180 gallon in the wall tank

[JasonD]

I recently purchased a new home and will be moving my two reef tanks. Instead of setting up the two tanks. I am looking at setting up a 180 gallon AGA tank. I will be converting my 100 gallon tank and my 70 gallon tank into one huge tank.

Inhabitants:
Too many zoas/palys to count
Nice size colony of Red Sea Xenia
6 Candy Cane's (multiple colors)
Few Sps - Green Monti Cap, Orange Monti Cap, Green Slimmer, 2 Green Hydrophora
Yellow Polyp
Variety of Mushrooms
Anthelia
3 RBTA
Branching Frogspawn
Torch
4 Percs (I will sell a pair or put a pair in my refugium)
Blue Tang
Naso Tang
2 Black Clarks
Firefish Goby
Mandarin Goby
2 Blue Damsels
Chromis
Pseudochromis
Chalk Bass …..

I was thinking about adding a dozen chromis (school) and maybe and maybe a couple more fish.

Lighting:
I am having a hard time figuring out what do about the lighting. The tank is going to be built into the wall, so the lighting does not have to be pretty.
Here is a list of the lighting I currently have:
260watt pc hood
130watt pc hood
5 x 96 watt pc retros
175 watt halide retro with 20k xm bulb
All the bulbs need replacing.

I might go all halides and us none of the pc's - or - set up PFO parallel reflectors and use the 4x96watt pc retros and purchase new actinic bulbs. I am a little concerned about going with halides. I own several colonies of deep water blue zoa's. I keep them on the bottom of my tank under pc's.

Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated. I really like the idea of going all halides with no supplements. Maybe 3 x 250watts. I have been looking at the phoenix 14k de, Hamilton 14ks se, and radium 20ks. This is a zoa dominated tank, so I was thinking about something will a little less intensity. I would prefer amazing color over growth. Zoas spread pretty fast anyway. I was thinking about running Icecap ballast for energy savings and to get a blue look. Reflectors/bulbs/ballasts/supplements/quantity?

In the Wall:
I want the tank to be in the garage and show into the living room. I have some concerns about cutting the hole and putting in a header. Any insight into this would be appreciated. I also have concerns with the tank being in the garage. I plan on still parking my vehicles in the garage. Will exposing the tank to car fumes be a problem. Temperature wise a garage will not be as stable as the house, but I think the cooler garage will be an asset. I will have to run power as well.

Inside:

Garage side:

Garage is 12" lower than inside floor.

Flow:
I am thinking about getting a AGA 180 gallon RR tank and plumping into my 70 gallon tank. The 70 gallon would be used for fragging/refugium -or - I could even use the 100 gallon. I don't want to drill the tank. I was just going to run several maxi jet 1200's behind the LR and a external pump to link the two tanks. I would love to get something better. Maybe down the road I could get a tunze setup -or- any other suggestions?

The Move:
I have enough lights, pumps, extra tanks, to pull off this move. I think I need more buckets, I only have two. I tend to give them away when trading frags. If anybody could loan me empty reef safe buckets, that would be great? I would like to have a couple of dozen for this move.

I am in the planning stage. I don't close on the new house until March 17th. I just want to have this all figured out before trying to relocate two large heavily stocked tanks.

Thanks,

Jason

 

[pk1]

A few things I would do if I were you, I have a 180 in wall also. All IMO of course!

#1- Try to make sure you have some sort of front access to the tank for coral placement and aquascaping. It is a real big PITA placing corals where you want with out it. Also, note that I spend 75% of my time in the "fish room" looking behind the rock work, down the side panels and such...maybe heat that garage lol!

#2 Do yourself a favor and reconsider the tank flow/drilling idea. I have the AGA and hate it. These megaflows are junk. If you do go with it, get the corner overflows instead (much less of an eyesore IMO), and have the drains/returns drilled larger than the standard 1" and 3/4". I personally wish I would have drilled a closed loop into my tank, and put an overflow like Mojo's on the back, instead of the AGA overflows. Several maxijets IMO take away from the natural look of the reef your trying to create, pull more power and need more outlets than one strong return pump plumbed correctly.

#3 Lights. I personally would not be happy with only MH's. I don't really think you can get such eye popping colors (which zoo's definitely have!) with out a few true atinics, although I have no experience with the higher K rated lamps like the 20k's.

#4 you should have no problem with your tank in the garage as far as vapors, there is a guy at RC with an awesome tank who has all his stuff in the garage, he just doesn't leave the cars running in there.

Anyhow, hope this helps, I am sure others will chime in with better advice.

Patrick

 

[loohunter]

jason, i think 3 250 watt 20 k radiums would be perfect. the 250 watt radiums are very blue and not all that bright compared to the 400's i think it would be comparable to the pc's but even bluer (better color) if you look at zoo's on line most pics are taken under 20k halides. as for the tank in wall: i have done it before with succes so if want help designing let me know. i am a dry wall expert so no prob. there also let me know if you plan on any downsizing before the move. just shoot me a pm.

