yay new tank to ruin.

[chrisdaphish]

SO, summer rolls around, i get bored, time to get a new tank. yay! I had to sell some stuff to pick up money for this new tank. I'm just a college student bumming at home, so no real income for me=).

I picked up a tank craig's list. It was a pretty sweet tank so i jumped on it. You know this is hobby is all about impulse buys so thats how i got my tank. Acrylic 3/8ths inch dual overflows 48x24x16H. when i started reefing originally, i started out with an sps tank, which did prety well until it reached seven million degrees last summer. Since then ive just gone with a very easy relaxed softy tank. But now i'm back to sps, most of my corals are @ my friends house. I had to sell one of my nicest micros to fund this silly tank=/.

Althought it was an acrylic tank, i decided to against the closed loop, so the system is actually pretty simple. Your standard one return + powerheads. I have 1 inch drains on the two overflows + a 3/4 inch return. I still dont have water in it yet, but i decided to aquascape anyways. I picked up a bunch of dead rock for a really really good price. No unwanted hitchhikers, no pest anemones, or algaes in my tank.

Next are going to be some plans for my tank. I am all about the over kill.

For flow i already have 2x1500 Seio's and the MAg 9.5 as a return. I want to EVENTUALLY (when i get money) get a tunze 6080 and a seio controller. I'm opting to go with a non controllable tunze, primarily becuase of monetary issues. The controlable ones just seem to be much more expensive, but i suppose the Seio controller.
Recap:
9.5 mag return
2x1500 seios
1x 6080 tunzestream
total- approx 6000 gph of flow --> apprx 75 x turnover rate.

On my first sps tank i had 2x175 m.h. lighting on my twenty long. For lighting, i wanted to go with teh best. I did some looking around, and decided that I wanted to go with a high wattage metal halide system so i could put in 20k bulbs, but not owrry about the par my corals were getting. 400 watts was the way to go. I looked around, and decided i wanted a bulb that would produce crazy colors. I pretty much decided on either 20k radiums or 12k reefluxs for my bulbs, bot bulbs ive heard great things about Ppossibly some time in the future I might test out the helios 20k's which ive heard mixed reviews for. All of these bulbs run really well on an HQI ballast, so thats how i chose between hqi/ps/electronic. I choose a blue-er bulb or one that will pop the colors out of my corals, becuase i plan on having zero actinic/blue/vho/t-5 supplimentation. I want my tank to be open top/no canopy so i can look directly down into the tank. For reflectors i decided to go w. the 19x19 LumenarcIII's, hung from..something. I will probably need a shelf that sticks out of hte wall to hang my lights from. I am still unsure of how far off the water i want to put my lights as well. I was t hinking mabye 12-18 inches. I already have my ballast and am going to order the reflectors/bulbs either this week or next.
Recap: lighting
2x400 HQI metal hallides
LumenarcIII reflectors
20kRadiums/ 12k Reeflux

Skimmer:
I just decided to get a big one. =). Euro-reef RC 250.
Recap: Skimmer--too big.

Reactors.
I really havent decided on reactors yet, as i problably wont need to get one until a few months from now. Because the tank is new, and my frags will be pretty small, i feel my calcium demands wont be too crazy. Till then i'm probablly going to go with the two part solutions. I'm still debating to go calcium reactor versus automatic dosers. Help here would be nice.

HEre are some crappy pictures. My water is so crystal clear its almost like i do not have any water in the tank. Aquascaping wise, i wanted to keep it to a minimum and have most of it go into my sump. I'm anti-rock walls. More room for corals to grow. Any suggestions/questions/advice/criticisms are welcome. Thanks.

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z67/chrisdaphish/IMGP3661.jpg
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z67/chrisdaphish/IMGP3658.jpg
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z67/chrisdaphish/IMGP3654.jpg
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z67/chrisdaphish/IMGP3653.jpg
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z67/chrisdaphish/IMGP3652.jpg

 

[chrisdaphish]

Sorry if that was hard to read or follow. Typos here and there i know. My excuse : It was late at night and that primer/pvc cement does wonders.

 

[morgan]

is that all the rock u will have? not bad if so sound like a good setup keep us posted

 

[Krish]

Looks like it will be a nice setup!

 

[Jobiwan]

800w MH over an 80 gal tank? Good luck with that, I'll be following this thread with interest. I've got a 60 gal frag tank with 1 400w, I have a fan on the lights timer blowing air on the tank surface, otherwise the tank would cook, I get at least 5% evap a day, you'll need some kind of ATO if you ever want to leave the house... You could blast your tank with just as much light and save a lot on excess heat and elec usage by positioning smaller HQI's closer to the water surface, with the footprint the lumenarcs put out 12-18" above your 16" wide tank tank most light production will be wasted...

 

[Reeferdude]

I think you'll like that tank. The dimensions are nearly identical to mine. Keep us posted...

 

[chrisdaphish]

Morgan, that is most of the rock i wll have in my tank.I plan on having clos to anetoher 40-50 lbs in my sump. I do not plan on running a refugium.

