Welll I thought I might expound a little on our methodology and thinking on the setup of our 700 gallon.
We decided to go with bare bottom and go with high flow and a TON of liverock. We have two closed loops that have PurFlow Cannister filters, so we can filter the water, or put in bags of stuff we feel we might need to clarify the water, like rowaphos, or carbon.
Then we have one pump, pushing 5800 gallons of water (we think more like 5000 after the plumbing, but that is being really gracious 2 90 degree elbows aren't reducing the flow by 800 gallons), over the overflow. We tried pushing more, but we think that is what cracked the bulkhead in the overflow.
The over flow then goes to the leftmost 210 gallon horse trough. It has maybe 100 gallons of water in it, and 2 skimmers. We will probably pull one out in the future, but right now while we go through the mini cycle we have two: an ASM G5 and another ASM G6.
From there the water flows through two more tubs filled with different types of caulerpa. In one is Razor, and the other has chetomorpha. Then the return pump takes the water back into the tank from the third horse trough. All the horse troghs are connected together with 4" bulkheads and piping between them.
We just got a 1 hp chiller (even though at the hottest day in TX the tank maxed out at 80.4 with all six halides on). We plan on forking off the return pump to the chiller seing as how we think putting it's own HammerHead will be over kill for it. It requires 1000 GPH.
We also have plans on hooking up a 135 Gallon tank to the system for pod population and my seahorse tank. It will be on the shelving system tothe right of the tank and I will grow Prolifera in abundance in it for a few years before I get the seahorsies. We plan on drilling it on both ends, building overflows for it, and making a loop that will feed the water from it into the 700.
We already have two 200 gallon water containers that are our staple for water changes. I can do a 400 gallon water change in one weekend should I get the itch. We use one to fill with the RODI water, then I have this ingenious setup where I swith a switch and the water moves over to the other container, where I mix the salt. From there the same pump that mixes the salt pushes the water through a hose to fill the tank. A 200 gallon water change takes approximately 30 minutes. The only reason it takes that long is that the pump pushing that water to the tank is so small. I might look at replacing it someday...
But that is the plan.
I am going to rely on massive ammounts of live rock and caulerpas to do my filtration of whatever the skimmer won't remove. Then if I ever get in a hard way I can pop a filter or some type of media into the PurFlow Cannisters and filter the water too.
Your thoughts people?
We decided to go with bare bottom and go with high flow and a TON of liverock. We have two closed loops that have PurFlow Cannister filters, so we can filter the water, or put in bags of stuff we feel we might need to clarify the water, like rowaphos, or carbon.
Then we have one pump, pushing 5800 gallons of water (we think more like 5000 after the plumbing, but that is being really gracious 2 90 degree elbows aren't reducing the flow by 800 gallons), over the overflow. We tried pushing more, but we think that is what cracked the bulkhead in the overflow.
The over flow then goes to the leftmost 210 gallon horse trough. It has maybe 100 gallons of water in it, and 2 skimmers. We will probably pull one out in the future, but right now while we go through the mini cycle we have two: an ASM G5 and another ASM G6.
From there the water flows through two more tubs filled with different types of caulerpa. In one is Razor, and the other has chetomorpha. Then the return pump takes the water back into the tank from the third horse trough. All the horse troghs are connected together with 4" bulkheads and piping between them.
We just got a 1 hp chiller (even though at the hottest day in TX the tank maxed out at 80.4 with all six halides on). We plan on forking off the return pump to the chiller seing as how we think putting it's own HammerHead will be over kill for it. It requires 1000 GPH.
We also have plans on hooking up a 135 Gallon tank to the system for pod population and my seahorse tank. It will be on the shelving system tothe right of the tank and I will grow Prolifera in abundance in it for a few years before I get the seahorsies. We plan on drilling it on both ends, building overflows for it, and making a loop that will feed the water from it into the 700.
We already have two 200 gallon water containers that are our staple for water changes. I can do a 400 gallon water change in one weekend should I get the itch. We use one to fill with the RODI water, then I have this ingenious setup where I swith a switch and the water moves over to the other container, where I mix the salt. From there the same pump that mixes the salt pushes the water through a hose to fill the tank. A 200 gallon water change takes approximately 30 minutes. The only reason it takes that long is that the pump pushing that water to the tank is so small. I might look at replacing it someday...
But that is the plan.
I am going to rely on massive ammounts of live rock and caulerpas to do my filtration of whatever the skimmer won't remove. Then if I ever get in a hard way I can pop a filter or some type of media into the PurFlow Cannisters and filter the water too.
Your thoughts people?
