Hi guys, first thing is I wanted to say hi and thanks for all the help. I've found alot of answers here just searching thru the posts and eveyone seems to be nice here.
My story,
I had a primarly fish tank up until last summer when my hitchhiker urchin from my first live rock finally died. That tank had been up since the late 80's and only moved once. After the urchin died, for some reason I felt obligated to keep the tank up with him in there, I took the tank down cleaned the rock up and stored it away not planning on putting the tank back up untill I built a new house and installed a built in.
Anyhoo I have the bug again sooner than I expected and and went thru my old practices put in aragonite bed not so LFS was out of select grade and told me the flamingo was the same with pink highlights so I got it. Put new balls in the wet dry, semi cleaned up the old skimmer it's real tall, skinny with an airstone in the bottom. HOT overflow with cracking u tube. Aquaclear HOT sponge and carbon filter. I got water in the tank remembered that the bulbs were very old and I should buy new ones and it occured to me that maybe I should do some research since I hadn't read a reef book, looked on the web or anything in at least the past decade. So here I am and more excited everytime I read more.
My current setup,
75g Oceanic and stand
48" 4 bulb VHO light unit
Wet/dry sump
calcium doser
out of date skimmer
My plans are for a reef tank starting with some lps moving on to some sps in a year or so. I absolutely love the idea of people fragging and propagating corals outside of the ocean. As much as possible this tank will have nothing new directly from the ocean.
Now on to my questions
1. First can I drill the back glass of the Oceanic tank. I'd love to get rid of the over flow contraption.
2. Substrate, Is the caribsea flamingo reef grade aragonite to large for the sand bed. I can ditch the entire bed and start with straight sand or I could add sand grade into the existing aragonite. Only difference I could come up for doing so would be surface area for bacteria. I have always preferred a bed with usually sleeper gobies to sift it. I'd like to have a bed that would be best for the corals.
3. Lighting What I plan to do here is add 2 250watt MH in between 3 of the VHO bulbs. At the moment I'm planning on placing a refugium behind the entire length of the tank with the 4th VHO bulb placed over it. MH is new for me with aquariums, with the VHO's I think I can get as much blue color as i need with actinics. What would you guys suggest using temperature wise on the MH bulbs 6.5k-14k I'm leaning towards 10k my understanding is the higher temps are just for asthetics of the blue coloring while 6.5k might be a bit yellow. Finally is 2 actinics and one sun ok for the VHO's over the tank and a sun,50/50,actinic over the refugium?
4. Refugium these are new to me as well, I was thinking algae scrubber when I first saw a reference and you can't search here by just title so I gave up quick as refugium comes up in nearly every topic. Plan is to custom build one behind the tank 6" thick and as wide and hanging down as far as possible. First chamber fed from skimmer over live rock rubble into a second chamber of macro algae and little critters over a sand bed into what I guess is a settling chamber that overflows into the tank. Question here is does it have to over flow into the tank, so that the little critters can transfer into it or do they move to the tank on their own.
5. Wet/Dry ditch the balls replace with LR do I still suspend the LR and trickle over it as this will be the sump and subject to all the level changes?
6. Skimmer pretty much decided on the ASM skimmer I would however like to keep the pump out of the sump if possible. Is this an option with these skimmers or do they generate so little heat it doesn't matter. Heat is the only concern here for me keeping it out of the sump.
7. Calcium Reactor Anything wrong using a calcium reactor on a Reef system. My doser is a pain but I think could be modified into a reactor pretty easy after looking at the DIY stuff.
8. Closed Loop Circulation This I like alot I had several powerheads(WIRES) in my tank, I had several ideas on the plumbing then saw the rotating returns, then the vortechs. Is variable/random direction that big of a benefit? I always fed the water from the top and had the intakes down low so the water rolled onto the rock structure itself somewhat. But the only corals I ever had were a hammer head, some mushrooms and button polyps and they did fine.
That should get me into enough trouble for now. Thanks in advance
My story,
I had a primarly fish tank up until last summer when my hitchhiker urchin from my first live rock finally died. That tank had been up since the late 80's and only moved once. After the urchin died, for some reason I felt obligated to keep the tank up with him in there, I took the tank down cleaned the rock up and stored it away not planning on putting the tank back up untill I built a new house and installed a built in.
Anyhoo I have the bug again sooner than I expected and and went thru my old practices put in aragonite bed not so LFS was out of select grade and told me the flamingo was the same with pink highlights so I got it. Put new balls in the wet dry, semi cleaned up the old skimmer it's real tall, skinny with an airstone in the bottom. HOT overflow with cracking u tube. Aquaclear HOT sponge and carbon filter. I got water in the tank remembered that the bulbs were very old and I should buy new ones and it occured to me that maybe I should do some research since I hadn't read a reef book, looked on the web or anything in at least the past decade. So here I am and more excited everytime I read more.
My current setup,
75g Oceanic and stand
48" 4 bulb VHO light unit
Wet/dry sump
calcium doser
out of date skimmer
My plans are for a reef tank starting with some lps moving on to some sps in a year or so. I absolutely love the idea of people fragging and propagating corals outside of the ocean. As much as possible this tank will have nothing new directly from the ocean.
Now on to my questions
1. First can I drill the back glass of the Oceanic tank. I'd love to get rid of the over flow contraption.
2. Substrate, Is the caribsea flamingo reef grade aragonite to large for the sand bed. I can ditch the entire bed and start with straight sand or I could add sand grade into the existing aragonite. Only difference I could come up for doing so would be surface area for bacteria. I have always preferred a bed with usually sleeper gobies to sift it. I'd like to have a bed that would be best for the corals.
3. Lighting What I plan to do here is add 2 250watt MH in between 3 of the VHO bulbs. At the moment I'm planning on placing a refugium behind the entire length of the tank with the 4th VHO bulb placed over it. MH is new for me with aquariums, with the VHO's I think I can get as much blue color as i need with actinics. What would you guys suggest using temperature wise on the MH bulbs 6.5k-14k I'm leaning towards 10k my understanding is the higher temps are just for asthetics of the blue coloring while 6.5k might be a bit yellow. Finally is 2 actinics and one sun ok for the VHO's over the tank and a sun,50/50,actinic over the refugium?
4. Refugium these are new to me as well, I was thinking algae scrubber when I first saw a reference and you can't search here by just title so I gave up quick as refugium comes up in nearly every topic. Plan is to custom build one behind the tank 6" thick and as wide and hanging down as far as possible. First chamber fed from skimmer over live rock rubble into a second chamber of macro algae and little critters over a sand bed into what I guess is a settling chamber that overflows into the tank. Question here is does it have to over flow into the tank, so that the little critters can transfer into it or do they move to the tank on their own.
5. Wet/Dry ditch the balls replace with LR do I still suspend the LR and trickle over it as this will be the sump and subject to all the level changes?
6. Skimmer pretty much decided on the ASM skimmer I would however like to keep the pump out of the sump if possible. Is this an option with these skimmers or do they generate so little heat it doesn't matter. Heat is the only concern here for me keeping it out of the sump.
7. Calcium Reactor Anything wrong using a calcium reactor on a Reef system. My doser is a pain but I think could be modified into a reactor pretty easy after looking at the DIY stuff.
8. Closed Loop Circulation This I like alot I had several powerheads(WIRES) in my tank, I had several ideas on the plumbing then saw the rotating returns, then the vortechs. Is variable/random direction that big of a benefit? I always fed the water from the top and had the intakes down low so the water rolled onto the rock structure itself somewhat. But the only corals I ever had were a hammer head, some mushrooms and button polyps and they did fine.
That should get me into enough trouble for now. Thanks in advance
