All Equipment Needed

[sianeds]

I am getting a 5'x2'x2' tank (125 gal) with a 5-6gal sump. It is all plumbed up already but there is no return pump so I need to buy one.

Also I need a skimmer and powerheads, well everything really

What should I get?

 

[rhysiboy]

get loads of stuff from tunze. Im sorta giving up on TMC v2's as they are a mother to stop the bubbles. If you think you could get the tunze DOC Skimmer 9005, Turbelle® stream 6060. Of course that would cost like 500 quid so maybe not the best way unless you have lots of dollar. Get the skimmer though and then for powerheads you could try something like the hydor korila range. Good quality and reasonably priced.

 

[sianeds]

I'm thinking the TMC V2 skimmers will be too small....

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah TMC V2 prolly too small. Think Deltec. I'm not sure if Tunze makes a good "big" skimmer...? As for powerheads, the Tunze/Seio debate will rage on for decades to come . Myself though, on a tank that big... I'd use a closed loop.

 

[sianeds]

Feel free to design it for me lol

 

[sianeds]

So I've been to bed and couldn't sleep because I was thinking about my tank

How does this sound....

It's 125 gallons. I need 20x turnover so I need 2500gph movement. There will be 5x turnover between the tank and the sump which will give me 625gph so I need to provide 1875gph from powerheads in the tank. I will do this with 4x 500gph PH (too much I know but only a little) one of which will be directed mainly at the surface.

The return pump from my sump will need to move 625gph approx. 3-4' upwards (maximum). Will a pump rated 750gph be sufficient?

I will have a look at the deltec skimmers.

I have been offered 2x 150w MH so this should provide plenty of light.

Now live rock...I will buy 50lbs of LR. Is this enough? I want to have the rocks drilled to sit on some sort of support poles and form free standing towers. What can I use as supports? I'm thinking acrylic poles will be too expensive and possibly not strong enough?? Could I use stainless steel?? I hope so as I have a friend who is a steel fabricator.

I will be constructing the stand from breezeblocks, dry built. There will be a wooden top for the tank to sit on. How thick should I have the wood?? Could I use the stuff kitchen worktops are made from? I'm thinking they would be perfect with thier laminated tops. Maybe I will need 2 on top of each other for strength.

Also can anybody tell me how heavy my tank will be? Obviously not including the weight of the empty tank, just the water etc.

I am going to price up the hardware tomorrow (well today technically)

 

[SkiFletch]

The return pump from my sump will need to move 625gph approx. 3-4' upwards (maximum). Will a pump rated 750gph be sufficient?

Depends on the pump curve...

Could I use stainless steel??

Yes, but the grade of stainless required will be more expensive than acrylic . You're prolly better off using HDPVC rods high density poly-vinyl-chloride (we call it schedule-80 PVC here). That way your center support could be a PVC tube and you can drill and attach rods to it where appropriate Being a plumber, perhaps Matt can tell you where to get either in the UK?

Are you going to make a wall out of concrete blocks? If so, you can cover it with something like 3/4" ply or similar. Do NOT try to use a "top" if you are not building a full wall, the top will fail, and the tank will crush itself under its own stress if you try to span gaps without good horizontal support.

General rule of thumb, seawater typcially weighs ~10lbs per gallon. So 1250lbs of water weight. Add in say 200lbs for rocks/sand, and any sump/stand/hood weight and you're approaching 2000lbs. Make sure your floor can support the resulting PSI.

 

[sianeds]

The return pump from my sump will need to move 625gph approx. 3-4' upwards (maximum). Will a pump rated 750gph be sufficient?

Depends on the pump curve...
Ok now you've lost me

Could I use stainless steel??

Yes, but the grade of stainless required will be more expensive than acrylic . You're prolly better off using HDPVC rods high density poly-vinyl-chloride (we call it schedule-80 PVC here). That way your center support could be a PVC tube and you can drill and attach rods to it where appropriate Being a plumber, perhaps Matt can tell you where to get either in the UK?
If I talk to the steel fabricator he should know what grade of steel I can use in saltwater right I want the rocks to sit ove the pole, but I don't want to be drilling big wide holes in my rocks. I have a maximum diamter of 1-2" in mind.
Are you going to make a wall out of concrete blocks? If so, you can cover it with something like 3/4" ply or similar. Do NOT try to use a "top" if you are not building a full wall, the top will fail, and the tank will crush itself under its own stress if you try to span gaps without good horizontal support.
Could I have 2 or 3 ft gaps between the "legs" if I have some extra horizontal support? Perhaps some metal girders? Also if I have a solid back "wall" will this help? I guess I'll have to speak to the guys at Jewson

General rule of thumb, seawater typcially weighs ~10lbs per gallon. So 1250lbs of water weight. Add in say 200lbs for rocks/sand, and any sump/stand/hood weight and you're approaching 2000lbs. Make sure your floor can support the resulting PSI.
The floor is solid concrete right down to the foundations so I shouldn't have a problem there.

