doing some before time research.

[parker313]

Are we still talking about the 90 gallong?

If so, you could check into clams or even some starfish. I am not familiar with their needs, but know they can be great additions Don't forget the shrimp A pistol shrimp/yellow watchman goby is always a FUN combination - they have a great symbiotic relationship.

No, clowns definitely don't need an anemone and if you do want it to host something, you can try the sarcophyton I mentioned.

 

[Paul_MTS]

yeh, will be the 90gal 3x2x2 with about a 20g sump.

sounds good, pistol shrimp look good, i was thinking more along the lines of something maybe a litle bigger and an interesting shape.

good good, just had a look at the sarcophyton's properly aswell, liking alot of them aswell.

 

[superman]

Excellent that sounds a bit better to start the fishy stocking....so 3-4 blue reef chromis, couple of percula clowns and the fire fish, lovely!!

I like the look of the Yellow head Jawfish fish, very nice colours!

Am I right in saying that anemones slowly eat away at the live rock? i swear i read it somewhere so if a clown doesn't need thi I would stick with other corals.

I like the clown gobies they look great, I'm well trained in blocking weirs to fish, I'ved had troubles with eels doing it on my FW tank so no worries there.

any tanks that i buy now are built the same as my big tank which has no space to escape and i always use glass sliders.

are there any inverts i can keep other than your usual clean up crew?

last 1 for now....is there a larger fish that could be sort of the center peice of the tank? like the white check tang.

The tang in a 90 gallon is bordering on being too small of a tank for a tang in my opinion. Tangs are open water swimmers, and therefore need a lot of open space in a tank, so you would want to have less live rock and more open space for the tang. If it was me, I wouldn't go with a tang, obviously I am biased (I don't generally like tangs much, and don't believe that they should be kept in a tank that is less than 125 gallons) In the end it is up to you. I would suggest clams as inverts to be kept in a tank, they are gorgeous and filter water as well. The only down side is that you must have enough lighting to keep them happy, which leads me into a more technical discussion that I won't get into unless you are interested in clams. As far as other inverts I am a big fan of snails (nassarius vibex and cerith snails mainly) As far as shrimp go I LOVE the pedersons cleaner shrimp, mostly clear looking body with blue.

 

[Paul_MTS]

fair enough!!

clams look like a nice addition aswell, i think from andy's first posts i gathered a 150w MH would do for the tank, then again that was on the 2' cube, so lighting would have to be re thought i guess. what are there requirements?

 

[andywg]

For a 3X2X2 I would suggest something like 2X250W or maybe 1X400W.

The 400 may be a bit overkill though. Generally the rule is 1MH per 2 foot of tank but I don't know whether you'd want to round up or down

I seem to recall Nav used to use a 400W at one ond of his old tank and a 250 at the other end so that stuff wanting less light had a less bright area. Maybe if you slightly offset the 400 you'd have enough light to grow almost anything at one end and still be able to accomodate less needy stuff.

But hey, I'm just pontificating out loud...

 

[Navarre]

Almost right andy

I had 1 single 400w over the left side of the tank... that was all...

The right side had no special lighting at all but all my soft corals continued to thrive.

For a 3ft tanks however i would recomend a single halide in the center (bracing bars permitting). 250w or 400w should be fine and if you want more light then add a couple of tubes to this. Personally i feel that a single 400w over the center is enough and will save you 100w against 2x250w halides over the tank.

 

[andywg]

OH well. Im not doing bad at remembering individual's setups. especially since that was when I wanted to do my 6x1.5x1.5 as a reef (costs prevented it - though I now have most of the euipment including MH ).

I only thought of biasing the 400W to one side incase there are any softer corals and such that would not like to be in that light and would allow them some respite, but I guess that's not a great problem.

As an aside, would I get away with having a 4x2x2 with a 400 MH over one side and T5s over the other?

 

[Navarre]

As an aside, would I get away with having a 4x2x2 with a 400 MH over one side and T5s over the other?

Yes most definately.you might not be able to keep harder corals in that area of the tank but 95% of corals should be fine

The only issue you might find is that the corals wont get such intense colours as the higher intensity halides wll give.

