My 210 gallon SW setup (in progress)
- Thread starter wantvws
- Start date
I wish! I do have big oak beam with with screw jacks holding the floor up.
I have a 120g saltwater reef that's been running for about 7 years, so I do say this with a bit of experience under my belt... but you need WAY more water movement than what you purchased. For example I have about 1/2 the water in my tank as you do in yours... but I have 4 of those maxi-jet 1200 powerheads in the tank, plus a 900gph sump return pump etc. I have all my filtration items in the sump under the tank, like the Euro-reef skimmer and carbon and other mechanical filtration filters etc.
Water movement/filtration is the key to a successful reef IMO.
Anyways I'm super jealous of your new setup!!! What are the dimensions of that tank? Setting up a new reef is so much work but it's so fun! Make sure whatever you do, that you make it easy to do water changes. The first several months of the tank are very important to maintain the water quality up there. But after it's been established for a while then the tank pretty much does it's own thing.
Mine evaporates about 2 gallons of water per day into the house, but I have a bunch of 4" ball bearing fans up in the canopy because I have metal halide (HOT) lighting. Evaporation is something to think about also.. because I have to manually replace the evaporated water daily with fresh water.
What type of water will you be using? Do you have an RO or RO/DI unti? Do not use tap water in a reef!
Water movement/filtration is the key to a successful reef IMO.
Anyways I'm super jealous of your new setup!!! What are the dimensions of that tank? Setting up a new reef is so much work but it's so fun! Make sure whatever you do, that you make it easy to do water changes. The first several months of the tank are very important to maintain the water quality up there. But after it's been established for a while then the tank pretty much does it's own thing.
Mine evaporates about 2 gallons of water per day into the house, but I have a bunch of 4" ball bearing fans up in the canopy because I have metal halide (HOT) lighting. Evaporation is something to think about also.. because I have to manually replace the evaporated water daily with fresh water.
What type of water will you be using? Do you have an RO or RO/DI unti? Do not use tap water in a reef!
I have 2 of the MJ 1200's, but I guess I will look for some additional units. I bought these because they were the largest ones my LFS carries, but I will look around for some others online.
The tank is 7'x2'x2', and will be fish only to begin with. Reef setups are way cool, but I did not want to go for the additional investment to begin with. I'll see how the fish go, and maybe go for the reef setup later if I'm successful with the fish.
I am going right now to buy a test kit for my water. We have well water without a softener so I'll see what the test says. What should I look out for in the water? If I have issues, I'll buy a RO unit for the tank.
Thanks!
Robbie
The tank itself is actually about 9" away from the wall (8" required for the protein skimmer). If I haven't eaten recently, I can slide in behind it. :thm:
Robbie
Ah well if it's fish only, then the well water will probably be fine. I mean IIRC it's silica in the tap water and all it does is lend to increased algae growth. It won't really bother your fish but it would probably irritate some corals. Also I would go with 4 maxijet 1200s in your tank. I mean if you're not going reef right now, you still need to have enough flow to blow the stuff off the bottom and into the water column to be filtered out. The biowheels you talked about would probably be ok for fish only.. but I'd defintely consider 2 more maxi's for sure. What a fun project! post up more pics if you've got them! This thread got me innterested in rearranging the rock in my tank now hehe
I had m water tested at my LFS today, and he said it looks good. So I think I will hold off on the RO unit right now. I may order two more maxijet 1200s from Foster and Smith, since they are considerably cheaper than my LFS. I like to support local businesses, but I'm sure I will give them lots of support when I get this thing up and running.
Here are the most recent pics....not a whole lot different.
Speaking of rocks, should I set them before any sand or water? I'm dying to stack 'em up!
Robbie
Here are the most recent pics....not a whole lot different.
Speaking of rocks, should I set them before any sand or water? I'm dying to stack 'em up!
Robbie
Well I would have a thin layer of sand in the tank before you start with your rocks. I had several small rock slides while I was building my structures... and it would be a shame if it slipped and hit the bare glass and cracked or broke the tank.
Also your rock is dry dead rock which is fantastic for allowing you to spend the time to build whatever structure/shapes you want. For that, I'm uber jealous too. I've always wanted to build several "towers" instead of the boring rock piles/rock wall that I have. I found directions online to build these rock tower formations by drilling holes through the rock and using a 3/4" or 1" piece of acrylic rod to slide down the hole and therefore connect the rocks vertically (and stable!). That's perfect because you can build up vertically while having plenty of sandy bottom.
The importance of the sandy bottom with as little rock actually on the floor as possible is that those maxi-jets will keep the "crap" moving and it won't settle as easily on the bottom. It promotes a cleaner tank environment, which means happy you because of less cleaning
Also your rock is dry dead rock which is fantastic for allowing you to spend the time to build whatever structure/shapes you want. For that, I'm uber jealous too. I've always wanted to build several "towers" instead of the boring rock piles/rock wall that I have. I found directions online to build these rock tower formations by drilling holes through the rock and using a 3/4" or 1" piece of acrylic rod to slide down the hole and therefore connect the rocks vertically (and stable!). That's perfect because you can build up vertically while having plenty of sandy bottom.
The importance of the sandy bottom with as little rock actually on the floor as possible is that those maxi-jets will keep the "crap" moving and it won't settle as easily on the bottom. It promotes a cleaner tank environment, which means happy you because of less cleaning
