input on tank design

[vcruz17]

hi fellow reefers. i'm in the process of building a new tank. i had a 55 gallon mixed reef that failed and cost me over $10,000 in livestock and equipment ect..ect...But I learned a lot (at least i think). My plans, for now are:

32" L X 32" W X 24" H acrylic tank with center overflow, about 6" X 6". Stand 32"W X 32" L X by about 36" H (not sure about height). the over flow will be split in to (acting like 2 independent overflows) each with a 1.5 inch drain to sump and a .75 inch return. Should be around 105 gallons if filled with no rock or sand

24" W X 24" L X 16" H sump. refugium area of 10" W X 24" L X 16" H and the sump area of 14" W X 24" L X 16" H. I want to use a modified version of the Model M on MelevsReef.com. The refugium section will have a 24" L 65 watt compact flouresent 50/50 fixure running on reverse photosynthesis. about 30 gallons of water when running.

http://www.melevsreef.com/acrylics/sumps/m/sump_model_m.html

return pump: Mag 18 run externally. should give about 12X turnover after calculating height

skimmer: ZeroDOC180c (looks solid and very good price) with another Mag 18 pump run externally. here is the ebay link with the instructions in Adobe Acrobat and even a little video of this in action

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-ZeroDOC180c...ryZ46313QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

calcium reactor: (never had one before My Reef Creation MRC-CR1 with Mag 2 pump with spray bar upgrade. Milwaukee co2 regulator with needle valve, solenoid valve, and bubble counter. Solenoid conected to pH monitor on Digital Aquatics Reefkeeper 2 so that it will shut it off in case pH drops.

Digital Aquatics Reefkeeper 2 to control lights, pH, moonlights, shut of f stuff in case temp goes too high, ect... I will be in puerto rico when this is running so no need for a heater. not sure about a chiller het

Circulation: 2X Tunze 6000's with a multicontroller, placed on opposite CORNERS on the tank pointing up angled towards opposite upper corners of tank (does this make sense?). will this be too much flow? also, Coralvue is coming out with something called the X wave, which they say will be similar output of the tunze 6100's and their multicontroller will have more features. this will also cost about 25% less. 170 for the controller eand 270 for each pump.

top-off: JBJ Auto-Top Off. had one before, worked nicely

phosphate Reactor = 2 little fishes

another 2 little fishes phosban reactor to put in hydrocarbon 2 (is this necesary or usefull?)

automatic feeder; aquachef electronic

lighting: here is where i think i went a little overboard. problem is i already bought the bulbs and ballasts. I want to get someone to make me an imitation lumenarc III reflector, but bigger, so that I can put (3) 250W Mogul Metal Halide Bulbs side by side inside. Why? I want an XM 20K bulb to come on first (like actinics) and then the Hamilton 10K on one side of the XM to come on and an hour later have the one on the other side come one. Then have the Hamilton that came on first turn off an hour before the one that came on second. i think it's called the sun rise/sun set effect or something. each bulb will have it's own ballast. then i'll drill holes somewhere in the reflector to put in a few moonlights.

that's pretty much it equipmentwise. i wasn't sure if to add a Kalkwasser reactor or not so i will wait until everything is up and running and I actually put in some corals and stuff. So how does this setup sound? i know i should have posted this before i started buying the equipment a few days ago. So far i have the 2 mag 18 pumps, bulbs, ballasts and skimmer. I was going to buy everything except the tank today but would rather get some feedback before I go and create a non rewarding money pit like I did with my previous tank. Thanks a lot and hope to hear from you guys soon.

Victor

 

[loismustdie]

With all the money you plan to spend, a book would have been a good buy.
You have to be careful about asking ?'s like this on websites. You're putting a lot of cash on the line for advice from a guy who is successfully keeping aptasia, yet acts like an expert when he starts typing. The guys writing books usually know their stuff.
Take a look at tank links for people you take advice from.
First, I'd pass on the calcium reactor and spent the money on a better skimmer. Bubble Masters are looking pretty good and I would say the price is good too. You can then do 2 part on a doser for your Ca and Alk.
Make your stand around 38 inches tall. This will give you more room to access under it.
What are you planning to keep? SPS, LPS, softies, mixed reef?
Personally, I would pass on the refugium. They are no where near as effective as people give them credit for. Most of the time, they hold and release more nutrients than algae can take in. I'm just finding that most who talk of the great success of fuges rarely show low NO3 and PO4 that they think they are getting with it. They have a purpose and are great tools, but they are usually set up improperly.
You're spending a lot of money, so I'm not sure why you would go with Mag's. Ehiem are a far better choice.
For lights, I would go XM 10K all the way with some T-5 actinics. If you look at my tank link, you'll see all pics are taken with XM 10K 250W on luminarcs and t-5 super actinic supplements. http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/userpage.php?do=main&userid=624
I don't know too many people who are happy with XM 20K.
Reefkeepers and tunzes are good. I'd hold off on the coralvue pumps until you are sure they've been tested and work. Vortech's still haven't lived up to the hype. 6000 series Tunze have been around long enough that pretty much all the bugs have been worked out.
Auto top off and PO4 reactors are great.
Hope this helps.