Thanks Ski

 

[BigIan]

Could I have 2 or 3 ft gaps between the "legs" if I have some extra horizontal support? Perhaps some metal girders? Also if I have a solid back "wall" will this help? I guess I'll have to speak to the guys at Jewson

if your going to use a small girder you could possibly span the full length of the tank with just the 2 end walls providing the end walls are done right....

Assuming your building the wall out of concrete blocks. then a rear wall would tie all the legs in to each other preventing them from being pused one way or the other...
if you do go for 2 legs and a girder then i would use 6 inch concrete common blocks laid face to face as this will support the weight of the girder better and again prevent the wall moving

 

[andywg]

So I've been to bed and couldn't sleep because I was thinking about my tank

How does this sound....

It's 125 gallons. I need 20x turnover so I need 2500gph movement. There will be 5x turnover between the tank and the sump which will give me 625gph so I need to provide 1875gph from powerheads in the tank. I will do this with 4x 500gph PH (too much I know but only a little) one of which will be directed mainly at the surface.

The return pump from my sump will need to move 625gph approx. 3-4' upwards (maximum). Will a pump rated 750gph be sufficient?

Don't worry too much on the sump. The more you try and turn over through the sump, the more power is lost against head. I only start out with a 5x rated sump pump (before head), or sometimes smaller, and put all the rest in the tank. I will probably barely have 2-3x turnover through my sump on my new larger reef when it is set up.

Consider the type of water movement you want. The better the type of flow, the less turnover necessary. If you used Tunze propellor style powerheads then if you got 20x (easily doable with just two pumps) then you would be doing well for keeping most corals.

I myself have gone a different route for my 5 foot reef. I am just having one powerhead( a 4,500 LPH nano stream) which is only really there to keep the water moving at night. During the day the water movement will come from a Tunze wavebox. This moves all the water in the tank from left to right to simulate the waves arriving at the shore.

The wavebox costs a bit more, but does a better job than even the Stream powerheads.

I will have a look at the deltec skimmers.

Deltec make good skimmers, and it is open to debate over whether they or the Tunze skimmers are better. However, the Tunze ones are a lot smaller and sit in sumps far easier. A little piece of advice is not to bother with the Tunze DOC 9015. It costs about £50-60 more than the 9010, but only contains a bigger collection cup. The rest of it (pump, air flow rate etc) is identical. If you want to go huge you can get the 9020, but that is designed for tanks around 200 gallons and up and is essentially two 9010s stuck together side by side.

I have been offered 2x 150w MH so this should provide plenty of light.

150W will not give huge amounts of light at the bottom, but should allow some stony corals near the surface.

 

[sianeds]

Could I have 2 or 3 ft gaps between the "legs" if I have some extra horizontal support? Perhaps some metal girders? Also if I have a solid back "wall" will this help? I guess I'll have to speak to the guys at Jewson

if your going to use a small girder you could possibly span the full length of the tank with just the 2 end walls providing the end walls are done right....

Assuming your building the wall out of concrete blocks. then a rear wall would tie all the legs in to each other preventing them from being pused one way or the other...
if you do go for 2 legs and a girder then i would use 6 inch concrete common blocks laid face to face as this will support the weight of the girder better and again prevent the wall moving

The support for the tank will be the whole width of the garage which is around 7-8ft (I'll measure it later). I will make it about 1ft wider than the tank, so 7'x3'. If I make a solid back wall with the extra foot of width I should still have space for the pipework. I will ask at Jewson what is best to use. I used to work on the industrial estate and I know the staff there pretty well so I can trust them.

The return pump from my sump will need to move 625gph approx. 3-4' upwards (maximum). Will a pump rated 750gph be sufficient?

Don't worry too much on the sump. The more you try and turn over through the sump, the more power is lost against head. I only start out with a 5x rated sump pump (before head), or sometimes smaller, and put all the rest in the tank. I will probably barely have 2-3x turnover through my sump on my new larger reef when it is set up.
625gph is a 5x turnover into the sump. So I could go with less power for the return pump, maybe 650gph? Will this give me enough water movement for a DSB to function properly?

