KISS FOWLR - Equipment & Stocking Questions

[rage]

For FOWLR, you don't need a lot of expensive equipment.
What you have is fine. A tank, live rocks, live sand. Run of the mill light.
Add some pumps to move the water.
You can use the HOB filter or not, up to you. If you do, clean the filter often. You can use the same media you use in F/W. They are for the same purpose, mechanical and biological but you don't have to use these filters if you have enough live rocks, 1-2 lbs/ gallon.
Just get your salinity up to 1.023-1.025 and let it cycle.

For starter, get easy to care and peaceful or moderately aggressive fish (If they don't stress out each other and keep others from feeding, the weaker ones have better chance of surviving) .
Clownfish, small angels, small tangs, anthias, chromis.

Don't use live fish to cycle, your old filter pad should have gotten the cycle to start or you can use a small piece of dead shrimp.
Be patient and make sure the tank is cycled.

Keep the water clean, S/W fish are more sensitive. If your son maintains it, make sure he understands not to put his arms in the water without thoroughly rinsing of any soap residues. Another thing is to not overfeed, you don't want the fish to starve but you don't want the un-eaten food to pollute the water either.

[ScorpiosWife]

~Hi guys~

No, not KISS the band, although that would be awesome! I'm setting up a K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) FOWLR for my son. I've read through the SW forum but after a while it all runs together cuz I'm still wearing my SW dunce hat. So, I've got some questions & I hope yall will help me.

Equipment so far:
30 gallon tank with standard issue, run of the mill lighting
(2) Marineland 350B HOBs
Dead live rock & sand

Things I know I need:
More salt
SW test kit

I'm trying to keep it simple but functional, without corals, no sump & nothing high maintenance. Since it's my son's tank, hubby wants him to learn to maintain this one, so I need to keep it as easy as possible. I've got 10 running FW tanks & 1 brackish tank so water changes won't be a big deal, I'm accustomed to that anyway.

Is this possible with the equipment listed above?
What media do I need in the HOBs?
Simple future stocking suggestions?
Should I toss in some Mollies to get the cycle started?

Last week I started the tank with new sand & salt (which I ran out of so it's only at 1.010). Also tossed some carbon/zeolite blend & some cycled blue filter pads from the puffer tank (1.019) into the HOBs. Last night I removed the new sand & added live sand & dead live rock.

I'm in no hurry to run out and buy any livestock & will not be running a sump. I'm almost positive there's a lot more to do to ready the tank & I don't want to accidentally kill anything. I don't even have a SW test kit yet. I also need more salt to raise the salinity to the proper level since it's just brackish right now. I started it with a mish-mash of things I already had lying around, except for the rock & sand I bought from EK last night. I also have a mop bucket full of bio-balls I can use if that will be beneficial.

What I already have may be ok, may not, but that's why I'm asking. Yall know much better than I do. Thanks in advance for any suggestions, thoughts or ideas. You guys are always awesome.

Ready...set...go!