Jobiwan- I do already have an ATO from my previous tank, i didnt sell EVERYTHINg=). Depending on how the evaporation goes, i plan on having a 20 long or a 29gal as my freshwater resevoir. I Plan on having a couiple fans blowing across the top. The open top/no canopy should help me alot in keeping the temperature a little further down. As far as having light wasted or what not, i think that might partially be true. I wanted to keep the 12-18 inches off the water just so i can make sure the fans have enough room, and my head has enough room. w. the 400 watts i think the corals stil hsould get enough light. Because the tank is 24 front to back, i think i MIGHT be okay. If there is a little bit comning out hte side, i dont think i will mind TOO much. Because my stand is oversized, i was considering putting a small xenia tank on one side, and mabye some kind of potted flower/plant on the other, just to see how it woudl do. I know i could have gone w. 250hqi's, but wanted the 400's so i could run the radium/reeflux bulbs w.o any worries. I know its kinda of contradicting when i say that and when i say its okay if a little light escapes, but i feel that the intensity of hte lights IN the tank will be sufficient enouhg. If not i can just lower the reflector/pendants, but then i have ot owrrry even MORe about heat issues.

AT themoment i'm unsure if i will need a chiller for fall/winter/spring. I'm hoping to sneak by with fans. Later down the line closer towards march/april/maybei will probalbly be re evaluating getting a chiller when summer comes up. Right now i'm just hoping my fans will be sufficient.

 

[thekingfish]

I am not sure how long the Reeflux lasts but changing out the
Radiums every 6-8 months gets old even though they have such great color.
Can't wait till the tank is fully up and running.

 

[Jobiwan]

Hey Chris, I think you'll be fine with the fan for cooling, I'm able to keep right at 79 deg, the nice thing about the evap is that you can dose your tank with Ca++ with the RO water and maintain a relatively constant Ca++ level, I add reef advantage (seachem) to my makeup water, that might be all you need for a while instead of a reactor if you want that option, you do need to watch the carbonate hardness(alkalinity?), it will drop over time as you supplement with Ca++. I'm using the luminarc minis, they are 15" x 15", I think they might give you a slightly smaller footprint for the light output which might focus slightly more light in the tank, but I'm not sure, If you waded through Sanjay's stuff I think it's there someplace. You will have a coral growing machine...

 

[chrisdaphish]

That is the plan, coral growing machine. And yah, i am aware that the radiums run out after 5-6 months, i believe the reeflux are good until closer to 8-9months. boo new bulbs every so many months = alot. I shoudl just get the solaris system so i dont have to replace bulbs!... too bad im dead broke. But yah, the open top will hopefully hlelp alot. Hopefully i will get some new stuff to update later in the week/next week.

 

[thekingfish]

I 've seen people use XM 20k's after using Radiums and the color seemed pretty close.
And I can't remember exactly but they seemed to last much longer than the radiums.
And growth was pretty good.

Where did you get your rocks? Looks good.

 

[chrisdaphish]

I got my rock from someone in olympia, it was all dead rock but should be okay.

If i had tricked anyone, there is no water in my tank in the first few pictures=).

 

[Jobiwan]

I didn't realize the 24" was the width, I hope you are into clams, your tank would be perfect for those babies...

 

[Jim Hart]

I had the same tank and 1 400 watt mh I will never put mh's on a plex tank again. Nuf said.

well maybe not, My tank turned yellow and got real brittle, this spread through out the tank in time and ruined it.

 

[Jobiwan]

I've got 5 plex tanks, MH on all of them, the oldest tank is a 30 year old Tru Vue (my first salt tank...), as long as the lights are positioned over the portholes there is no problem, if you put them directly over and close to a cross brace or whatever the lights can really screw up the acrylic, lot of heat there and it is plastic after all, but for optimal lighting you want the light directly over open water anyway. People run into trouble when they are running one light and try to position it directly over the middle of a tank that has a center brace.

 

[chrisdaphish]

Yah, putting one large hallide over the eurobrace normally isnt the best....

As for my tank I have two fairly large openings on the top, which i will put the hallides over. The holes are approx 18x12 inch holes, which i really liked. Alot of acrylic tanks that ive seen tend to have small openings, but i liked these big ones where i could move around and work in teh tank w.o having to bend my arm like a monkey. Here are a couple pics of the openings on top. Again the foot print of the tank ix 48x24 inches=).
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z67/chrisdaphish/IMGP3673.jpg
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z67/chrisdaphish/IMGP3674.jpg

Also, my ballast finally arrived 2x400HQI from pfo lighting
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z67/chrisdaphish/IMGP3676.jpg

 

[Jim Hart]

yeap , thats what happened, 1 40 watt mh over the center brace.

 

[Jobiwan]

My learning experience happened when I tried using a piece of plexi to cover the porthole to cut down evap, now I understand why chillers are needed for some systems....

 

[chrisdaphish]

well its been about a month since ive updated, so here is a little. no picture this post tho.

