hermit
Member
Well here I am.. Been deeling with Micro Reefs for about a year now.. I have to ask all of you a few questions if you don't mind..
My newest project is a 15 gallon Designer tank from All Glass.. Now as many of you might know, the designer is a very difficult design to work with.. It has little surface area... roughly one (1) square foot and is roughly 20 inches deep.
Initially I started off with this tank as a fresh water but it wasn't working out so well so I tried something different.. I thought a reef tank with those dimensions would be cool. This presented me with several problems. Specifically, how to provide enough light to support coral and filtration. I took care of the light by cutting away the lighting fixture that was mounted in the hood and epoxied to double bulb mini mights in there. Which caused another problem.. Heat!!! With that little bit of surface area it was difficult to cool. Then I ran into a host of other problems like Hair Algae.. Yeahhhh that was fun (NOT!).
Anyway, the long of it is that I almost scapped everything and went crazy with a new design.. Please make me aware of any apparent problems with it. Since the stand for the tank on the inside is 12"x12" I had to custom make my own sump which I accomplished with some poly-carbonate that I had cut to some very tight specs (the sump is 12"x12"x13"). I then purchased a Berlin Classic (I know you are all going to yell at me for using a 250 galoon rated skimmer for a 15 gallon tank but ohhh well) I am using that in conjunction with a CPR c90b overflow box rated at a max of 600 gallons. Inside my sump I custom made all of the plumbing to supply me with two returns to the tank wich are powered by a rio 2500 with another 2500 pushing the protein skimmer. Inside the sump in the corner is another box (roughly 5"x5" and 7 inches tall) into which my protein skimmer drops it's return into, which I will use for chemical filtation.
I am sorry to be so long winded about this but I was looking for some feedback to my setup.
Sorry, I almost forgot. I took care of the lighting problem with a Coralife Solar System which is a 175 MH dimable lighting system..
Did I do OK?
Forgot to mention what little critters I had in my tank...
(1) Smaller Purple Tang
(1) Pecula Clown
(1) Pepermint Shrimp
(1) Coral Banded Shrimp
(1) Dancing or Camel Back Shrimp
(1) Brown & White Tube Worm
(1) Bubble Tip Anenome
(20) Blue Legs
(10) Turbos
(1) cluster of Buttons
[This message has been edited by Hermit (edited 05-25-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Hermit (edited 05-25-2000).]
My newest project is a 15 gallon Designer tank from All Glass.. Now as many of you might know, the designer is a very difficult design to work with.. It has little surface area... roughly one (1) square foot and is roughly 20 inches deep.
Initially I started off with this tank as a fresh water but it wasn't working out so well so I tried something different.. I thought a reef tank with those dimensions would be cool. This presented me with several problems. Specifically, how to provide enough light to support coral and filtration. I took care of the light by cutting away the lighting fixture that was mounted in the hood and epoxied to double bulb mini mights in there. Which caused another problem.. Heat!!! With that little bit of surface area it was difficult to cool. Then I ran into a host of other problems like Hair Algae.. Yeahhhh that was fun (NOT!).
Anyway, the long of it is that I almost scapped everything and went crazy with a new design.. Please make me aware of any apparent problems with it. Since the stand for the tank on the inside is 12"x12" I had to custom make my own sump which I accomplished with some poly-carbonate that I had cut to some very tight specs (the sump is 12"x12"x13"). I then purchased a Berlin Classic (I know you are all going to yell at me for using a 250 galoon rated skimmer for a 15 gallon tank but ohhh well) I am using that in conjunction with a CPR c90b overflow box rated at a max of 600 gallons. Inside my sump I custom made all of the plumbing to supply me with two returns to the tank wich are powered by a rio 2500 with another 2500 pushing the protein skimmer. Inside the sump in the corner is another box (roughly 5"x5" and 7 inches tall) into which my protein skimmer drops it's return into, which I will use for chemical filtation.
I am sorry to be so long winded about this but I was looking for some feedback to my setup.
Sorry, I almost forgot. I took care of the lighting problem with a Coralife Solar System which is a 175 MH dimable lighting system..
Did I do OK?
Forgot to mention what little critters I had in my tank...
(1) Smaller Purple Tang
(1) Pecula Clown
(1) Pepermint Shrimp
(1) Coral Banded Shrimp
(1) Dancing or Camel Back Shrimp
(1) Brown & White Tube Worm
(1) Bubble Tip Anenome
(20) Blue Legs
(10) Turbos
(1) cluster of Buttons
[This message has been edited by Hermit (edited 05-25-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Hermit (edited 05-25-2000).]
