june007 Posted August 25, 2007 Share Posted August 25, 2007 Hi guys, i am new to the site but have about 5yrs of experience in the hobby keeping mostly softies and Lps. I currently have a 7g minibow that has been running for about 5months now, mostly softies and one fish. I am going to convert it into a sps tank which i have no prior experiences with. Here are couple of questions i would really like to get answered. 1. I have a 150w 14k De hamilton pendant that is custom mounted on the back of a 2.5g aquafuge hang on refugium which is on the back of my 7g minibow. This light fixture sits about 16inches from the top of the tank which was necessary not to over heat the tank, as it is currently running in the 79-81range with a small pc fan on top of the refugium. IMO the tank gets ample light but is that too high??? will the sps still get enough light penetration at that distance? 2. I have also recently attained a tunze nanostream 6025, hooked it up and literally saw my turbo snail on the sand at the time get scooped up and tossed around like a salad briefly (I kid you not it created like an hurricane effect for about 5minutes) along with all the sand but after about 5 minutes or so everything settled down. I know that is a lot of flow hmm lets see about 90x? or so. Is that too much flow in a 7g tank for sps? 3. Is a skimmer really necessary for sps? I really hate skimmers, noisy, messy, takes up room in a small system. I plan to keep up with water changes 1gallon week and dose with b-ionic. Just to recap: 7g minbow 150w 14k de halide that is mounted 16" high from the tank aquafuge refugium 2.5g that fits quite nicely on the back of the minibow tunze nanostream 6025 about 7lbs of live rock 1" live sand Please let me know if you guys think this system most importantly the light and the flow? will work well for keeping sps. Thank you guys in advance. I will post pics soon as i get a camera as i ran over my last one with my car in the drive way don't even ask! Link to comment
SbCaes Posted August 25, 2007 Share Posted August 25, 2007 Hi guys, i am new to the site but have about 5yrs of experience in the hobby keeping mostly softies and Lps. I currently have a 7g minibow that has been running for about 5months now, mostly softies and one fish. I am going to convert it into a sps tank which i have no prior experiences with. Here are couple of questions i would really like to get answered. 1. I have a 150w 14k De hamilton pendant that is custom mounted on the back of a 2.5g aquafuge hang on refugium which is on the back of my 7g minibow. This light fixture sits about 16inches from the top of the tank which was necessary not to over heat the tank, as it is currently running in the 79-81range with a small pc fan on top of the refugium. IMO the tank gets ample light but is that too high??? will the sps still get enough light penetration at that distance? 2. I have also recently attained a tunze nanostream 6025, hooked it up and literally saw my turbo snail on the sand at the time get scooped up and tossed around like a salad briefly (I kid you not it created like an hurricane effect for about 5minutes) along with all the sand but after about 5 minutes or so everything settled down. I know that is a lot of flow hmm lets see about 90x? or so. Is that too much flow in a 7g tank for sps? 3. Is a skimmer really necessary for sps? I really hate skimmers, noisy, messy, takes up room in a small system. I plan to keep up with water changes 1gallon week and dose with b-ionic. Just to recap: 7g minbow 150w 14k de halide that is mounted 16" high from the tank aquafuge refugium 2.5g that fits quite nicely on the back of the minibow tunze nanostream 6025 about 7lbs of live rock 1" live sand Please let me know if you guys think this system most importantly the light and the flow? will work well for keeping sps. Thank you guys in advance. I will post pics soon as i get a camera as i ran over my last one with my car in the drive way don't even ask! how do you plan on keeping water params stable?... top off ever few minutes? =? Link to comment
kkyyllee Posted August 25, 2007 Share Posted August 25, 2007 yeah, youll NEED an ato unless you sit next to the tank ALL day long, i hope you took out the fihs before you added all that flow Link to comment
june007 Posted August 25, 2007 Author Share Posted August 25, 2007 how do you plan on keeping water params stable?... top off ever few minutes? =? thanks for the reply, water top off isn't that bad as it only evaporates about 1 16L bottle a day, it is a very small pc fan set at lowest setting, heat is really not an issue. I top off in the morning and at night, sg doesn't appear to have a big fluctuation. Any thoughts on any of my questions? yeah, youll NEED an ato unless you sit next to the tank ALL day long, i hope you took out the fihs before you added all that flow Lol yeah the fish and most of the softies are gone, i do have a dosing ive that i might use to for top off water all day. Space is a premium so auto top off might be a bad choice since you need to set up a feed station. Any thoughts on any of my questions? from the main post? about the lights and the flow? Link to comment
