I need some opinion

[rhomer]

I am setting up a 55 long with a wet/dry and protein skimmer. I am currently cycling the tank with about 40 lbs of sand. I plan on adding another 50 - 100 lbs of sand, and starting with 40 lbs of lr. 110 watts pc and 80 watts NO.
I plan on this tank being a full reef, and I'm doing my research on fish. This is the list of fish I've narrowed down to.
Choice One: Blue Hippo or Powder Blue or Yellow Mimic or None of these
Choice Two: Flame Angel or Flame Hawk
Planning on adding: Coral Beauty, Yellow head jawfish, manderine goby (later I know).
I'm not planning on adding all of these fish, what I'm curious about is where to find good info on these fish?, What should I add first?, What would be a good combination?
I would like to be limitless on corals that I add (I will be adding 2 175w MH later), so if any of these fish are not reef safe please let me know.

 

[brooklyn johnny]

What do you plan on filling your wet/dry with? If you are using it, I would get rid of the bioballs and just use it as a sump. You will have plenty of biological filtration in the tank, and the bioballs might bring your nitrates up. In my opinion wet/dry's are outdated.

 

[joe5_15]

u need to change the irst to last as tangs can get a territory of a tank and be very very aggressive so if i was u i would get him last and most well not think 55g is enough but since u arent gettin to many fish i think i will be ok but other than that

 

[fshhub]

IMO, no tangs in a 55 gallon, and your dwarf angels should be added only to mature and established systems(6 months or so), sometimes they can mix, and sometimes the flames and coral beauties can be reef safe, but in both cases, not always
and you are correct about the mandarin
so i would start with the jaw fish, if you r plan is for the dwarf angels, and if you want something for algae, maybe an algae(lawnmower) blenny which could be added first or after the jawfish
and i definitely agree with th e above post about bioballs
hth

 

[rhomer]

I appreciate the opinions, the order of my post was not the order I was planning on. Are their any responses on flame hawks?
From what I've read I shouldn't mix different types of pygme angels. Is this correct?
So my guess is I would add the jawfish first, then the coral beauty, then the flame angel/flame hawk then add the tang.
BTW I spent a lot of time investigating my filtration system. I had a setup with just live rock and live sand, and I wasn't very pleased. I wanted a system I had more control over, I also spent time driving to about 10 lfs, and everyone of their show tanks had wet/dry setups.
I know that I've shuned the advice of this board, but from my perspective, this setup gave me the greatest flexibility.

 

[fshhub]

what could be more flexible than this, lr, a dsb and no maintenance, trates under 5(hard to tell hte diff between 5 and 0 on my kit), with no skimmer, no wet dry, just good circulation, no cleaning either
i hope over time your wet dry shows trates that low, and the flexibility to leave it go to take care of itself, especially if you want corals, a reef is much better off without a wet dry(maybe a fish only, but not a reef)
and dwarf angels can be a problem together
i also would not a dd any angel dwarf or otherwise to a tank less than 6 months old, and no tangs to a 55, but i think i already said that

 

[rhomer]

I hear you, but I have had that setup before, and it isn't as perfect as people here claim it to be.
Have you personally had a wet/dry before? I recognize that it is older technology, but why would most of the lfs around here in Atlanta all be running these systems on their major show tanks (I'm talking the 200 gallon 400watt mh loaded with sps corals) if they felt this system was flawed? Most of the lfs I've seen have the smaller demo setups with dsb / no mech filtration for the small tanks. These tanks usually only have soft corals in them / fish, and not the delicate expensive corals and fish.
Also, most large aquariums (Tennesee, Key West, St. Thomas) run wet/dry's when I was there. Again why would they run this system if it was that flawed?
I think that there is a serious issue with "group think" on this board. I'm as guilty as everyone else here. You read something enough on this board, and all of the sudden its gospil.
Sorry for the flame, but I didn't ask about my filtration, I asked about what fish.
<img src="graemlins//yell.gif" border="0" alt="[yell]" />

 

[brooklyn johnny]

rhomer, I understand your frustration. The method we are talking about running without a wet/dry requires many things to go right, all of which i cannot list here, but along the lines of a good protein skimmer, good water movement, gradual stocking of the tank, enough live rock, etc. It's not that wet/drys don't work. They work great. They provide a tremendous amount of habitat for nitrifying bacteria types that break down ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate. The problem is that that is where they stop. They don't have the deep pores that live rock does which contain the DEnitrifying bacteria whcih convert nitrates into nitrogen gas.
So if you use a wet/dry you need to remove the nitrates with water changes or denitrators, which are tricky to get to work well.
In order for this to work, you need about a pound or two of live rock per gallon, depending on it porousity and surface area.
The answer IMO, both methods work, but using live rock alone is easier with less maintenance and a more balances overall setup. Last thing... you need a great protein skimmer to catch the wastes before they break down to ammonia, no matter what filtration you are using.
It's not feasable for public aquariums and lfs's to have that much live rock, but it is for us sometimes. To each our own

 

[rhomer]

Thanks for the understanding. I wanted two things when I setup this system. The flexibility to add lr on a slow basis. I don't have the money to add 150 lbs of live rock all at once. And if my system crashes that is a huge investment down the drain (this happend to my other setup). Second I wanted to mimic the setups that the lfs had on their show tanks.
Later when I have added all the lr I want, and I have upgraded my lights, I might remove the bio balls and add a dsp to the sump (6-8 inches of live sand) if I'm not getting the performance I want.