A few weeks ago I bought a 29 gallon tank, penguin 200 biowheel, neptune heater, fine grained red flint substrate, hydrometer, and a Fluorescent light that came with the tank. Since this is the only knowledgeable fish place that understands more than one way of doing things I decided to start tracking my progress here. I'm at the slight advantage at being a little short on income so that will prevent me from going too fast. I plan on setting up when I get a power head then slowly adding live rock. Eventually buying a skimmer. I there is anything I missed that would be beneficial please tell me, as I have been researching about three months and know there is much to know and much more to learn. Any advice appreciated.

Hi Liquid,

I am glad that you are documenting your journey with us. :) Do you have any pictures?

I use a bio-wheel filter on my QT tank when I have fish in QT but not for corals. Once you get your rock added I would pull the bio-wheel and just use the HOB filter for circulation and running carbon.

I'm not familiar with "red flint" substrate. Did they tell you it was OK for a salt water tank? Can you provide more info?

A few weeks ago I bought a 29 gallon tank, penguin 200 biowheel, neptune heater, fine grained red flint substrate, hydrometer, and a Fluorescent light that came with the tank. Since this is the only knowledgeable fish place that understands more than one way of doing things I decided to start tracking my progress here. I'm at the slight advantage at being a little short on income so that will prevent me from going too fast. I plan on setting up when I get a power head then slowly adding live rock. Eventually buying a skimmer. I there is anything I missed that would be beneficial please tell me, as I have been researching about three months and know there is much to know and much more to learn. Any advice appreciated.
I am familiar with red flint gravel and it should not be used in saltwater! Take a magnet and run it through the gravel. You will find it picks up gravel with iron ore in it. This will cause untold problems for your saltwater aquarium and it's inhabitants. The best substrate is Aragonite sand. Avoid crushed coral, too.

Dick

This substrate is typically used for freshwater planted tanks, certainly should NOT be used in a reef tank imho. From some research on the web "red flint" used to be the "rage" for growing plants in freshwater tanks. Anything that grows "planted tanks" well, is going to be real bad, as a substrate in your reef tank. It likely contains super high levels of phosphates and other plant friendly minerals and chemicals. I could not find a break down of what some available red-flint contained but it just doesn't sound good!

Go with argonite, Old Castle white play sand (if you can find it), even "live sand" --- anything but red-flint !

Warm Regards,

and buddy in my opinion 29g is to small for a FOWLR in a FOWRL the attraction are the fish u can`t have many fishes in a 29g

I would love FOWLR tank of dwarf angels. Too bad I keep adding corals to my nano.