Setting Up New Tank- Help

[fishnugget]

So Confused. 180 Gallon tank size. Glass or acrylic? MH, VHO, PC
WET/Dry or Refrugium or both. No one can give me a good opinion.

I want a beautiful reef. Have had fish for years. Do MH make the cost of running tank $100-200 a month? How many in tank. Config.

So many questions, so few answers.

Please help!!

Fishnugget

 

[ChrisRD]

What are you planning on keeping in your reef? IMO that will have a large effect on the equipment you choose. If you want an opinion, here's mine:

I prefer glass display tanks, although both glass and acrylic each have their own +/-.

If it were me, and it was going to be a mixed reef, I'd probably use 3 X 150 Watt DE halides with VHO or T-5 actinics. Probably about 150 pounds of some sort of Pacific live rock, a large Beckett or Euro-Reef skimmer, and the biggest refugium I could manage. I'd also use a couple of Tunze Streams and a surge device for circulation.

For an SPS/Clam dominated setup I'd do pretty much the same thing except I'd go up to 250 watt DE halides and add a Ca reactor.

So that's my opinion FWIW, but there's really no "right" answer. It's mostly a matter of preferences. As long as you provide enough light, circulation, food, stable parameters and good water quality your corals and fish will thrive.

HTH

 

[Anonymous]

It all depends on what you want. MH produces slightly more light per dollar of juice than any other light, but they get hot amd the bulbs burn out quicker than PCs. If you want SPS, get MHs, if you're happy with softies and LPS, get PCs and you can still get a few SPS.

A wet/dry is not needed at all. You need a sump, which is what a wet/dry usually ends up as for most of us. Your live rock will give the surface area that the bio-balls would provide.

The refugium is an option; if you get one, you can keep some more delicate fish that need natural food and you can grow some algae in it and have slightly better water quality. IMO, in a tank THAT BIG, all you need is a deep sand bed of 4-6 inches and 150-200 pounds of live rock and you're good to go for anything but the most difficult corals and fish. 8)

Good Luck

 

[ChrisRD]

MH produces slightly more light per dollar of juice than any other light, but they get hot amd the bulbs burn out quicker than PCs.

I'll respectfully disagree with Manny here...

IMO, for the amount of light they put out, halides actually create less total heat than other forms of lighting because they are more efficient. If you had enough flourescent lighting stuffed in your canopy to get equivalent light levels you'd actually have more of a total heat issue because it's a less efficient system - less light per watt of power consumed. In other words, you'd have to run more wattage in fluorescent to get similar light levels, thus more heat. The heat issue with halides is a common misconception IMO because the light/heat is emanating from a concentrated, point source which can mislead one into thinking there is more total heat. The heat (and light) is just more concentrated around a smaller area.

I would also argue that one of the main advantages of halide lamps is improved lamp life over fluorescents. If you run quality halide lamps on the correct ballast, IME they last longer than VHOs/PCs.

T-5s offer a newer, more efficient flourescent alternative that may narrow the gap between flourescents and halides with those issues, but I've got no first-hand experience with them. In any event, T-5s are still flourescent lighting, not a point-source like halides, so you still don't get the cool glitter lines!

Just my $0.02...