setup questions

[adam13]

I am looking into setting up a 200 gal. How manny bioballs would I need? I am gonna use a 55 gal as the wet dry. Also, I was wondering if anyone has seen those coralife 20, 000k bulbs. Do you think they would get good penetration to the bottom of a 30" tank? What lighs are needed to penetrate to the bottom if not? Are any Protein skimmers bewtter than others? I am lookign at the Berlin Classic, any thoughts? I aM ALSO LOOKING AT THE DOUBLEHELIX 18W UV STERILIZER, ANY THOUGHTS THERE? What kind of heaters would I need on a 200 GAL? I AM JUST GATHERING INFO TO THINK ON, DONT WORRY I WONT SET UP A TANK UNTILL I AM REALLY READY,
THANKS IN ADVANCE
ADAM

 

[pbuck]

You can use as many bioballs as your sump chamber will allow you to use. Your heater is usually rated as 3x the gallons so, 200 gallons x 3 equals 600 watts of heater. You should probably use several heaters to make up the 600 watts. But if you are using a MH bulb(s) they will do a good deal of heating your tank. You will just have to see about that when you get it up and running. If this is a new tank that you are setting up I would reccomend not using a skimmer for the first 4 months while the parameters and bacteria are reaching good levels. After that time I still would not reccomend a skimmer,(that is if this a reef tank) I would tell you to use natural protein removal like macroalgae and mangroves.

 

[pbuck]

About the lights, remember that they will allow you to have different corals. Some people say that you will need somewhere between 7-10 watts per gallon to have SPS corals. On the other hand if you want soft or LPS you can have anywhere between 2.5 to 7 watts per gallon. I would reccommend using VHO and MH to reach your lighting requirements. Check out this site: www.garf.org they have some great info on starting new tanks.

 

[lonestar]

It sounds like you have the same tank as I do. After all my research, I have decided to run 5 mh 250w lamps (3 each 6500k and 2 each 20,000k). I run a 75 gal sump which will contain about 53 gal of water. the sump is not operational yet but I will not run a ton of bioballs because it will be a refrigerium too. My sandbed is about 5 inches in the tank and will be about 2 inches in sump. As far as the skimmer, I have a nautilous te. It is doing excelant on a 75 gal but I think i will try out a beckett powered skimmer (a diy version).
Good luck with the tank,
Jeremy