 

[ellebelle]

Someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you need a "kalkwasser reactor". I think you can get the same result by just adding some to your top off water and dosing it slowly throughout the day.

 

[cali_reef]

lighting: here is where i think i went a little overboard. problem is i already bought the bulbs and ballasts. I want to get someone to make me an imitation lumenarc III reflector, but bigger, so that I can put (3) 250W Mogul Metal Halide Bulbs side by side inside. Why? I want an XM 20K bulb to come on first (like actinics) and then the Hamilton 10K on one side of the XM to come on and an hour later have the one on the other side come one.

Having multiple bulbs in a single reflector will not work well, the extra bulbs will block some of the light from being directed into the tank.

 

[cali_reef]

Some should correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you need a "kalkwasser reactor". I think you can get the same result by just adding some to your top off water and dosing it slowly throughout the day.

Yes, but only if your top off reservoir is set up to dose kalkwasser.

Never use a kent float valve for anything other than RO\DI water.

 

[jhale]

the only thing I've seen that has more than one halide in a reflector is the double [FONT=Arial, Helvetica]Sfiligoi[/FONT] at aquarium obsessed

 

[bad coffee]

I second you ditch the mags and go ehiems. But since you're doing them externally, I'd even go with a different pump. Somthing you can T off to your return and your skimmer.

and the dusk/dawn effect is over rated. Get one REAL lumenarc and a couple of actinics. Have the actinics come on first and off last.

 

[NYreefNoob]

new tank

well as for the sump. i have one that dimension. only thing that sucks is there really isnt much room for anything if your skimmer is in the sump. you can look at my 62 under tanks i added pic's of sump

 

[vcruz17]

Thanks for the quick response

Loismustdie, thanks for the quick and extremely complete response. About using a Lumenarc pendant and actinics. is there anyway i can put the actinics inside the pendant it self. I want the tank to be visible on all 4 sides so the light will be hanging from the roof, and i wanted a single fixture (pendant).

Calireef: would the bulbs interfere with eachother even if they were offset. Like the center bulb higher than the outer 2?

jhale: i had seen that Sfiligoi reflector and that's where i got the idea to use 3 bulbs. it's a nice reflector but cost over $1000.00. they also have some electronic dimmers for MH bulbs up to 400 watts, but super expensive.

bad coffee: I wanted to use an external "t" pump for sump and skimmer, but i read somewhere that the pumps for beckett skimmers have to be pressure rated. but pressure rated pumps don't have enough flow to be used a return as well. I wanted to use a Sequence Dart (3600 GPH) and have 1200 going to return and 2400 into the skimmer, but it has low head. correct me on this.

NYreefKNOB: I was also concerned about space in the sump, but i thought that if i ran the skimmer inside i would have less chance of leaks.

thanks again guys, your input is much apreciated. I want to buy everything by the end of next week, so i really need a bit more of advise.

:skull:

 

[vcruz17]

has anybody heard anything about the nanostreams 6055 (controllable). i would like to use these instead of the Tunze 6000 as they are much smaller. any thoughts?

loismustdie: where can i find a good resource on how to properly set up a refugium??? thanks

 

[loismustdie]

For your size sump, your fuge will really be useless. If it's that reverse daylight/stabilizing pH effect you are looking for, you are not going to get it with a tank that big and a fuge that small. It's not going to help your PO4 issues either. PO4 reactors will. The fuge is going to become a tiolet for you.
Here's what I would do:
1) forget about a fuge.
2)If you insist on it, the design you showed from Marc is fine. I would just put no sand, no algae and no light. Just a small pile of rocks with a power head pointed at it with some good flow. This will help your pod population.
Luminarcs placed outside of an actual canopy will be blinding. They really spread out light nicely. Around the whole room if you don't enclose them. Placing the T-5's within the luminarc will only wash out the T-5.
I would still stick with a couple of 6100's over the nanos.

 

[Wes]

For your size sump, your fuge will really be useless. If it's that reverse daylight/stabilizing pH effect you are looking for, you are not going to get it with a tank that big and a fuge that small. It's not going to help your PO4 issues either. PO4 reactors will. The fuge is going to become a tiolet for you.
Here's what I would do:
1) forget about a fuge.

i agree...lois i wish you would have given me this advice lol. I battled HA for about 2 months...Last Saturday i removed the macro and wet vac'd the sump. Toilet is right! You should have seen the cloud of crap! My tank went from HA infested to almost no HA at all in 4 days...It is a pretty amazing turn around. At this rate i will be nuissance algae free by next week.

