Lionfish Lair

[30reef]

I started my 30 Gallon long nano reef off with the intentions of having a few easy to keep fish, inverts and fish! Over the time of researching more and more about reef tanks and especially softie and LPS tanks I got more fascinated each time I saw an amazing tank. So I decided shortly after seeing this tanks to purchase my first coral the Toadstool Leather, after loving this coral for a while I started adding more little by little. After adding some Scolymia and Zoas I thought I'd be content with what I have... But as we all know as reefers that's not the case, so I added a few more corals. Then one day I stood back and watched my tank noticing there wasent much activity besides the movement of the corals, so now that brings me to today were I decided I wanted to start a predator reef tank and add two dwarf Lionfish! I'm planning on adding a Fu Manchu and Fuzzy Dwarf to the tank, starting off with the fuzzy and then ending it with the Fu Manchu... If REALLY like to add a third lion down the line, but sadly in a 30 gallon long that most likely would not be the case. After getting overwhelmed with excitement I decided to re-aquascape the tank and make it appropriate for Lionfish, I created many over hangs and even plan on adding a cave or two in the next week! Hope everyone enjoys this and follows my journey threw the "Lionfish Lair" Reef Aquarium

FTS 3/20/16

TANK
30 Gallon long

LIGHTING
27 Inch MaxSpect R420R 15K

FILTRATION
Aquatop CF300 Canister Filter {Bio Balls PURA Complete Carbon Sponge Filtration Pads x3 }
I Know People are going to say I should be running a sump but I keep up with weekly maintenance by performing a 20% water change cleaning the glass and cleaning out the filter which I replace everything twice a month. I also do check my water at least once a week making sure everything's good, and I especially make sure to keep the nitrates under 5!

• I do also plan on adding a skimmer this week, to keep up with the waste amount produced by the lions!

FLOW
I plan on upgrading to atleast one if not two Vortech MP10's

ROCK AND SAND
25 pounds of dry rock
5 pounds of real reef rock
20 pounds of Caribsea Live Sand

FEEDING
Reef Roids are fed once weekly to all corals
Mysis is available once to twice weekly to LPS corals

CORALS
I like to keep a wide variate of corals anything from your average finger leather to your high end Scolymia! The tank is LPS and softie dominated along with some Gorgonians and a Sun Coral!

INVERTS
Banded Serpent Star
Astrea Snails x3
Scarlet Hermit Crabs x4
Emrald Matrix Crab

FISH
I plan on adding two lions to the display... Fu Manchu and a Fuzzy Dwarf!

 

[TUSI]

Looks great and thanks for sharing

 

[1fishjones]

I agree with TUSI, it does look great, my only concern is that canister, once you add those lions, your maintenance may need to double or worse. I'd go to a hob or sump for filtration.

 

[Wiz]

Looks great! I love the lions. Glad to follow along. Unfortunatly I love to mix things up to much. So ill love the lions through you :-D

 

[tj w]

So confused by the title[emoji6]

 

[30reef]

Re Aquascaped the left side of the reef! Couldent get enough of the bonsai inspired scape, I plan on completely covering the top of the rock in Zoathinds... And of course I must add a leather or two

 

[melypr1985]

Awesome tank! I bet my friend @Lionfish Lair might find it interesting as well! Especially considering the name of the thread lol!

 

[30reef]

Awesome tank! I bet my friend @Lionfish Lair might find it interesting as well! Especially considering the name of the thread lol!

That's Odd... I guess we were thinking of the same name Have them come on over and check it out!

 

[tj w]

She'll be a great help on anything to do with lionfish. She has a lot of great knowledge and is willing to help

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Do I have a twin!

You may want to rethink the stocking order of adding the fuzzy first, then Fu. The Fus are much harder to find, so I wouldn't pass one up just to place them in the tank in any particular order. Where it does matter with some fish, these guys are peaceful and don't care who was established first.

Now, having said that, Fus can be a lot harder to convert to frozen. That's where it might be beneficial to get a Fuzzy first, and get some practice. Hopefully neither would be stubborn. If you pass a Fu by though, it may be awhile until you see another.

Do you plan on using a QT/Grow out tank? It's much harder without one. Even though a Fu and a Fuzzy are compatible adult size, you may find an adult Fu and a baby Fuzzy, which won't be comptable until the one grows. It will be much harder to find fish that are exactly the size you want when you buy them. This is even harder to control if you buy fish online. And it can be extremely hard to convert one fish to frozen while another in the same tank is already converted, or if neither are converted.

You won't be able to add a third lion to a 30 gallon. I push the limits sometimes myself, but I wouldn't want to try to maintain a tank that small with that many lions. Remember you have to clean this tank and one of the risks of getting stung is having too many in too small of a space. there's nowhere for one to go to get out of the way of the other. Your choice of a Fu and a Fuzzy is a good one, as the Fu will hang on the bottom and the Fuzzy will use the top part of the tank. At least you don't have two competing for the same space.

It's nice to see another Pred tank being born!

 

[mcmc1717]

that would be neat!

 

[30reef]

Do I have a twin!

You may want to rethink the stocking order of adding the fuzzy first, then Fu. The Fus are much harder to find, so I wouldn't pass one up just to place them in the tank in any particular order. Where it does matter with some fish, these guys are peaceful and don't care who was established first.

Now, having said that, Fus can be a lot harder to convert to frozen. That's where it might be beneficial to get a Fuzzy first, and get some practice. Hopefully neither would be stubborn. If you pass a Fu by though, it may be awhile until you see another.

Do you plan on using a QT/Grow out tank? It's much harder without one. Even though a Fu and a Fuzzy are compatible adult size, you may find an adult Fu and a baby Fuzzy, which won't be comptable until the one grows. It will be much harder to find fish that are exactly the size you want when you buy them. This is even harder to control if you buy fish online. And it can be extremely hard to convert one fish to frozen while another in the same tank is already converted, or if neither are converted.

You won't be able to add a third lion to a 30 gallon. I push the limits sometimes myself, but I wouldn't want to try to maintain a tank that small with that many lions. Remember you have to clean this tank and one of the risks of getting stung is having too many in too small of a space. there's nowhere for one to go to get out of the way of the other. Your choice of a Fu and a Fuzzy is a good one, as the Fu will hang on the bottom and the Fuzzy will use the top part of the tank. At least you don't have two competing for the same space.

It's nice to see another Pred tank being born!

I do plan on using a QT, and or my LFS would be able to do it for me in there QT. I think I'll go with the Fuzzy first like you said... I might even change things up and do a Dwarf Zebra if possible, my LFS usually has one or the other. As it goes fo the Fu I'll try to have my LFS get it at the same time as the other which may take a while like you said. If it takes forever to find both I may drop the Fu off the list and have to go with something else... Any other good backups for a Fu?

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Any other dwarf with the fuzzy will tip it over the top. The Fu is the only fish we actually recommend for a 30g. You can get away with a 30 for a fuzzy, but not for 2 of them. A fuzzy and a zebra would both be sharing the same water column levels and if you get two males, they could fight due to their similarities.

You could put a smaller scorpionfish, waspfish or stingfish in a 30 with a lion.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Duplicate..... darn iPad.