Hello-

I have a 125 gallon aquarium built into the wall in my office. Currently i am running fresh water with 2 rena xp3's and 1 eheim 2217 for filtration. I used to run a 72g FO marine years ago so i am familiar with the process. My wife and i have been kicking around the idea of converting my tank to a FOWLR. Problem is i cant fit a sump under my tank because space is limited. I'm wondering if i add the appropriate amount of live rock, along with my 3 canister filters, will i have enough filtration? Thanks for the help.

Yup. That'll work for ya. Sump is not an a must have.

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A sump isnt totally needed.. but it really helps keep things healthy. If you can fit any kind of fish tank below your current setup, then you can build a sump. Adding live rock should be done. if you can add some macro algae into the tank itself, that will help and the need for a sump will be decreased.

I agree with the others...
I would suggest that you use only one of the canister filters as a "filter", and the other two more for water movement. Pull all the bio media and carbon.

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Thanks for the replies. How much live Rock can I expect to buy?

Minumum of 1lb of Live Rock per gallon. Its for Biological Filtration.

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my 125g predator tank. with quite a bit of bioload dont have a sump but i have 2 seaclone 150 protein skimmers and about 50lbs of live rock. granted the only coral i have are softies but i only have to do a water change monthly and my water stays in the zeros. idk if im lucky or if it just works. just go slow. i converted this tank to salt a year ago and heres what i did:
i left the water and filters alone and running, took out the gravel and dumped in 100lbs of playground sand from home depot in after i washed it thoroughly, let it run for 2 days, then i threw in 5 frozen shrimp, then proceeded to slowly increase the salinity over 2 weeks and adding 5 more frozen shrimp at the one week mark to accelerate the cycle. once my salinity was where i wanted it i let it run for another week then added the protein skimmers and did a 50 gallon water change and added the first two fish, my 9" yellow porc puffer and my 14" volitan lion. then after another week i did another waterchange and added my live rock and both my morays. and a year later every one is happy and my water quality is pristine. also in the tank now is a 12'' hawaiin black tailed wrasse and a dragon wrasse. and a cleanup crew of star fish. its easily doable. this method i have played around with seems to speed up the process. ive used it to convert everything from 5g to 55g to 125g tanks from fresh to salt

If you have a sump and protein skimmer, you wont need as much live rock. Something cheap to do if you can find live rock at a good price, get 10lbs of live rock as a "seed" and get the rest as dead rock, lace rock, etc... It takes a bit more time for the dead rock to become seeded and established, but you'll save a lot of money. You dont need a deep sand bed either, just enough to help cover the bottom if you even want it. I have a 75 gallon with about 100lbs of live rock and a small refugium that i made from a large HOB filter system. Fill it with a little crushed live rock and some macro-algae and it will help get rid of the nitrates and phosphates in your tank. That's also if you dont end up doing a sump refugium. This also give a good place to build up copopods and other tiny creatures that help feed the fish. The more live rock you have, the more room there is for those to reproduce in giving a good food chain for those fish out there that love to eat it. You can still run carbon off and on to help pull out some leftover stuff floating around in your water, but if you get a protein skimmer, the need for it should be reduced.