Originally Posted by SCSInet
Equipment Plan
Okay ladies and germs, I thought since I've been posting pic after pic, and since the time has come to start showing it all coming together, I'd talk about my equipment plans.
Lighting
The original plan was for (3) 400w halide lamps and (2) 54W Actinic lamps. That plan was replaced.
(3) 250w, 15K, XM, SE Halide lamps
Spider reflectors (I know, no Lumenarc... I explained why earlier).
Ballastwise 250w electronic halide ballasts
I have installed a Fulham to drive actinics, but declined to install them for the moment.
The lights will be located approximately 9" above the water.
(4) 5W 420nm Blue LEDs for moonlighting, on a PWM based drive circuit allowing for simulation of lunar cycles
(4) 5W 'white' LEDs for after-hours worklights. The idea here is that if I need to do something in the tank at night, I can turn on a dim light that will only minimally impact the fish, and also not have to wait for the halides to turn on.
Filtration
Main Flow - Sequence Reeflo Marlin
Sump - Custom 40 gallon sump using 3/8" cell cast acrylic
--5g heater compartment
--20g fuge
--15g return
Heat - (3) Jager 250w heaters
Skimming - Deltec AP851 Protein Skimmer
Calcium - Korallin 1502 Calcium Reactor
Chiller - OceanCool 1/2hp chiller, positioned outdoors
Media Reactors - (3) Phosban 150 reactors for various media options
UV - Pentair 40w UV serilizer
Ozone - Red Sea Aquazone 150 / Coralife Luft Pump Drive
Surge - Custom wavemaker on the Koralias
Surge - Oceans Motions Super Squirt on one inflow
The main pump will drive the entire filtration system. It feeds into a mainifold which powers seperate loops for the chiller, skimmer, UV, reactors, and tank return. In order to do this, I had to make the concession that water from the fuge will sometimes go through the skimmer, but energy efficiency was a huge goal of the project, and one large pump is far more efficient than tons of small pumps. Aside from the powerheads, only 3 pumps comprise this setup (main, skimmer recirculating, ca reactor recirculating).
I purchased a Reeflo Wahoo at first, but realized that my calculations didn't add up. I found that I would not have sufficient flow to get at least 1000gph into the main tank return and at least 400gph for my chiller, so I upsized to the larger Marlin. It's rated at 2050gph, but I found that I was actually getting far more than rated output (though still insufficient) from the Wahoo, so I expected closer to 2500gph from the Marlin. I was not disappointed.
After all this was done, I learned from another member here that you can simply swap the impeller by buying one from Sequence for $30... that was $330 wasted dollars live and learn.
Oh well, now I have a spare should the main pump fail... but it's a sequence... so it probably won't. >
The skimmer is rated for a 400g heavily stocked tank. I know this skimmer will be with me longer than this tank before I upgrade, so I upsized. I want heavier stocking in this tank anyway, so I figured it was a good buy. I also wanted to have an eheim recirculating pump rather than the aquabee pumps that the smaller Deltecs have. This skimmer is a MONSTER. It barely fit under my stand at about 28" tall. I was shocked by the amazing construction quality. I guess my words of the past hold true here.. with skimmers, you get what you pay for. Deltecs are expensive, but WORTH IT.
I wanted to go Tunze for the powerheads, but couldn't afford it.
so what powerheads did you go with??
