Got a Bigger Tank

I came across a 100 gallon tank, stand, and canopy, with a 20 gallon sump with more accesories than I will use (will sale those) as well as with Halide lighting for $500 this weekend.

The liverock did not appear to have that much life to it and as it took me all day to break down the tank and I replaced all crushed coral with play sand, I decided to go ahead and cycle the tank with coctail shrimp. I threw four of them in there last night.

My questions do you think that one 250 watt Metal halide and 2 65 watt PC's will be enough for this tank. It came with a really bad diy canopy that I will redo and a 175 metal halide and ballast. I already have a 250 metal halide and the power compacts in a PFO setup. I intend to just move my lights to the new caopy with a largerger 36 inch reflector. If I dont have to run both of the halides I do not want to but if they are both needed then I will. The tank dimensions are 36 inch wide X 22 inch deep X by 29 inch tall. Those are rough but should be about right.

My plan is stilll to just have the 4 fish the hawk fish, pair of mated clarkis and a madorinne dragonette. This will just give me more room for coral and the 20 gallon sump will have room for a refugium so I should have enough pods in the tank by the end of the year.

So what are yalls opinions on the lights? Also do you think it was wise to cycle the tank before I moved over my cleanup crew and hawkfish?

Also once it is cycled I was going to move some of the live rock from my current tank to the new tank this can be moved a few feet with realtively little die off right? There is about 170-180 lbs of live rock in there now and ther is about 20-30 lbs in my current tank that I would like to move.

Placing the other Metal Halide wouldn't be hard at all or to expensive. I am ordering a larger 36 inch PFO reflector I will just have two mogul bases placed on it. Since I only have on PFO balast I will just cut the cord on one of the mogul's and splice it to the other ballast. Shouldnt be that bad.

36 inches though is going to be really short are for two metal halides or that just might be my perception right now.

Any other comments?

I don't really see the hawkfish being to much of a competition to the mandarin. Considering he is fed twice a day and also is fed feeder shrimp several times a week he doesn't ever seem to do much pod hunting. Atleast not that I have noticed over the past month or so and the pod population in my 45 gallon is quite large at this point. Obviously the hawk is the only fish in there now but I think with the new tank and the refugium and continuing to feed the hawkfish as I am I should not have any problems.

Any other comments on this matter? Or the lighting?

Notice in my first post I say that I should have enough pods by the end of the year. It would be Q4 before I add anything besides the hawkfish as far as fish go.

Maybe some soft corals at about 3 months.