Everything is plumbed, the skimmer (euroreef rc250) is set up, pretty much . I need to redo the return a little bit, just to make it safer. I picked up a ton of frags as well and they are doign well in the tank. The Bulbs are about 14-15 inches off the water, so they havent burned out any of the corals which was something i was worried about. Eventaully i will lower the bulbs closer to 8 -10 inches. The only other inhabitants besides my corals are a single emerald crab and a peppermint shrimp.

I decided to not go w. the tunze, and will probably go down the koralia route. Earlier in this thread i mentioned having 2x seio 1500's in the tank, + a mag 9.5 for the return. I went ahead and added a koralia 4 to the tank, and will probably addonemore in a week or two.

I also talked to someone here on RF to help me look for a generator/power outage things. We both quickly realized i didnt really have the money. Lucky for me he said he woudl be willing to help me out this winter if there was a power outage. he said he had a generator that shoudl beable to help meout, and that i coudl also put stuff in his tank. I'm really greatful for him and his generosity. It really shows what a great community this forum is, guys helping each other left and right.

The next things i have in store for my tank are the following
1. put the timers back onto the lights and hook up the autotop off. These seem like easy things to do, probably will take me 20 mintues max, but i have just been lazy the past few days. The timer will be as simple as digging thru my HUGe pile of mess. the past month or so i ahve been manually turning the lights on and off becuase 1. i could becuase of no school. 2. i wanted to limit how much light hte corals received initially tonot bleach themout. I still managed to lighten up a couple corals however. The autotopoff i took off my previous tank, and hvaent set it back up yet. I need a few new zipties and might give it a clean wash and trial run before i put it back in. Lately ive been just adding water to a certain line in my sump, trying to guess how much evap. i had. From my very lousy experiment,im guessing closer to 1.25 gallons - 1.75 gallons a day. It has been a steady one gallon, but with limited photoperiod. The heat suprisingly has not been that big of an issue. THe large fan aimed at a porthole of my tank has been doing the job, bouncing around near 79-81. In the winter, it hsould be even easier.

2. finish figuring out the calc/alk demands. ive been testing , but the reults seem inconclusive. I'm guessing the consumption of the cal/alk isnot too great yet. for the next, half year maybe or however long, i will probaly be looking at either twopartsolution.com or seachem products for dosing my tank. Eventually i want to get reactor(s), but the inital cost is too much and becuase my tank is in a younger stage, i wont have to put in a significant amount of additives.

3. probably get soemthing esle for flow. I want to pick up another koralia 4, jsut becuase the energy they use and the flow/$ is pretty nice. EArlier i had plans for setting up some carlson surge device, just becuase its cool. But i'mnot sure if i actulaly want to go through with that idea. The main problem for me is that it would look real goofy.

4. Getsome more stuff! word on the street says a fish store is having a sale this coming weekend.*starts counting coins* i'm looking to add soem chromis, maybe a cbb or emperorangel t his weeked. Also going to get soem snails/hermits and maybe anotehr emerlad crab or two. and maybe some corals!. Hopefully the bioload increase wont be too fast since i have nothing really in my tank and havent been feeding much. I'll just have to watch the tank.

5. Have everthing grow fast. GG.

anyways I am off to bed now. FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL IS TOMORROW. /BARF

 

[chrisdaphish]

Alright. its been a while since ive updated

pretty much the tank has gone like this. Started up last year, got stuff. nothing was doing well at all. i think it was my tank being a little too new/unestablished. Then my RO/DI broke, and it took forever for me to just get a new one, during that time water changes ceased to exist. Then i had red bugs and monti eating nudis. the red bugs just limited the grown on every coral i had, turned alll of them brown. It just wasnt pretty. I treated that w. interceptor, only one (over)dose, and everything seems to have turned out okay. Then i got monti eating nudis. my sunset monti hit it hard. it couldnt have been more than 10 pollyps that survived. I'm not sure if i fully kileld htem all, but i put all my montis except one or two into a ten gal qt tank, i got a yellow coris wrasse to help, i dont know if it actually ate any or not but ohwell. The fish + a lot of TMPCC dips later, all the nudis i THINK are gone. so i put the montis back into my show tank and now they look alright. through all of this, i was really having troulbes getting my ALK up. IT was constantly low and it really reflected on the coral color and growth. I prety much go zero growth my first... 6 months or so of this tank. IT was so sad, you have no idea. alot of my acros also rtned which was pathetic.My skimmer pump seems to have taken a little damage... the impeller looks like it got sctrached/scored/something/ as did chamber in which it sits. I'm still running it though, but sometimes it doesnt restart well. Ill have to eventually fix that. i think.bah. I finally started to use the POWDER form of seachem's alk product and now everythign looks okay. i also use the seachem reef builder and kent's techm.


Anwyays now everythign looks okay. here are some pictures(int he next post) of some stuffs in my tank. Its hard to get pictures of things that are not less than 5 inches from the glass(acrylic). so most of the pictures are of my lps/zoa rather than sps, eventhough i set up this tank becuase i really like sps. but wahtever here goes nothing. comments questions feedback is welcome.