Consider the type of water movement you want. The better the type of flow, the less turnover necessary. If you used Tunze propellor style powerheads then if you got 20x (easily doable with just two pumps) then you would be doing well for keeping most corals.


I myself have gone a different route for my 5 foot reef. I am just having one powerhead( a 4,500 LPH nano stream) which is only really there to keep the water moving at night. During the day the water movement will come from a Tunze wavebox. This moves all the water in the tank from left to right to simulate the waves arriving at the shore.

The wavebox costs a bit more, but does a better job than even the Stream powerheads.

I will have a look at the deltec skimmers.

Deltec make good skimmers, and it is open to debate over whether they or the Tunze skimmers are better. However, the Tunze ones are a lot smaller and sit in sumps far easier. A little piece of advice is not to bother with the Tunze DOC 9015. It costs about £50-60 more than the 9010, but only contains a bigger collection cup. The rest of it (pump, air flow rate etc) is identical. If you want to go huge you can get the 9020, but that is designed for tanks around 200 gallons and up and is essentially two 9010s stuck together side by side.

I have been offered 2x 150w MH so this should provide plenty of light.

I would love a wavemaker ideally and it is something I will definately look into. Personally I would rather run 3 or 4 smaller powerheads than one big one. Most corals don't like the "jet" effect from big powerheads and as this is a coral led tank it's a big consideration for me. Powerheads at each corner should gve me a better flow through the tank. I think

150W will not give huge amounts of light at the bottom, but should allow some stony corals near the surface.
That's fine as I want to keep mainly softies. I have little interest in stony corals and the majority of the corals I like can be kept happily under PC lighting. I need lower light areas for my sun corals and other non-photo corals and sponges.

Thanks guys, I'm off to do some pricing now and I'm going to try and rehome the queen angel

 

[andywg]

625gph is a 5x turnover into the sump. So I could go with less power for the return pump, maybe 650gph? Will this give me enough water movement for a DSB to function properly?

That will be fine for a DSB. Mine will probably have about 2x turnover across the top. The only problem if you drop below 2x is that the water is not going to get to the skimmer very often (but that water coming back from the sump will be better skimmed...aah the joys of attempting to get perfect skimming )

I would love a wavemaker ideally and it is something I will definately look into. Personally I would rather run 3 or 4 smaller powerheads than one big one. Most corals don't like the "jet" effect from big powerheads and as this is a coral led tank it's a big consideration for me. Powerheads at each corner should gve me a better flow through the tank. I think

Not a wavemaker, a Wavebox!

First off, the output from the Tunze Propellor style powerheads is far more a wall of water than a needle like jet. This is why I said consider the type of flow.

You can put sensitive corals right in fron of a Tunze and and have no problems with them from the flow. Also, Tunze powerheads consume far less energy and run forever (I have a couple that are at least 17 years old running on my 6x2x2 FW).

The Wavebox works by pumping all the water in a box out into the tank, then it turns off and allows the water to flow back in. You tune the length of the pulses until they are right for the length of the tank. At that point the waves will constantly flow from one side of the tank to the other, perfectly simulating the movement of the ocean coming onto a reef. this is far better than having 4 needle like jets of water being pushed around the tank.

I played with mine on a 3 foot FW tank I have. The power adjustmenet allows waves from about 0.5cm to 3cm tall to travel across teh tank (though my snakehead did not appreciate the larger waves). As with all Tunze controllables, it has a feeding button and can be controlled by the (included) light sensor so that the reef is calmer at night.

 

[sianeds]

I posted the costings for the equipment in my fish room journal in chit chat.

I will be getting 2 power filters and will remove the media. I already have one of these in my 55gal and it works beautifully although it is fairly bulky so I plan to put one in each of the back corners. I will also get 2 smaller powerheads for the 2 front corners directed mainly at the surface. The four of them will cost me £130.

Would a waveBOX be comparable in price? Would I need any additional powerheads in with it? If it's not too much more expensive then I would much prefer one.

 

[andywg]

A wavebox will cost a lot more (like £300) as they are designed to handle tanks up to around 1200 litres (around the 260 imp gallon mark).

If you go for powerheads, look into Tunze Nano Streams. The 6045 costs about £65 each (that's what I paid) and two on their own would turn your tank over about 16 times an hour for a total draw of about 16W. An extra £45 for an additional 6025 would up that to 20 times per hour for a total cost that should see change from £200. You then have the better flow style of Tunze Streams, as well as the reliability of Tunze (and a low electricity bill: about 23W for all three powerheads turning over 11,500 LPH).