Reeftopia Posted August 25, 2007 Share Posted August 25, 2007 I think that your lighting will be ok- I believe a 150 HQI gives off 80.2 lumens/watt, so that should be fine. As far as flow goes, no reef aquarium is capable of creating the amount of flow that shallow water reefs produce so the amount of flow for SPS isn't the question. The question is the type of flow. No SPS species will thrive with a dirrect blasting of high water flow. The nanostream 6025 produces about 660GPH I think even though that they are propeller pumps and have a more gentle flow, 660gph is still a ton of water movement hitting a coral. I would much rather see, mabye two Hydor Koralia pums at each end of the tank. Those pumps range in flow from model 1@400gph all the way to model 4@1200gph. Those pumps are similar to the nano streams... they are propeller pumps and are pretty small. They are also magnetic. I do feel a skimmer is important, I have a very large skimmer on my tanks but I do have a 300g and a 75g however, if you have good LR and lots of flow... I think that you may be ok. I would also caution on the amount of water changes. I have found that SPS growth is pretty slow in perfect water. I would maybe do 2g water change once a month. I have 2-5ppm of nitrates in my tanks and my SPS grow very well. Hope this helps! Link to comment
suppressive fire Posted August 25, 2007 Share Posted August 25, 2007 yea it wont evap as bad as you all think i have a 150 mh on my 10 gallon aga. Link to comment
june007 Posted August 25, 2007 Author Share Posted August 25, 2007 I think that your lighting will be ok- I believe a 150 HQI gives off 80.2 lumens/watt, so that should be fine. As far as flow goes, no reef aquarium is capable of creating the amount of flow that shallow water reefs produce so the amount of flow for SPS isn't the question. The question is the type of flow. No SPS species will thrive with a dirrect blasting of high water flow. The nanostream 6025 produces about 660GPH I think even though that they are propeller pumps and have a more gentle flow, 660gph is still a ton of water movement hitting a coral. I would much rather see, mabye two Hydor Koralia pums at each end of the tank. Those pumps range in flow from model 1@400gph all the way to model 4@1200gph. Those pumps are similar to the nano streams... they are propeller pumps and are pretty small. They are also magnetic. I do feel a skimmer is important, I have a very large skimmer on my tanks but I do have a 300g and a 75g however, if you have good LR and lots of flow... I think that you may be ok. I would also caution on the amount of water changes. I have found that SPS growth is pretty slow in perfect water. I would maybe do 2g water change once a month. I have 2-5ppm of nitrates in my tanks and my SPS grow very well. Hope this helps! Hey thanks for your reply, good to hear that the light is ok at that distance. I have thought about going with 2 small pumps on each end of the tank but i already have a rio 200 on one end pumping out to a hang on fuge and don't really have room for 3pumps in a small tank so i just decided to go with one powerful one like the tunze, when you say direct and indirect flow, what would you consider direct? my tunze is in the upper left corner pointing kinda up wards and my sps are going to be on one side of the tank as my aquascape is a hill to one side do you think i will have problems? and also 2g water change a month? i won't be adding any additives or using a skimmer, other then b-ionic so do you think there will be enough trace elements if i do a once a month change? thanks again you sound knowledgeable. oh one more change do you think very small fluctuation on temp 79-81 and salinity like .002 or less will be tolerable for sps throughout a day? Link to comment
Reeftopia Posted August 26, 2007 Share Posted August 26, 2007 Hey thanks for your reply, good to hear that the light is ok at that distance. I have thought about going with 2 small pumps on each end of the tank but i already have a rio 200 on one end pumping out to a hang on fuge and don't really have room for 3pumps in a small tank so i just decided to go with one powerful one like the tunze, when you say direct and indirect flow, what would you consider direct? my tunze is in the upper left corner pointing kinda up wards and my sps are going to be on one side of the tank as my aquascape is a hill to one side do you think i will have problems? and also 2g water change a month? i won't be adding any additives or using a skimmer, other then b-ionic so do you think there will be enough trace elements if i do a once a month change? thanks again you sound knowledgeable. oh one more change do you think very small fluctuation on temp 79-81 and salinity like .002 or less will be tolerable for sps throughout a day? Well I am against adding trace elements anyways so I really think that once a month WC will be ok. What I mean by direct and indirect flow is this: Direct Flow= Water stream from pump hitting coral directly (very bad) Indirect Flow= When you point the pump either at the rocks or at the glass of the tank, then the water bounces off that then surrounds the coral will flow. This is what you want. I think that if you have the nanostream at one corner and point it at the front glass and slighty up, you should be ok. There is a guy in my reef club that has a 125G reef... SPS dominated. He has no skimmer, no refugium and no chemical or mechanical filters. He has 130LBS of quality LR and 4 Tunze 6080 which have a flow of 2250gph each. It is just crazy how much flow he has, his tank actually vibrates. Anyways, he has a very healthy tank with no filtration other than LR. I think that you will have a very nice tank. I would love to see pics if you have them. Let me know if you have any other questions! Link to comment
