[Guest]

I am about to make a decision on a 900 gallon tank.

My concerns are on lighting it and plumbing it.

It is 10'L 4'W 3'H

Lighting is my real big concern. 15 400w MH would do nicely. But I do not exist for the sole purpose of making the power company richer. I have mostly softies and a few LPS. I currently run 4 6' VHO over a 125 with great success. I completely understand lighting concepts up to where some people start crowding 15-20 watts per gallon over their tank.

So any ideas for a nice balanced light setup would be appreciated.

On circulation. One large pump, or cycle a couple smaller ones?

These things are easy to grasp up to about the 240 gallon mark, then they seem to get complicated.

Thanks all

 

[speedstar]

JMO i wouldn;t go deeper than 30.

It's hard working that deep.

 

[Mike]

I am planning on a larger set up when we move. I agree that 30 inches and beyond is a hard depth to work with.

I have thought of keeping mine at even 20 inches and using 175 watt mh.

6000 watts an hour for 15 400 watt MH is gonna be super expensive. 72K watts a day if you run them for 12 hours!

 

[sean]

I vote on 30inches in depth too. Dont you think 15 400's would be a overkill? Since its a 10ft tank that 5 halides, and since it would go 4ft back, I would just double the number. I think 10 would do the trick just fine. I usually go by the rule of thumb, 1 halide for every 2 by 2 space.

So what are your plans for this tank, coral wise? Do you want to keep any sps or clams?

 

[Guest]

That is why i want to avoid too many halides if I can help it.

And I do wish it was not quite so deep, but beggars can't be choosers.

 

[Guest]

I would like some clams. I figure I can run some 400 watters in the front, and stagger it back to 250's, then my VHO in the very back where lighting to livestock distance would be the least.

 

[sean]

I see, i thought you were going to have this tank made. But i guess you dont have a choice. Even though its 3ft tall i would still just go with 10 400's, now if you plan on just softies, and lps's you could get away with 250de's that would knock your electric bill down very greatly.

For a return pump or pumps, maybe something around 4500-6000gph. Maybe a large model ampmaster, or two of the 3000's. For ph's, probably tunze streams. Because there really no other ph, that pumps out as much as they do. Or you could just do a couple large closed loops. Either way, since this is such a large volume of water. Your probably going to have to spend a lot on flow, or else there will be a lot of dead spots in the tank.

Liverock is probably going to be another huge cost unless you planning on doing some with concrete.. Or a lot of pvc hill's.

You will also probably end up a dropping another thousand, to get a skimmer, that is suitable for this sized tank.

Unless you are loaded, I would suggest taking another baby step in upsizing. Because this may end up costing you over 30k by the time your done.

 

[Guest]

The LR is something I have been thinking about too. I do have about 300 ponds at the moment. I figure I can boost this up a bit with about a 100 pounds of some good hand picked reef bones.

Then I was also joking with the missus the other night. I told her the tank was so big that I could put a row of concrete bloks on the bottom. With the holes, they would make a great base. Then it kind of slipped in my mind from the joke category, to the it may have some merit category.

Oh, and I was so concerned about lighting and circulation, I forgot to mention. The tank comes with a 6' tall skimmer, and 6' tall FSB. Both made out of 20" clear acrylic. I am not sure if I will use the FSB, so I may be able to sell it and defray some costs.

I'll look into the Tunzes for sure.

Thanks sean

 

[jblabs]

Sounds cool Sean, but take it from someone who has a 36" deep tank- you will tire of it.

Something in the back of my mind says that concrete blocks leach something bad into the water but the idea has merit in that there are several cheap options to build the base out of aside from $5 a pound live rock.

I had built a base out of pvc that allowed easy cave making etc, but in the end I purchased cheap dead base rock and built with it.

 

[John Brancheau]

Just my thoughts here..........

It will all be in the aquascaping, personally I think 6 of the new 400 watt DE's will work quite nicely, if you set the rockwork so that there are open spaces in the front and back of the rock, it will have a really cool rock pile with a place for corals and then sort of darken up as you look towards the back......

Get ahold of Krusk, he will hook you up if you decide to get this tank.........

 

[Newts]

Mustang was using cement blocks as a base for his Live Rock. Check with him if he is still using them.

 

[Mustang]

With a tank that big this is what I would do
Have separate reefs Similar to mine you might be able to do 3 in a 10'. Mine is 8" and I have 2

With 36" deep I would consider using 1000w. If you have the room you can mount them higher and get a great spread with still allot of light

A buddy of mine Jnasty had Vats similar in size the were 4x8 or 10 he got by with 2 1000w lights with yours I think you could do 3 and be real happy

Any sps could be place closer to the center with lps and softies further away

The cement blocks work GREAT! They are open hold the rock work steady and create great caves

Take a look at my website www.kensreef.homestead.com I have lots of pics of the construction. And if you want to just talk some time let me know I did ALOT of planning for mine and could share some of the good and bad that I ran into

Jims Vats

Older pic but gives you the idea of multiple reefs

 

[Specialk]

I think 6 400w over the tank would work fine. A far as LR you could buy base rock and seed it with the LR you already have, I found some nice base rock for 1.49 lb in howell. There is alway MR selling LR in here.
For pumps you may want to look at the tunzes for flow inside or start thinking about closed loops.
3' is tall but if you are planning a dsb in the tank and some long heavy duty tongs you could make it work.

Kaye

 

[PaintGuru]

I would probably do a mixture of MH wattages....there is no rule saying you need to run them all at the same wattage. Many people (including myself) are using much less light now with continue success. I think there was an article in one of the online reef magazines where it was shown that much less light is needed to maximize zooan. activity then by using a 400W MH for 10 hours. I'd be tempted to run 5-400 W MHs (mainly because of the depth, if you reduce that depth you may be able to go with 250s) for 8-10 hours/day, and then maybe buy a few 1000W MHs and use them for 2-3 hours.

 

[locdawgmsu]

No love for 250 HQI??? With the right pendants, these could probably get some very good par ratings at that depth... sanjay joshi has the par maps on his site at u of penn i believe it was.

 

[Russ K]

so was this the tank on ebay? If so did you get it or did someone else?

 

[reefwonders]

It was on ebay. Whoever won it got a nice setup. If I could have fit it thru any of my doors I would have got it. Also would need help from about 6 fellow reefers . That tank was made out of 1" acrylic,had a 7' sump,6'x20" skimmer and fluidized bed. All and all an excellent find.

 

[downat420]

I think that you have to cure the cement blocks for a while before you can use them. I made a lot of rocks for my tank, and I cured them for 2 months. I dont know exactly what leeches out but I dont think its good.