Cobraden's 150 build

[Darbex]

Sorry just using topics brought up in threads to discuss various view points. We will get back to the regularly scheduled program.

[cobraden]

If I knew who the moderator was I would ask him....Did I get hijacked? LOL.

New tank update coming soon.

[rage]

Did you get rid of them recently?
I guess the GFO reactor got rid of your red slime? What did you do to the surface gunk?

[Darbex]

Got neither in my tank

[rage]

And according to the site LPS flow should be 10-15x which is a lot from my experience. I ran 10x and up it to 13x and killed the hammers. A hammer tucked in a corner with very little movement is doing the best of them all. Also I would be skeptical of a site the says lighting of 5 - 10w per gallon. That's seriously misleading and not true it's par that matters no one I know says to be at so many watts but I do recommend testing par levels. I run 750w on a 300G and get good growth. It's all about placement. LPS don't need tons of light and what everyone tells you about SPS and it's light intensity I have proven to be untrue in my system.

I agree that you can do different things and can still be successful.
I also think there are good reasons the experts suggest the things they suggest.
Flow 10, 15 times volume size means different thing to different tank.

My tank is 6' long but it's a 125G.
I have 1 Quiet One 3000, 1 Rio 2500 and 2 Koralia 4, rated close to 4,000 G total. The 2 return pumps have to overcome the head pressure so I think their real output are not quite that high but I should still have 20-25x volume. 2 pumps point at the surface and the flow there is adequate but the other 2 hardly move water in the middle or at the bottom. I think I can use another 1,000G pump easily.

Darbex, I believe your tank is 6' long but much taller and you have close to 300G in volume?
If you have flow of 15x volume and you only have a few very strong pumps, I am sure it's very strong close to the outlet and some corals might not like them but the flow is slow elsewhere. If you spread it out, 15x volume wouldn't be much. I think you can use more water movement to help with surface gunk and red slime on your sand too.

[cobraden]

Just like everything in this hobby, there are a billion ways to do the same thing and still be successful. I had my first reef tank in '88 no high tech stuff just good light and some nice flow. It was all LPS and softies and it was great. I've never done SPS but one of the best SPS tanks I've ever seen personally was up in Kingwood a little over a year ago and he seemed to be breaking many of the "Rules". I think that's the great thing about the hobby. Find the way that works for you and go with it. I think the only real rule is that we have to have water. Other than that, for everyone that says you can't have good results doing x there is someone having great results doing just that (within reason of course). Having said that, having a nice set of repeatable guidelines makes success a little easier but trying different ways is how we learn.

[Darbex]

And according to the site LPS flow should be 10-15x which is a lot from my experience. I ran 10x and up it to 13x and killed the hammers. A hammer tucked in a corner with very little movement is doing the best of them all. Also I would be skeptical of a site the says lighting of 5 - 10w per gallon. That's seriously misleading and not true it's par that matters no one I know says to be at so many watts but I do recommend testing par levels. I run 750w on a 300G and get good growth. It's all about placement. LPS don't need tons of light and what everyone tells you about SPS and it's light intensity I have proven to be untrue in my system.

[Darbex]

Again it depends a lot of sites will tell you moderate but depending on the corals that's to much. I can tell you from experience after loosing two wall hammers to moderate flow.

[rage]

That depends on what reef environment you are creating. SPS yes but LpS no they are generally in turbid lagoons where there is little flow.

While it is true that SPS needs more flow, I don't think LPS wants little flow either. They need at least medium flow.
Of course there are many more sources, this is just an example.

http://www.vividaquariums.com/rarecorals.asp#What_are_the_tank_requirements_for_LPS

[cobraden]

currently only about 1800 gallons of flow. I plan to add a couple powerheads on the back wall to create more turbulence. Probably Korillia's or Tunze. I won't add them on the sides because as a personal preference I think they distract from the presentation of the tank but I do like a lot of flow. This will be an sps dominant tank. At least that is the idea as of today.

[Darbex]

That depends on what reef environment you are creating. SPS yes but LpS no they are generally in turbid lagoons where there is little flow.

[rage]

Looking good. How much flow do you have going thru your system? The surface water looks too calm. They say a reef tank should mimic the violent water in the ocean, including the waves beating on to the reef (to a certain extent of course)

[cobraden]

First inhabitants of the new set up.



They seem to be loving it.

[cobraden]

Made a little more progress.

Decided to do a little work on the sump before I fired everything up. It was pretty much an open box. I wanted to add a divider but knowing my tendency to want to change things up from time to time, I didn't want to glue one in and be stuck with that config forever. so I took some "L" shaped acrylic

and made a channel so that I could slide my divider in and out. I also made it wide enough so that I could sandwich a piece of filter material between the divider and a piece of egg crate for increased pump protection and to help with micro bubbles. I still need to go pick up some filter material to see how well it does with the bubbles.


After that was done decided it was time to fire up the system.


Pick of the tank with system running and sand in place.

[johnnymisty]

Good job looks great