the ultimate 75 mix reef

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reefman61686

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Joined
Jan 11, 2007
Messages
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Location
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ok i have a 75 gallon drilled and it is all ready setup as a reef tank because i bougt it use i know a good bit about saltwater fish keeping but not everything so i would like some help

curret tank specs:
75 gallon rr with spray bar
48" corallife pc (2 10000k and 2 actinc)
350 lbs live rock
1 to 2 inch crushed coral
sump with bioballs
seaclone 150
mag return pump (not sure which one)
4 power heads maxijets (2 900s and 2 1200s)

so i would like to know if i should upgrade my equipment or keep what i got

i would like to get a calcium reactor(any recomendations)
i have three 55 rr in my basement so if you can help me decide how to plumb them up i would like to doa refugeum, growout tank and frag tank

and like i said in the title i want it to be the ultimate 75 mix reef with the best stuff
 
Welcome to RF! Hope you enjoy it here:) As for the equipment, I think you will get a lot of feedback saying to toss the seaclone. They have probably the worse "rep" when it comes to skimmers. :oops: Some that you may consider for that sized tank would be a Euroreef, ASM, Octopus just to name a few...Also, the bio-balls will do you no good in a reef setup either and you will hear tons of feedback saying to not use them either. Their end product is nothing but nitrates as they have no way of performing denitrification so they end up with the title of being called, "Nitrate factories". I'd just let the live rock do all the work for you as it can perform all of the biological fuctions while at the same time can perform denitrification. As for the lighting, the fact that you want to keep a mixed reef, if it includes high light demanding corals, then you will need to upgrade your lighting to either T-5's or my personal preference metal halides. PC's won't prive the intesity needed to keep corals like SPS's or clams alive. Just a few thoughts for starters to get the ball rolling. Good luck with the setup and I hope you enjoy your time here:)
 
thanks a lot for the help and look forward to hearing what every one else has to say
Click to expand...

No prob:) I'm sure the others will chime in soon:) One more thing...You really won't need 350lbs of live rock. That's quite a bit of rock to put in a 75gal. There won't be much room for anything else if you use it all:D Also, depending on which corals you go with again and which mag drive you have, you may want to look into Seio powerheads or the Tunze streams. Maxijets are nice little powerheads for the price, but a lot of the time, they are not enough to provide a tank of that size with sufficient flow. They may be fine in your case, but it wouldn't hurt to look a the others just incase you need a bit more flow:)
 
350lbs of rock if good LR is a whole lot of volume!!! Either that is way more rock than you really need or you have solid boulders which in that case is too bad. What you really need is some porous rock if it isn't already.... then you will have more water volume to shove around with good circ.

Have you figured your water turnover? Add up your gph. It sounds like you have a great project in front of you!
 
Welcome to RF!
I’ll second the opinion to upgrade to a better skimmer than the seaclone. :D
With the lighting that you already have, and not knowing the wattage, all I can see you being able to keep would be the lower light tolerant corals like mushroom polyps and such. So you’re probably gonna need to bump up your lighting a bit too. I suggest you spend your money on these two items first before even thinking about a calcium reactor. 350lbs of rock sure is a lot, it almost sounds like you don’t have any room left for anything else in that tank. :eek2: Generally you only need enough rock to fill 1/3 of the space of a given tank to be sufficient. And with that much rock, or any live rock for that matter, you definitely don’t need any bio balls in your sump. I would suggest you strongly consider changing out that crushed coral bed with something finer like Aragamax or nothing at all. Unless you’re totally adamant about keeping it clean, it will eventually get clogged up with detritus and begin to degrade your water quality which will bring on endless bouts of algae blooms.
Do you want to keep these other tanks permanently in your basement?
If so, and if this is a multi level type project, than I have no knowledge or experience with these types of systems... sorry :)
 
oh yea for lights would you do 175 or 250 mh
because i got 2 175 with 1500k xm bulbs they just are not on the tank
 
I had the same question when I was deciding on 175w or 250 MH's when I had my 75gal and everyone said for me to go with the 250's and I was happy I did:)
 
ok thanks for the link that helped out a lot because i dont want to spend that much on a skimmer and still have to work on it to get it to work

think i might just spend a little more and get the Euro-Reef RS-135 Protein Skimmer

and for lights would you do
4-110 watt vhos (2-actinic white 12000K/2-actinic"03") and 2-mh (10000k 175 or 250 not sure yet
4-54 watt t5s and 2-mh (2-10000k/2-blue 460nm) and 2-mh(10000k 175 or 250 not sure yet
 
Personally, I'd go with the T-5 and MH combo if I had to choose between the two. Otherwise, I'd just go with the MH's and find the right bulb to give me the spectrum I want. Less equipment, less space needed, less heat produced and less electricity burned:D
 
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