 

[vcruz17]

great advice. also, i was looking for eheim pumps and the largest i found were 900 GPH. wouldn't this be too small for a return or to run a beckett skimmer?

 

[Wes]

too small for a return: no ( i only return about 200 gph on my 65g, plus you plan to use powerheads for circulation)

to small for a becket: i think so but i don't know from experience

 

[loismustdie]

i agree...lois i wish you would have given me this advice lol. I battled HA for about 2 months...Last Saturday i removed the macro and wet vac'd the sump. Toilet is right! You should have seen the cloud of crap! My tank went from HA infested to almost no HA at all in 4 days...It is a pretty amazing turn around. At this rate i will be nuissance algae free by next week.

Wes, you were doing ultra-lith and you're an sps guy. I never would have assumed you'd have a fuge. Glad to see you've got the results you've been looking for. My tank was 10 times better within 3 weeks of taking my fuge off line.

 

[vcruz17]

i'm also still a little puzzled over the lighting solution. i guess my 3 bulb wanabe lumenarc is destined to fail per design. But i'm not sure what to get. i read somewhere that the light per gallon ration wasn't always a good rule of thumb. so now i wonder. one 400 watt pendant with 14K bulb. or 2 smaller pendants with two 250's. where would I put actinic supplementation if I was to only use hanging pendands? i guess moonlights are more for me than for the aquarium, or do they actually help? i doublt the livestock will feel more at home just by having a few LEDS overthem. ?any thoughs guys?

p.s. loismustdie, I ordered a copy of The Conscientious Marine Aquarist today. better late than never

 

[loismustdie]

a book is always good
Looks like LeslieS is making quite the impact with the book club.
Now, just some patience.
We'll also need the back up of others here since I've never used pendants. Prattreef is a great option for this. He has been messing with a lot of combos and is far more experienced. I'll see if I can find the link for his tank with the new ushios.
see if this works:
http://www.manhattanreefs.com/gallery/files/6/1/3/right.jpg

 

[vcruz17]

my old tank (kind of ghetto)

feel free to laugh and comment. here's a few pics of my olds tank. yes, the lights are the cheap Jebo ones, notice how the same type bulb looks different on the sides. funny thing, before these, i have a fixture with (4) 54 watt t5 actinics and (4) 54 watt 12K's i think. and before that I had one with (2) actinic VHO and 2 URI 50/50 VHO's. someone told me metal halide was better and i thought i got a killer deal on the aquatraders website....what a dumb@ss. other things i learned, don't turn on the lights and clean the acrylic when you get home drunk or you will scratch it. also learned that when people at home depot paint things with spray paint, theirs usually looks better than yours (check out the stand). never had problem with fish dying with this set up, just had problems keeping corals because i didn't have a chiller heater combination to keep temperature stable. this tank was located in guadalajajra mexico, so during the day it's pretty hot and gets pretty cold at night. hopefully the next one will work a lot better.

 

[vcruz17]

changes to proposed setup

i bought a lumenarc 3 reflector and will be using a hamilton 14K 400 watt bulb. i have the other bulbs i had bought for sale (BUY THEM!!!!!). for actinic supplementation i'm going with a PFO ballast and (4) 18" HO 30 watt URI Super Actinic bulbs. these will be put in a square fashion surrounding the reflector. also, i am going with the nano stream 6055's because they are much smaller than the regular streams and i can hide them with rockwork. now i just need someone to tell me that the skimmer i bought (1st post has description, pics, specs.) will be ok and that MAG 18 pumps aren't that bad so that I can sleep well at night.

 

[cali_reef]

Calireef: would the bulbs interfere with eachother even if they were offset. Like the center bulb higher than the outer 2?

Reflectors are designed to reflect a single light bulb from the center, any other items in the same reflector will block light that would otherwise bounce into the tank as intended. I don't understand why you would need multiple bulbs for a tank your size?

This tank is 36"x36"x26", it is lit by a single 250W XM10K bulb driven by icecap ballast, supplemented with two 24" T5 UV actinics driven by advance ballast.

BTW, you might want to play around with a mock up of the overflow box. a 3x6 area may not be enough room to have a 1.5 inch durso and a 3/4 return. You also will not have enough liner space (3"+6"=9") to drain over for a 1.5" drain. Here are some scenario that might make you think that part over:

http://www.reefcentral.com/calc/drain.php?gph=1200&drain=Submit

http://www.reefcentral.com/calc/drain.php?gph=600&drain=Submit