 

[andywg]

Cheers.

Sorry for 'jacking Paul

 

[Paul_MTS]

you thought thats bugging me about all these watts going on lighting is the cost of running it??

I realise there only going to be on hat 8-12hours a day but thats quite a bit. When having the tank built i could specially ask for bracing to be in a different place although having 2 bars to the sides might mean i wouldn't beable to fit some chunks of live rock through

So 1 400W halide would do it nicely, are there any arcadia bulbs that would be up to the job seeing as I can then get these through work. Hopefully I can get a MH cheap through my brother aswell. What heat issues would i need to combat?

Thinking about filtration now what kind of flow rate would I want? I tend to use pond pumps to run any sumps so could get quite a flow going out of that and i use 25mm pipe usually 2 inlets to the tank. I'm basically going by what I'm doing on my tank I'm having built at the moment. I'ved got a copy of powerheads i can throw aorund the tank to cover any dead spots.

 

[andywg]

Generally the flow rate to shoot at is about 20XSystem size per hour (for 90 gallon tank around 1,800gph). Any higher is normally welcome.

This would normally be done by having a powerful pump on the sump and a couple of closed loops (just powerheads pushing water from the tank to somewhere else in the tank).

I seem to recall reading that one of the main things to aim for as well is water turbulance (by pointing two powerheads to the same point) rather than setting the tank up carefully to recreate a giant washing machine.

Another good idea is to create a reef rack about an inch or so from the bottom of the tank to set the LR on so that you can pump water underneath and through the LR to aid filtration (and stop you having expensive LR trapped by sand).

I think that 1 400W MH would put the electricity up by around £5 per quarter? Not too sure on this. I know our electric hasn't changed much after adding 2X150W MH.

For heat you have to try and ensure the lights are a respectful distance from the tank (not sitting right on it) and either have an open topped hood or install a couple of PC cooling fans at each end of the tank to cool down the air inside the hood. However this will mean having to keep an eye on the evaporation as I seem to recall reading that this increases with using fans.

 

[Navarre]

Halides do not have to be as expensive as people are lead to beleive.
The twin ended bulbs such as the ones arcadia use does limit you on types of lights to use but if you chose to use a single ended halides then the lights can be purchased for between £50 - £75 The bulb will cost about £30 - £40
These lights are no different in light perameteres than any other Halide unit and i have them over my tank. Just make sure the ballasts are NOT mercury and of course make sure you are happy with the look of the lights as they are not as "sleek" as the Arcadia £500 units!

 

[Paul_MTS]

£5 extra aint bad at all! Although I think my part of the bill is getting larger all the time

The flow rate should be quite easy to meet by sticking a large pond pump on then use a couple of power heads at either end of the tank facing towards each other and I'm there.

I'ved seen the pictures of the live rock racks and reakon I can do that without much of a problem.

I'll probable get my hands on a basic lighting unit none of the swanky looking stuff they carry tags way to high even at trade!

I guess the type of light i pick up will be more down to what i can find at the time, aould be easier if i could get the bulbs through work though.

there won't be any hood on it I'll just mount the light on the ceiling or some shelfing. To put it in the picture at the moment the area where the tank will go is a desk kind of area so above there is a shelf and depending on height i could probable make do with that some how. Fans I can fix up easily aswell.

 

[Paul_MTS]

oh and 1 more thing.....does any one know the max flow rate through the different size pipes?

also would the pipes for the reef rack need to be the marine grade stuff i use for plumbing or can it be the white 20mm stuff you get some plumb centres?

I was thinking 40mm for it, I'm just bought 50mm stuff for my fahaka tank and thats pretty hefty stuff!!

 

[andywg]

I seem to recall 50mm is good for in excess of 1200 gph, though I may be wildly inaccurate so don't quote or necessarily believe that.

There is a website that calculates it but that incorporated the resistance of the actual plastic (due ti slight imperfections on the inside etc.) and co-efficients of friction.

Pipe size to flow rate

The above has the rates for metirc, shouldn't be too hard to convert. In reference to my original comment I'd say that 40mm (being around 1.5") should be good for about 3,600 gph. 50mm (2") is good for 5,400.

HIH Andy