75G SPS tank diary
- Thread starter maxalmon
- Start date
maxalmon
Active Member
I have no problems with the Coralife skimmers, they work and work very well. I can't see spending twice or three times the amount for a skimmer that would produce the same results. All my tanks thrive and these skimmers produce an amazing amount of gunk or whatever the technical term is, either wet or dry skimming. I would rather spend the money on lighting, LR and livestock, kinda falls back on my $84 frag tank post from several months ago. This seems to be somewhat of a "snob" hobby where people are driven by the best, latest, most expensive etc... I opted to downgrade the Neptune system for the JR simply because it was suited for my needs, skipped the Ego driven urge to purchase the Tunze and opted for the Seio PH's and controller, just making an informed decision on performance of these two brands, I saved about $500. That amount of saved cash is going to pay for some seriously sweet micromussas or monti caps or better yet a chalice that I've been dreaming about.
maxalmon
Active Member
Originally Posted by ScubaGuy
Ok, since I see you live in Las Vegas but still have to ask. How often do you use the fire place? I figure since it is that close to your tank wouldn't the heat go through the wall and heat up the tank. Nice looking system though.
Vegas is HOT during the summer and COLD during the winter, and I mean COLD, my pool temp is at 41 right now and has been for several weeks, hell it even snowed a couple of times, serious!. There is no chance of heat being an issue, overkill on chiller and walls are well insulated, controller will shut down lights if heat get out of hand.
Ok, since I see you live in Las Vegas but still have to ask. How often do you use the fire place? I figure since it is that close to your tank wouldn't the heat go through the wall and heat up the tank. Nice looking system though.
Vegas is HOT during the summer and COLD during the winter, and I mean COLD, my pool temp is at 41 right now and has been for several weeks, hell it even snowed a couple of times, serious!. There is no chance of heat being an issue, overkill on chiller and walls are well insulated, controller will shut down lights if heat get out of hand.
kpk
Active Member
Tanks looking good maxalmon. May I make a suggestion? I think with 2x250's paired with 12k reeflux bulbs will give you optimal growth and color up. If you just run 10k I don't think you will be happy with the colors. Most of the colors will stay darkish nothing really flourescent. Just a thought. In my 75g I run 2x250's 20k, and 2 110w vhos, I love the blue look, the halides are on hqi ballast so don't look as blue as most 20ks. Also I think 3 bulbs is really uneeded and a waste of money, not only that, but will heat the tank up really hot! JMO of course!
maxalmon
Active Member
Originally Posted by kpk
Tanks looking good maxalmon. May I make a suggestion? I think with 2x250's paired with 12k reeflux bulbs will give you optimal growth and color up. If you just run 10k I don't think you will be happy with the colors. Most of the colors will stay darkish nothing really flourescent. Just a thought. In my 75g I run 2x250's 20k, and 2 110w vhos, I love the blue look, the halides are on hqi ballast so don't look as blue as most 20ks. Also I think 3 bulbs is really uneeded and a waste of money, not only that, but will heat the tank up really hot! JMO of course!
Experience and comments from others is always welcomed
lighting is an area that I'm really lacking in!
I think I'm going to keep this simple and go with the retrofit 2x250 HQI, not sure what k rating pared with 2x65 actinic or VHO's Any ideas on a brand?
Tanks looking good maxalmon. May I make a suggestion? I think with 2x250's paired with 12k reeflux bulbs will give you optimal growth and color up. If you just run 10k I don't think you will be happy with the colors. Most of the colors will stay darkish nothing really flourescent. Just a thought. In my 75g I run 2x250's 20k, and 2 110w vhos, I love the blue look, the halides are on hqi ballast so don't look as blue as most 20ks. Also I think 3 bulbs is really uneeded and a waste of money, not only that, but will heat the tank up really hot! JMO of course!
Experience and comments from others is always welcomed
lighting is an area that I'm really lacking in!
I think I'm going to keep this simple and go with the retrofit 2x250 HQI, not sure what k rating pared with 2x65 actinic or VHO's Any ideas on a brand?
kpk
Active Member
I personally like 20k, and if your running them on hqi ballast it will be crisp white. I think for my next tank I will go with either 12k reeflux or 14k xm's. Either of those will give you great color combined with the actinics. Also if you haven't already gotten the pc's you may look into vho or t5s for the actinics, those will give you better flourescences (sp?)
maxalmon
Active Member
Had one slight disaster, one of the seios came lose, landed in the sandbed and blasted the whole tank with sand, took me an entire day to clean all the sand off the LR. Here it is with the LR cleaned, not aquascaped, I'm going to do that in about half an hour. Not sure if I'll keep all this LR in the tank, it's a lot (never in a million years would I think I ever had TOO MUCH lr) LOL
maxalmon
Active Member
Just got the confirmation that my corals will arrive at the airport on Saturday, total transit time for them is like 6 hours, shipping cost was only $55. This is just a few of the corals for the tank, ordered a total of 22 varieties and most are really good sized 2" and larger. They go into QT for a week or so and then I'll decide if the main tank is ready. The LR I used was fully cured and the readings have already dropped. Lots of monti caps!!!!
maxalmon
Active Member
Finally got the seio's positioned, love the pumps and controller, HATE the stupid suction cups they send with the unit, the pumps are so heavy that there is no way the suction cups can support the unit and it tips down, aiming the flow at your sandbed. I put 2 eyehooks on the backside of stand, then fed the seios powercord thru and zip tied the cords, pulled them tight and now the powerheads are aimed straight and no chance of them slipping down. Changed the seios position to the back wall, removed the bottom cover, aimed the flow towards the front center of the tank. I now have some incredible water flow
jhebi
Member
Hey Max, nice tank...good luck...
can you shoot me an email where you got your corals?
