Planning my 120G bare bottem tank.

H20cooled · 03-07-2006, 01:00 AM

I'm currently planning for my 120G tank upgrade, my current tank is a 50G with a small sand bed. For the 120 I will definantly go bare bottom with starboard. I just wanted to get some feedback on my plan, so here it is.

Tank: 120G 4'x2'x2' Custom Glass tank (from either Aquarium Obsessed or Miracles in Glass). Drilled for 2x 1 1/2" over flows and 2x 3/4" returns. Eurobracing and blue background.

Circulation: 2x Tunze 6100 Stream pumps with a 7095 multicontroller (already own this)

Sump: ? Not sure on the size.

Return pump: Poseidon T4 (current closed loop pump) connected to 2 1/2" sea swirls in the back corners.

Lighting: 8x 54w T5 bulbs overdriven with Icecap 660 ballasts and Icecap SLR reflectors. (got the ballast need the rest).

Skimmer: My DIY dual Sedra 5k recirulation skimmer (will easily skim 300 gallons).

Media: 1x 2 little fishies phosban reactor running activated carbon.

Controller: Neptune Aquacontroller JR or 3 (I own the JR but I would like to get the 3 for the other items.)

Calcium: DIY calcium reactor with controller.

Top off: Kalk water top using gravity and float valve (currently on my tank and it works awesome.)

Cooling: Sump fan, canopy fan and PCI chiller. (already own all).

Heating: Titanium 300w.

Backup: UPS on 1 of the Tunze streams.

I'm sure there is more I just can't think of it now.

The tank will be primarly SPS and LPS. My current tank is 2x 250w DE mh with 4x T5, after a lot of thinking and research I decided to go with a T5 only lighting setup. I think my corals will do really good with this, but only time will tell.

As for cooking my rocks, I would love to but they are absolutly covered with SPS (part of the reason for the upgrade is I'm out of room) and I would rather not kill them with this process. I know that I will have to manually remove the detrius from the sump and tank for a while but I can handle that. All of the rock will be elevated off of the bottom either with rock or something else.

So how does this sound?

Thanx,

Rich

ski1297 · 03-07-2006, 04:40 PM

Sounds good to me. A lot of poeple go with MH for sps tanks. But it will be cool to see how they will do with only t5. The t5 should help to keep the temp down. You might not need the PCI chiller.

H20cooled · 03-07-2006, 04:45 PM

Yeah I currently have MH's over my 50G SPS tank, but I want to try something different and see if I can improve the color even more. The chiller will still be nice for the hot summer.

REEF-DADDY · 03-08-2006, 10:21 AM

I think you have a good handle on things. I would do a 30 gallon ish sump. Do a search for Eductors, I would go with a pressure rated pump and 2 eductors for your CL.

H20cooled · 03-08-2006, 10:26 AM

I'm actually not going to do a closed loop, that the reason I went with the 2x 6100 tunzes. I didn't want to add the heat, maintence, and failure points to my new tank. The tunzes are over 3000 gph each and my return pump will end up around 1000 gph so that is around 60x water turn over in the tank. Which should be enough...

REEF-DADDY · 03-08-2006, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by H20cooled

I'm actually not going to do a closed loop, that the reason I went with the 2x 6100 tunzes. I didn't want to add the heat, maintence, and failure points to my new tank. The tunzes are over 3000 gph each and my return pump will end up around 1000 gph so that is around 60x water turn over in the tank. Which should be enough...

Oh I read current closed loop pump and went off on a tangent.

61x is the minimum for SPS to live!

H20cooled · 03-08-2006, 11:18 AM

LOL, yeah flow is a weird thing. I think to many people get hung up on the number and not the dispersion (sp?) of the flow. In my 50G tank I have only 33x the turn over, but it is all directed at the corals from the 2 1/2" sea swirls. All of the SPS do great and I think it is actually to much for some of them.

My plan with the tunzes is to set them so that the flow goes one direction for a while and then reverses all of this with the 2 sea swirls should give a very random flow.

Rich

Nyles · 03-11-2006, 12:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by H20cooled

Lighting: 8x 54w T5 bulbs overdriven with Icecap 660 ballasts and Icecap SLR reflectors. (got the ballast need the rest).

Is this enough for your SPS? I am a rookie and I am searching for lights and 120 gallons thats about 3.6 watts per gallon. If your sure this will do it let me know, it will have a great influence on my purchase of a retro hood with t5's

H20cooled · 03-11-2006, 02:18 AM

I very sure that that amount of light would be fine for an SPS tank, thats what I have (an SPS tank) and I would never consider switching if I wasn't sure. That said if you want proof check out this system. Only T5 and it has some of the most amazing coloring I have ever seen, now there are a lot more factors then lighting for good coloration but this just goes to show you that T5 does work very well.

Rich