 

[liveforphysics]

As far as 1 big pump useing less energy, a single 1/3 hp pump draws more power than 17 (equal to 17.6) maxjet 1200's. They also avoid head losses from pipeing makeing them even more effective.

17 maxijet 1200s each pumping 1100L/hr = 18,700L/hr. A top model sequence under only 5ft head pressure (in reality this is very unrealistically low considdering resistance in plumbing) would be looking at 13,000L/hr, and its not going to have the flexibility of location or ease of changeing that the maxi-jets have.

 

[pk1]

I'm no good at math, so I'm sure that is correct, to be honest I was going more for the astetics of what all those PH's in the tank would look like, more of an assumption on the power ratio. Thanks, my fault. Still, a closed loop is the way to go IMO.

 

[nance]

Jason, I have lots of buckets (reef safe) you can borrow. Also have two big round 20g buckets(reef safe) you can borrow. I have only used my buckets for my tank. Let me know.

 

[liveforphysics]

pk1- No problem, inaccurate electrical details are kinda a pet-peeve of mine. No hard feelings.

I personally think options like the vortec provide you with the best system, and in just a year or so (depending on the size of the closed loop pump you would be useing instead) they pay for themselves from reduced power costs.

 

[JasonD]

PK-
#1 My first thought was to seal the tank from the house, but I think I would regret it everyday if I do. Front access is a really good idea. I am always rearranging things.

#2 The mega flows do take up a lot of room. I would prefer corner overflows. I am considering getting the tank drilled. I will have to check out Mojo's tank. Does anybody local drill glass tanks? Anybody have experience ordering a tank drilled from the factory? Any of the local pet stores drill tanks?

#3 I have seen a couple of tanks running only 20k’s. The Shark Reef just set up a 90 SPS display tank. It is running 2 250watt 20K XM bulbs. I thought the color was amazing. The XM’s don’t put out much par, so I was thinking maybe Radiums, if I went with 20k’s.

Loohunter -
250watt Radiums do look good on paper. On Sanjay’s website, I plotted the 250watt Radiums with icecap ballasts. They had decent par with a nice spike at 460nm. I think they are good candidates for zoanthids. Maybe 3 x 250 watt Radiums, icecap ballasts, and a good reflector, Lumenarc III’s? Maybe something less $$ then the Lumenarc’s. Help with structural design of the cutout would be great. I am not sure about downsizing. I am debating on selling all my smaller frags to make the move easier. The downside is I will have less to stock the new tank with.

Here is what I did for my 100 gallon. I built a pvc rack to hold the maxi jets. That way I could place them exactly where I wanted them. I put threaded ends where the pumps go, so they could rotate.

I then arrange the aquascaping to hide the pumps.

70 gallon

The only reason I am considering using the maxi jets is because I own 8 of them. 8 maxi jets and a Iwaki WMD30RLXT Water Pump for a return. I have several other power heads laying around too. I agree, it would be nice to do something different though.

Nance-
If you could spare some buckets for a week or so that would be great. I am staying local, just moving to Lake Stevens, so retuning them would not be a problem.

Thanks, Everybody for your help!

 

[JasonD]

I was considering 4x20k Radiums, Icecaps, Reef Optix Pendants. What do you think? Would it be better to orient them like fig 1 or 2?
https://www.reefgeek.com/products/categories/lighting/104415.htmlT

- OR -

DE Phoenix bulbs. They plot out very similar to the Radiums. but have a slightly higher par. I have never used DE halide before though?


https://www.reefgeek.com/products/categories/lighting/104670.html

 

[pk1]

Not sure if you have looked at the bracking on the AGA yet, but it may be hard to get 4 pendants in there. Here's a pic of my canopy, you can see the braces. IMO with the right reflectors you can get enough spread (24" or so) to only need 3.

 

[JasonD]

I think I will go ahead and order 3 x 250 watt Radiums, icecap ballasts, and full size Lumenarc III’s

 

[pk1]

They are very nice reflectors. They are large though, so if you do plan on supplementing the color at a later date, you only have 4-5" of clearance to put VHO, T5 or PC's up, unless you don't mind the lumenarcs hanging over the supplemental bulbs, which is what I have now, and don't mind at all. The light from the top of the PC bulbs I have gets reflected back into the tank as well. HTH


PK

 

[JasonD]

For now I am going to go without actinics. I like that idea of using the lumenarcs to reflect the supplemental lighting back as well. That seems like it would help mix the lighting. I definitely want the option of switching to lower K bulbs later and adding supplements. I might go the SPS route later.

They are very nice reflectors. They are large though, so if you do plan on supplementing the color at a later date, you only have 4-5" of clearance to put VHO, T5 or PC's up, unless you don't mind the lumenarcs hanging over the supplemental bulbs, which is what I have now, and don't mind at all. The light from the top of the PC bulbs I have gets reflected back into the tank as well. HTH


PK