Thanks
acho@newslogistics.net
can you shoot me an email where you got your corals?
Thanks
acho@newslogistics.net
maxalmon
Active Member
Decided on the lighting.
Going with 2 x 250w 14k Hamilton HQI reefstar's and
a 36" 2x96w actinic and 10k's & 2 white moonlights. This will give me a total of 692w of lighting. I know I'm going to have some serious ballast placement issues with radiant heat etc...Lights should arrive Tue or Wed
I think I may have to mount the ballast on the back wall, above the tank and then come up with some way to hide them with a decorative shelf and a false wall. :notsure:
Calcium reactor arrives sometime this week, thinking either today or tomorrow,
Finishing up on the Neptune Jr controller, I thought this was going to be a nightmare piece of equipment, but it's really easy to set up, still need to get the ph prob calibration solution and finalize all the alarm settings and alerts.
The whole tank should come together by the middle or end of this week and i'll be brain dead by Friday
Going with 2 x 250w 14k Hamilton HQI reefstar's and
a 36" 2x96w actinic and 10k's & 2 white moonlights. This will give me a total of 692w of lighting. I know I'm going to have some serious ballast placement issues with radiant heat etc...Lights should arrive Tue or Wed
I think I may have to mount the ballast on the back wall, above the tank and then come up with some way to hide them with a decorative shelf and a false wall. :notsure:
Calcium reactor arrives sometime this week, thinking either today or tomorrow,
Finishing up on the Neptune Jr controller, I thought this was going to be a nightmare piece of equipment, but it's really easy to set up, still need to get the ph prob calibration solution and finalize all the alarm settings and alerts.
The whole tank should come together by the middle or end of this week and i'll be brain dead by Friday
maxalmon
Active Member
Aquascaping.....This was a learning curve. Forgot to think ahead about the types of sps corals that were going into this tank, made the mistake of aquascaping and not leaving lots of shelves, flat areas and walls space for coral placement. Also found some dead flow areas that was collecting "gunk" so I also tried to rework the bottom LR so that in and behind there was no dead flow areas, I had to tear all the LR apart and redo everything. Kinda hard to see, but all the ledges that stick out are staggered so that one doesn't over hang the one below it, I was able to create a rather large amount of flat, LR area while still leaving lots of wall space for the monti's.
chadman
Active Member
i am in the process of setting up my girlfriends reef tank...i want to do all types or corals anemones clames the whole 9...i am looking at purchasing the Aqualight pro light fixture....with 150w HQI and 2x65 actinics...for a 50g tank will this be more than enough light? at my lfs the fixture is $430 is this a solid price as well? is there a fixture anyone would reccomend over this fixture?
bonebrake
Active Member
Originally Posted by maxalmon
I've already run into one problem, because the tank fits into a niche there is no side ventilation so the chiller is going to have issues with getting fresh air. There is a gap thats about 6" wide between the back of the tank and the wall. Looks like I'll have to mount some fans to force fresh air down the back side of the tank to the chiller. I really don't want to cut into the front of the stand to mount vent holes. I might be able to use computer fans, maybe one to blow air down and another to pull air up?
Put a fan underneath in the stand blowing air up that would be the most efficient setup.
I've already run into one problem, because the tank fits into a niche there is no side ventilation so the chiller is going to have issues with getting fresh air. There is a gap thats about 6" wide between the back of the tank and the wall. Looks like I'll have to mount some fans to force fresh air down the back side of the tank to the chiller. I really don't want to cut into the front of the stand to mount vent holes. I might be able to use computer fans, maybe one to blow air down and another to pull air up?
Put a fan underneath in the stand blowing air up that would be the most efficient setup.
kjord97
Member
Originally Posted by maxalmon
Finally got the seio's positioned, love the pumps and controller, HATE the stupid suction cups they send with the unit, the pumps are so heavy that there is no way the suction cups can support the unit and it tips down, aiming the flow at your sandbed. I put 2 eyehooks on the backside of stand, then fed the seios powercord thru and zip tied the cords, pulled them tight and now the powerheads are aimed straight and no chance of them slipping down. Changed the seios position to the back wall, removed the bottom cover, aimed the flow towards the front center of the tank. I now have some incredible water flow
Seio sells a magnet type holder for there powerheads. works great!!! i see a problem with you zip tieing your cords, you will be removing those powerheads ever few months to clean them up.
only thing is that they are about 39 dollars each.
my buddie took a old magnet scrubber he had and zippped tied it to his seio
