it that your coralife bulbs are NO bulbs correct? NO meaning normal output. So you have 80 watts of lights all 50/50's. Is this enough to have a succesful reef? well that all depends on what you want to keep in there. 80 watts is not very much, low end, for lighting.
Your 6000K bulbs are bottom or low end of lighting for reef tanks. At 5500k to 6000k the bulbs will likely promote unwanted algea's as they tend to be closer to the red/yellow spectrum. The fact that you are using 50/50 bulbs is better for the corals as they will have more of the actinic light that the corals will like better. Bulbs that are 6500k or less need actinic bulbs or the blue 03's because the corals and inverts absorb this light easier and are needed for photosythesis of the corals.
I use VHO (very high output) bulbs and ballasts. My bulbs are the VHO 12000k 50/50's and actinic blue's by URI. The 12000k have a deep penetrating blue white light which gets right down to the bottom of my 90 gallon, not enough to keep clams, for clams it is best with metal halides/ Actinic combos.
Moving on you can have 20000k bulbs, these would be for the upper end of the deep water tanks lights.
I think you would do well with VHO lights ( once again depending on what you want to keep). As your reef grows your lighting may grow as well. If you think that will happen then perhaps you would like to go with a MH/VHO combo.
You will find that experienced reef keepers tend toward keeping the fish count low and the coral count high. Low fish count to help keep stress down by not overcrowding, to avoid them getting sick and having to treat the tank, mostly, at least that is my thought.
Thomas
 
robbie59

robbie59

Member
Thomas,
Thanks for your quick response and information. Your right I don't have the live rock in my picture that’s posted but it has recently been added. I was just wondering if I needed to have special lighting to have basic live rock growth. Meaning, is anything going to grow on my rock straight from the LFS? And if I bought an anemone on day will it die the next without proper lighting...(I understand the water flow needed)
If I added an MH, how many to my current set up?
So many questions and so much to learn, But It's looking good. Having fun and learning too much,
Thanks
 
S

simm

Guest
I have a 55 FOWLR with NO 50/50. The growth on my LR has been pretty good. Coraline and such is growing at a phenominal rate. However I personaly think a little more lighting would do more! I dont have much $$ to upgrade so for now IMO NO's are fine but bigger lighting is better.
 
robbie59

robbie59

Member
Glad to see somebody with a simular setup getting growth, I haven't seen any yet but I just started this hobby..
Just hoping I'm not missing that one thing that will make the tank work. I mean I don't want to buy all this live rock and not have a certain light to make the LR happy.
I'm not trying to go all reef because I want to house a number of different fish but I do want a little of everything. And this is where I would like to have a coral and an anemone in the mix...
Simple setup with some different things to see...
Thanks
 
S

simm

Guest
Well with my NO's Iv also added Marc Weiss Reef Vital DNA supplement and thats where I saw my coraline growth. My 100 gallon with LR did well with NO's before I got my lighting. However if you are wanting an anenome they do require extensive lighting and with just NO's on a reef you will be limited to what you can have. Coral wise.
 
S

simm

Guest
The color spectrum on a NO bulb. 50% 6,000k natural daylight and 50% 7,100 k actinic 03 blue.
 
chris200058

chris200058

Member
If possible I would like to see some of your FOWLR setups. I have a 125 gallon tank in the beggining stages still adding LR and getting all levels just right I just want to see how people have their LR setup in their tank so that I can sort of immitate it Thanks
 
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