Start of one "BIG" SPS tank

reefermon

Member

Noticed you have a UV Sterlizer what size and bulb wattage. I have a 150 gallon and i am looking for a UV sterlizer that will work but affordable?
 

psusocr1

Active Member
hey great call using thos eductors.. they are AMAZING!! create ALOT of velocity int he tank.. i love using them
 

goodwin9

Active Member
Originally Posted by reefermon
Noticed you have a UV Sterlizer what size and bulb wattage. I have a 150 gallon and i am looking for a UV sterlizer that will work but affordable?
In that picture, that's an 18 watt Coralife turbo twist UV. I added a 40 watt Lifeguard canister UV which does most of the work on that tank, (which is actually my 470 and not the new tank). The turbo worked good, but it is only rated up to 200 gallons. I ran it using a Maxi-jet 1200 pump. I think the 18 watt retails for $120. Good little unit for your tank.
 

goodwin9

Active Member
Originally Posted by psusocr1
hey sean great call using thos eductors.. they are AMAZING!! create ALOT of velocity int he tank.. i love using them
Wrong name, but the eductors are really great. I got a couple of Tunzies for the new tank and now am thinking that I won't need them. I didn't realize how much flow they produced. No wonder the sand is moving all around the tank.......add the fact they are probably the cheapest part in the tank, makes them even a better deal.
 

ser_cyclops

Member
if you dont mind dude where do you live if it was somwhere close i would love to come over and check out all these tanks... its like a freaking aquarium
 

iowafish

Member
Hat's off to you Goodwin -- I've been back on the boards for several weeks now just lurking having been out of the hobby for some time. Been sitting back, following this thread and had to chime in and come out of lurk-dome.
Totally admire what you've been doing -- with this and all your tanks. Watching the progress is imspiring me to start up a tank again....
***) Meanwhile, we're all enjoying the show!
KH
 

iowafish

Member
[would you look at this... second post inside of an hour...]
Hey Goodwin, your rock looks like really nice quality stuff, by the way. If you don't mind me asking, who's your preferred supplier? Very impressive the low amount of rubble you ended up with. I assume it's an on-line supplier other than SWF.com? Would you mind e-mailing me? E-mail address is my screen name @mchsi.com.
Going back to lurking now......

KH
 

azfishgal

Active Member
Originally Posted by Big Pat
WOW! That tank is Amazing.
How are you going to do water changes?
And I'm thinking my 125 gallon tank is going to be hard, lol. Ya right!
 

skipperdz

Active Member
ok so this is gonna sound stupid maybe but im somewhat new and im not great with abbreviations whats an sps?
 

goodwin9

Active Member
Originally Posted by justforfun
This might be a dumb question. But what does SPS stand for?
Not a dumb question, took me a long time before I knew the differences between corals. SPS stands for Small Polip Stoney coral.
 

goodwin9

Active Member
Originally Posted by Big Pat
WOW! That tank is Amazing.
How are you going to do water changes?
Water changes shouldn't be any more difficult than with my other tanks. I had Michael, my water guy, come over and plumb the new tank to my water system. The top off system will get water from the 100 gallon RO holding tank, and can be switched over to the salt mixing tanks for water changes.

 

maxalmon

Active Member
One question, on the last photo, why is the white line going thur two "L"'s and then down, why not skip the "L"s alltogether? and then zip tye it to the pipe
 

goodwin9

Active Member
Originally Posted by maxalmon
One question, on the last photo, why is the white line going thur two "L"'s and then down, why not skip the "L"s alltogether? and then zip tye it to the pipe
There is a check valve installed to prevent the water siphoning back.
 

grumpygils

Active Member
Originally Posted by goodwin9
I have been asked on a number of occasions about the sand filters that I use on my systems and why they were needed.
The following explanation is from Fran Metzger, the owner of The Aquarium Company and builder of my tanks.
"In all of the aquariums that we run with a refugium and liverock on, our Nitrates have been zero. Even on our wet/dry systems with the reticulated foam and liverock in the sump, zero. After 10-12 years, zero. The denitrafication cycle is a transgression from the most deadly components, ammonia to less lethal nitrite to further less lethal nitrate and I have found Nitrate handled with the system itself. None of the filtration is working at even close to its potential. The redundancies are there for you need them to avoid the spikes.
If you think about it, the sand filters and all aerobic filtration can only produce Nitrate because they are converting even more toxic ammonia. If you have Nitrate, it is converted ammonia and while Nitrate may not be great for SPS, ammonia will kill them quicker.
The protein skimmer is such a great filter because it is removing protein even before it can decay into ammonia, completely skipping past the nitrogen cycle. That is why you hear of people running a reef with just a skimmer. Not my idea of the perfect system. If there ever comes an event in the aquarium however that overpowers the skimmer, it's essential to have the back up.
Ammonia itself can be stripped as a gas, also skipping the rest of the nitrogen cycle. That is where the bioball was born as a diffusion device that should be counter flowed with air in a tower to strip ammonia gas. It has been turned into something far less effective however and used as a biological culture bed."
I hope this helps explain the purpose of a sand filter. I just know that my other systems have worked with them, so I wanted them on my new tank.

Hey Goodwin,
Thxs for the explanation but what is the mechanism that does it? Does something "turn over" the sand? Under sand grates that suck through it? How does it filter?
ALso, I think you need to get everyone following your thread to pitch in and buy one or two huge SPS pieces for you! If we all gave $5 you could get some whopper pieces!
Mc
 

goodwin9

Active Member
Originally Posted by grumpygils
Hey Goodwin,
Thxs for the explanation but what is the mechanism that does it? Does something "turn over" the sand? Under sand grates that suck through it? How does it filter?
ALso, I think you need to get everyone following your thread to pitch in and buy one or two huge SPS pieces for you! If we all gave $5 you could get some whopper pieces!
Mc
I have used Lifeguard's sandfilters on all of my tanks. These pistures show in running and off. The water enters through the top and rises from the bottom where it leaves through the top. Sand is basically suspended in the water flow.
Here it's running.

Here its not.
 
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