Filtering A 240 Gallon Saltwater Tank

[Ter]

haha looking at a picture the Tunze Stream 6300 looks like a death trap for small critters! and all that from one jet? I donno im a newbie I guess.. but a closed loop system seems like a strong plus... if your gonna start something that large and put that kind of money into it... why go half best? I don't get it... I guess it can be done... but 2 what end?

I also see a lot of people talking about Watts per hour... Maybe its because i live in north america but electricity isnt a main factor in my system and far from it. Electricity is cheap here compared 2 most places on this interesting planet!

So i figure 2 each our own
but if ur gonna go big stay big
TER

 

[SkiFletch]

Amen to that Ter, I guess I dont really worry all that much about electricity over here where its a mere $0.07/kilowatt hour (thank you Niagara Falls).

I'll agree that Tunze's are exceptionally efficient powerheads and great pieces of engineering and pretty much the best dollar for dollar powerhead. But had I to do my system all over again, I'd use a closed loop in a heartbeat mostly because I dont want the fact that I have powerheads limit my stocking choices and creating tons of maintenance for me to keep those powerhead inlets covered. Having my sea hare has been a pain with powerheads in the tank since I need to have inlet foam on them and clean that foam all the time. Also I wouldnt dare keep an anemone in a tank with powerheads (covered or not) despite how much I'd like to keep one...

There's plusses and minuses to all the choices

 

[andywg]

If you look at the inlets of the Stream models:

You can see they are a number of slits on the side which would be very difficult for anythign to get into. If anything could get sucked into that they would get sucked into the opening of a closed loop system as well (which would at best have a tube with holes or slits cut in it).

I have never heard of anyone having a problem with a nem in a tank with Tunzes, though the relatively few people who keep them means that any such stories will be quite few and far between. I fail to see how the inlet to a closed loop system would be more safe from a nem or critter than the slitted entry to the Tunze (which is very similar to the idea behind the DIY powerhead guard Nav uses in his tank).

While electricity costs may not be too great, you also have replacement costs. I am using Tunze powerheads with "Made in West Germany" written on them. The Berlin wall came down in 1989 making them in the region of 17 years old and still working fine. I doubt many other makes of powerhead will survive this long.

If you really wanted the best on a 240 I would probably go for a couple of Tunze 6100 together with a Tunze Wavebox to get some very good simulation of the ocean currents and waves breaking across the reef. I would connect this up to the fancy 7095 multicontroller which allows for less movement at feeding and lowers the current at night (by having a sensor which detects when the tank lights are off and even has an LED to simulate phases of the moon).

To top off I would utilise one of the Tunze skimmers as a member of staff at an lfs has one and he said it knocks spots off of even his Deltec skimmers.

 

[SkiFletch]

You might be right Andy, those are a lot of slits, but if something like a sea hare crawls over half of it like mine did my home made maxijet strainer (similar to the tunze), its soft body can still get stuck in there (my poor guy did )

And when I think of closed loops, I think of closed loops driven via internal overflow boxes, thus eliminating the sucking force at any inlet . It gets a lot trickier to design, but is probably the most invert-safe solution in my book

 

[sparklefuzz]

You might be right Andy, those are a lot of slits, but if something like a sea hare crawls over half of it like mine did my home made maxijet strainer (similar to the tunze), its soft body can still get stuck in there (my poor guy did )

And when I think of closed loops, I think of closed loops driven via internal overflow boxes, thus eliminating the sucking force at any inlet . It gets a lot trickier to design, but is probably the most invert-safe solution in my book

I know newbies are advised to go "bigger the better" but am I the only one who thinks that 240g as a first tank is a little too much of a huge undertaking??

 

[SkiFletch]

Heh, 240 is a really big first tank. You get the bigtime benefit of stocking a lot of different things and the real benefit of having very stable chemistry to start. Bad thing is hardware is a little expensive and tough to wrap your brain around at first . Ideal noobie tanks in my book are the 50 breeder, 65g, 75g, and 90g tanks (and any of their bowfront coutnerparts). A 55 or 45 is ok as well but the thin front-back dimension makes them complicated to stack rock and fit hardware underneath.

 

[Lynden]

Heh, 240 is a really big first tank. You get the bigtime benefit of stocking a lot of different things and the real benefit of having very stable chemistry to start. Bad thing is hardware is a little expensive and tough to wrap your brain around at first . Ideal noobie tanks in my book are the 50 breeder, 65g, 75g, and 90g tanks (and any of their bowfront coutnerparts). A 55 or 45 is ok as well but the thin front-back dimension makes them complicated to stack rock and fit hardware underneath.

I agree. I would have never have bought my 55 if I knew that it was going to be so tiny and difficult to work with.

But now I'm saving up for an 8 footer, so who cares?! I'm gonna need every inch for my baby giant Triggers...

-Lynden

 

[littleimp]

Ahem!!

If you want to run this as a fish only set-up you could use 2 large canister filters (fx-5's or similer) to run this tank. Marine keepers have been doing this for yonks. It's only in recent years that the berlin method of live rock & flow has become the norm & popular. The berlin method has allowed more & more people to keep a reef tank, that's the difference. High nitrates are toxic to corals but many fish can be kept like this as some of the older 'reefers' will testify.

 

[Mr Miagi]

Littleimp, note:

I think I'm going to start with a FOWLR setup then slowly go up to a reef tank.

Ahem!!

If you want to run this as a fish only set-up you could use 2 large canister filters (fx-5's or similer) to run this tank. Marine keepers have been doing this for yonks. It's only in recent years that the berlin method of live rock & flow has become the norm & popular. The berlin method has allowed more & more people to keep a reef tank, that's the difference. High nitrates are toxic to corals but many fish can be kept like this as some of the older 'reefers' will testify.

Littleimp, fish-r-fancy plans to set-up a reef, after going FOWLR. Trust me, when you start FOWLR, and get to know how the hype of SW being so much more difficult than FW is a load of rubbish, you soon want to start adding corals when you improve lighting.

Why start with 2 large expensive cannisters when all you need is LR and powerheads to accomplish filtration? LR and your powerheads can be used later in a reef situation. Cannisters should be stripped off once you start a reef. You could use a smaller eheim cannister to run rowaphose and carbon, but two FX-5's are way too big, so it would be an initial waste of money, for something that you going to remove later. They'd also consume masses of cupboard space, so youd miss out on a certainextra volume added by the way of a sump or refugium.

Your fish/LR need flow, even if you went FOWLR. With two FX-5's your looking at 4.18x turnover for total tank volume, where as compare two Tunze 6100 Turbelles and your looking at 21.8 times turnover, which is alot better.

It doesnt take an old 'reefer' to tell you fish survive nitrate, fish do, its just not the best possible condition you can have your tank in. The term 'reefer' implies they kept a reef in high nitrate, but many of the older folks couldnt keep coral alive, and they didnt keep reefs, they kept fish.

The berlin method is now the norm and popular because it offers many more advantages, and is genuinly considered superior to cannisters/mechanical filtration.

If it were me, Id go LR with powerheads, that way I wouldnt have to buy cannisters and stop using them when I went reef. All id have to buy is better lights and im away. If you want FOWLR, you dont need a cannister either (because of the LR), but fish can survive certain levels of nitrate.