Final Questions.

[James B]

right after alot of good luck i have been handed a stand and am going to be having a custom tank made within the next few weeks. then its play time
my questions now are the tanks going to be 36" long 24" tall and 18" back anyone know what thats going to be in gallons?
next the sumps mesuring 16"x14"x15" and will be 3 compartments does this sound ok?
also a wier will be installed into the tank. what sort of size hole should i have drilled into the tank and out (in the wier) what powerheads and how and and where should they be placed?
what return pump should i have? what lights should i have as a start up? how much lr should i buy?
and whats best other than a clean up crew as first additons and what should me clean up crew need in it? thanks James

 

[James B]

anyone? kinda need help now as im planning on ordering this within a couple of weeks thanks james.

 

[SkiFletch]

B)-->QUOTE(James B @ Aug 30 2006, 02:06 PM) [snapback]1294213[/snapback]

right after alot of good luck i have been handed a stand and am going to be having a custom tank made within the next few weeks. then its play time
my questions now are the tanks going to be 36" long 24" tall and 18" back anyone know what thats going to be in gallons?
next the sumps mesuring 16"x14"x15" and will be 3 compartments does this sound ok?
also a wier will be installed into the tank. what sort of size hole should i have drilled into the tank and out (in the wier) what powerheads and how and and where should they be placed?
what return pump should i have? what lights should i have as a start up? how much lr should i buy?
and whats best other than a clean up crew as first additons and what should me clean up crew need in it? thanks James
[/quote]

Heh, lots of questions, ok here goes. a 36x18x24 is a standard 65US gallon and pretty common in my neck of the woods. I'm gonna make some reccomendations on a full-blown reef setup here, if you want fish only, lots of things change.

-I'd go with a minimum of a 3/4" bulkhead fitting for the weir, maybe even a 1"
-A return pump should be about a mag 9 or equivalent
-Powerheads should probably be a pair of Tunze's if you can afford them, if not, two Seios
-Powerheads should be placed so that they point at each other and create turbulent flow through out the tank. This varies on everyone's setup due to rockwork, overflows/weirs, and other limitations. 2 rules of thumb are try not to point them at the sand and dont set them up to create a cyclone in your water.
-Lights is complicated on this tank. Does it have a center brace of dark plastic? If it does, are you capable of replacing it with glass? A glass center brace would allow you to use a single 175 or 250watt metal halide fixture over the center and perhaps a couple T5 tubes for actinic supplimentation. I've also seen people run merely 6 T5 tubes (no metal halide). This becomes very expensive come bulb-change time and within 1-2 years (depending on electrical costs) the metal halide lamp will actually be cheaper to operate. If you ONLY want to keep softies, you could get away with T8 tubes, but even LPS probably would have difficult on T8's only in such a deep tank
-65-75lbs of LR
-Cleanup crew should be ultimately 1/gallon but you can build it up over time. I perfer a snail-dominated crew with a couple scarlet hermits and maybe some other unique additions. I will never again put either bluelegs or other "common" hermits in my tank. Way to aggresive and boisterous. My snails of choice are cerith, nassarius, and trochus. Astreas flip over, cant right themselves and die, while turbos succumb to high summer temps in my experience.
-As for the sump, thats a little small to be dividing into 3 chambers. My sump is 30" long underneath my 36" tank and I wish it could be longer...

 

[James B]

thanks mate now lets go shopping

 

[SkiFletch]

Lol, np. dont forget online and ebay

 

[James B]

browsing ebay for the tunze's now

do they need to be connected to a wave maker?

 

[James B]

last one lol
http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/Seio-m1100-super-flo...1QQcmdZViewItem would a pair of these work or should they be a little less powerfull.

 

[N1z]

yer they are very good pumps i have 3 m620s, wish i had higher ones but they are good, but dont have a wavemaker unless u can fork out for their new product where it doesnt damage the pump when lowering it. i think u can pre order them on a ebay shp called supreme reefs.

 

[SkiFletch]

A pair of those would be crazy try to get around to two powerheads totalling 20x tank volume (1300gph or 2 600's). 2 of those quoted seios plus a sump would be around 40x tank volume for flow. Great for a pure hard to keep sps tank, but tough for mixed or easier tanks.

 

[James B]

2 600's it is lol so painfully obvious im a newbie lol

 

[James B]

would 2 seio 620's be ok

 

[SkiFletch]

They would be perfect and in fact ideal

 

[James B]

order them i shall lol now wheres that paycheck

 

[Matthew5664]

We want pictures We want pictures.!!!!

 

[James B]

no tank yet its bieng specially made should be here in a few weeks but un till then im just buying bits cant really start untill i move wich shouldnt be long