june007 Posted August 30, 2007 Author Share Posted August 30, 2007 Well I am against adding trace elements anyways so I really think that once a month WC will be ok. What I mean by direct and indirect flow is this: Direct Flow= Water stream from pump hitting coral directly (very bad) Indirect Flow= When you point the pump either at the rocks or at the glass of the tank, then the water bounces off that then surrounds the coral will flow. This is what you want. I think that if you have the nanostream at one corner and point it at the front glass and slighty up, you should be ok. There is a guy in my reef club that has a 125G reef... SPS dominated. He has no skimmer, no refugium and no chemical or mechanical filters. He has 130LBS of quality LR and 4 Tunze 6080 which have a flow of 2250gph each. It is just crazy how much flow he has, his tank actually vibrates. Anyways, he has a very healthy tank with no filtration other than LR. I think that you will have a very nice tank. I would love to see pics if you have them. Let me know if you have any other questions! Thanks for the info! I do have the tunze in one corner angling between a back wall and a big rock, it does bounce off nicely and head many different directions. I'll put some pics up soon thanks again. Link to comment
Reeftopia Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 Thanks for the info! I do have the tunze in one corner angling between a back wall and a big rock, it does bounce off nicely and head many different directions. I'll put some pics up soon thanks again. No problem! Hope everything works out well for you! Hey I have a forum talking about bare bottom reefs, you should check it out. I have some pics of my 300 gallon tank on there. It's under general discussion>Bare Bottom Reefs. Hope to see you there! Link to comment
geekreef_05 Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 No, skimmers are not needed for SPS. Simply control your bioload. Ive run a 15 Nano mostly SPS tank for about 5 years now. Ive got no skimmer. Just alot of liverock and my only fish are two mated watchman Goby's. Nice and small...very little pollution. And the tank was actually fishless for the first 3 years. Link to comment
Matty1124 Posted August 30, 2007 Share Posted August 30, 2007 just a thought the nanostream 6025 will take up a lot of space in the tank... and i remembered reading about this a while back maybe get like two or three of them Koralia nano it will give you better control over your flow and you could have it alittle broken up with more stealthy powerheads Link to comment
june007 Posted September 6, 2007 Author Share Posted September 6, 2007 just a thought the nanostream 6025 will take up a lot of space in the tank... and i remembered reading about this a while back maybe get like two or three of them Koralia nano it will give you better control over your flow and you could have it alittle broken up with more stealthy powerheads [/quote Thanks guys the nano stream when i first put it in looked like an overkill creating chaos in the tank but now about a month later i actually don't think its enough flow, i know that sounds crazy. I have put my first sps in the tank, the lfs said it was an acro horrida? i looked into it but doesn't at all look like any of the pictures i have seen. I think it might be something else. When i bought it it had white tips the guy insured me that they were new growth? but having doubts now. So far it seems to be maintaing the peachy color, but i have no clue if it is doing well or not? How can one tell if it is doing well? And how can i tell if its not getting enough light, because my light is mounted so high 16" from the aquarium. Thanks for the reply guys Link to comment
Withers Posted September 7, 2007 Share Posted September 7, 2007 My immediate thought when reading this thread was... why are you set on using this equipment on a 7 gallon tank? That light will handle a footprint of about 24x24x12 (or a bit taller) and that nanostream would be much better suited with a pair pointing at each other in a slightly larger tank. Going bigger will give you less stability problems overall (heat, salinity changes, slower nitrate buildup) and give you more room for your corals to grow out. But, that setup should work with SPS, I would just be hesitant to try any of the really finicky acro's in it. Link to comment
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