Punk's new (first!) setup

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Hey guys, I finally took the plunge & bought these 2 tanks:
tank2_full.gif


tank1_full1.gif

They're currently with Moolis from Pet Stop in Pta; Moolis and Shawn will be setting up the lighting, plumbing, sumps, painting, etc. etc. etc. for me... The work I've seen from them so far is exceptionally neat, so I'm sure I won't be disappointed!

I think the 2 tanks was an OK deal for R5K, but 2 cons so far:
- the first tank doesn't have a steel stand (just has wood supports), but luckily Moolis said he'll see if they can build a steel stand in for me
- the width of the tanks are only 500mm, eish

I want the 2 tanks to run off the same engine room as I just don't have the $$$ at the moment to buy 2 skimmers etc.

I want to run a FOWLR in the L-shaped tank and a reef in the other...

Moolis came up with an ingenious idea for the plumbing to link the 2 tanks (i'll post a drawing as soon as i figure out how to draw it properly), but they'll basically be utilizing the whole of the 2 cabinets (over 3m) for a DSB (covered with sponge) incl. calcium, refugium for the caulerpa, sump, etc.

They'll also be putting in an auto top-up system in the cabinet where I can put in the kalkwasser as well.

I'll run my skimmer and Nitrate reactor outside in a separate cabinet...

They also suggested that I put in a phosphate reactor (I think it's a Waterboy that includes the UVC light)...

The lighting Moolis and Shawn suggested I put in:
For the L-shape FOWLR:
A unit that contains 8xT5 (4x10K + 4x20K) for the long side
and a unit that contains 3xT5 (2x10K + 1x20K) for the short side
For the reef:
4x150W MH (20K) and 8xT5 (4x10K + 4x20K) with reflectors

I'll keep you guys posted on their progress...

What you guys think so far?

Cheers,
Anthony
 
Hey Punk, welcome to the forum :)

Sounds pretty good so far, keep us posted along the way, cool.

What skimmer are you looking at putting in and what is your total water volume going to be?
 
Hey Punk, welcome to the forum :)

Sounds pretty good so far, keep us posted along the way, cool.

What skimmer are you looking at putting in and what is your total water volume going to be?

thanks for the welcome guys, my total water volume is approx. 1400-1500 liters, i heard the reeftek / reeftek octopus skimmers are good, what would you guys recommend i go for?

thanks!
:thumbup:
 
Hi Anthony, welcome to MASA. Looking very good so far, reef octo is a great skimmer unfortunatly i cant comment on the reef tek as i have never run one. Just a quick suggestion to save a bit of money, why not run a deep sand bed in the sump and do away with the denitrator and spend the money saved there on a bigger skimmer.
 
Hi Anthony, welcome to MASA. Looking very good so far, reef octo is a great skimmer unfortunatly i cant comment on the reef tek as i have never run one. Just a quick suggestion to save a bit of money, why not run a deep sand bed in the sump and do away with the denitrator and spend the money saved there on a bigger skimmer.


Hello, thanks for the welcome! :)

Moolis suggested that I run a DSB and a denitrator... Will my refugium and DSB alone sufficiently take care of all the Nitrates?
 
Once established no problem, i have 62 fish in 2000L of water running on live rock and a refugium, DSB no problems.
 
moolies is trying to sell you a denitraton !! the dsb is all you need dude ! just make sure you have good flow over te dsb surface!
 
moolies is trying to sell you a denitraton !! the dsb is all you need dude ! just make sure you have good flow over te dsb surface!

hahaha no moolis is a very cool guy, he'd never just try to sell me something to make money

he must have a reason for suggesting the denitrator, any of you guys using one?

i even wanted a calcium reactor & he told me that my DSB would take care of it because it will contain a layer of calcium?


:)
 
Welcome dude. Your suggested lighting sounds like overkill to me. What is the lengths of those tanks again?
 
Welcome dude. Your suggested lighting sounds like overkill to me. What is the lengths of those tanks again?


haha thanks man, i thought you can never have too much lighting or too big a skimmer! :slayer:


here's the dimensions:
tank1.gif


tank2.gif
 
Hahaha, why buy a denitrator instead of a calcium reactor when you have a DSB? The DSB will *possibly* supply a small amount of calcium and other elements depending on what you have for a DSB. A calcium reactor is pretty expensive but if you want to stock heavily with mostly hard corals then it's almost a must. As long as the DSB is big enough to handle the system the denitrator would probably decrease the efficacy of the DSB because it wont be getting as high a concentration of nitrates.

And yes that's a lot of light on a fish only tank. 4 T5's on the long side would be more than enough.

Also you might want to use chaetomorpha instead of caluerpa.
 
Ok, you don't mention the wattages of the T5's.

You will need 4 MH for the 1700mm tank. I do not agree with the 20K colour spectrum though. I would go 10 000K to 14 000K. Choose a lamp with a relatively high PAR as well. Supplement with about a 100W worth of T5 blues or actinics.

For the FOWLR I would halve the lights along the long side. Even 3 54W T5's would be adequate here.

Yes you never can have enough light. But one has to weigh up economy of running them as well. If you have the money to run them including lamp changes once a year then go for it. I would still consider 14 000K lamps for the MH though. 20 000K lamps have a low PAR.
 
You could even get away with 3 MH's on the reef tank. I would also choose lower K MH's if supplementing with T5's anyway. 8 T5's on the reef tank is still quite a bit.
 
Hahaha, why buy a denitrator instead of a calcium reactor when you have a DSB? The DSB will *possibly* supply a small amount of calcium and other elements depending on what you have for a DSB. A calcium reactor is pretty expensive but if you want to stock heavily with mostly hard corals then it's almost a must. As long as the DSB is big enough to handle the system the denitrator would probably decrease the efficacy of the DSB because it wont be getting as high a concentration of nitrates.

hmmm... perhaps i should hold off on the denitrator and calcium reactor & see how the DSB and the refugium handle things? should i monitor the parms as i add each coral / livestock & as soon as they can't cope anymore then i get the appropriate equipment for the job?

should i still get the phosphate reactor (+ UVC), it get's rid of nuisance algae no?

And yes that's a lot of light on a fish only tank. 4 T5's on the long side would be more than enough.

the 8xT5's in the FOWLR comes in a nice unit (not a DIY job) so i thought i might one day want to convert the tank to a reef as well (depending on how much the bug bites me! lol)

i'll propably only use 4 of the 8 slots & save the extra bulbs for when i need to replace other ones...

ps. do you REALLY need to replace all your bulbs every year? don't you get a "bulb 'o meter" that you can use to test if they need replacing? lol

Also you might want to use chaetomorpha instead of caluerpa.

hmmm... i'll have to check with Moolis, perhaps that was what he told me & i just got it wrong...

many thanks for your input thus far!
:thumbup:
 
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