mattyice Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 Well after reading all of the misc. threads about prop tanks i decided that this is actually the route that i would like to go, it offers me a few things like something to show off, will further enhance my skills and knowledge and can also offer me some extra side cash if/when i decide to sell frags, plus like what was stated on another thread, it really just adds another person that is helping to preserve the wild coral populations! well im going to put up a picture of the actual design to tell me what you guys think, im also going to carry over the sump design that i wanted to go with on my 20L. but my questions include... What would be the best lighting for a prop/show tank, i dont want to fry the corals in such low water with metal halides, i was wondering if VHO would be a better lighting option? For the water flow im trying to think of what i should do, should i use one large pump and then divide up pipe from there to get good circulation or should i go with multiple smaller pumps, or should i got with a medium sized pump in the sump and then use powerheads for flow in the tank? now for the design, you can see in the picture that its going to be an extremely shallow tank (9" tall) with an over flow (6x6) in the middle and a 2" wide brace along the entire top of the tank, for the substrate i was thinking about using 20-30 pounds LS with about 50-70 pounds of LR rubble on top of that laying a perfect fit egg crate and make the second teir of eggcrate about 4" above that one with it only being a peice 24" wide on a frame, this allows me to place high lighting need coral on the top teir, mid lighting need corals on the outside of the bottom teir and low lighting need corals below the top teir...tell me what you think the tank image didnt work, to see it heres the link... http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b176/mpi...ropTankcopy.jpg the sump design...borrowed from someone else, i cant remember who though Link to comment
reefone Posted October 3, 2006 Share Posted October 3, 2006 look here http://www.garf.org/ Link to comment
mattyice Posted October 3, 2006 Author Share Posted October 3, 2006 very imformative site, but can anyone on here answer my question about the lights?, also for the pumps im just going to use muliple smaller ones run off of a wave system, have one laying around so why not use it Link to comment
Daemonfly Posted October 5, 2006 Share Posted October 5, 2006 Good lighting & high flow - thats about it I have a 20g long with built-in fuge/sump (6" on left side) with a 175w 14k MH over it all. Link to comment
mattyice Posted October 5, 2006 Author Share Posted October 5, 2006 alright well the good news is that i was able to get my dad's old wave maker from him so im going to use that for the flow, and the lighting ive changed my design a bit so im going to go with 5-46.5" VHO's with each one being 110 watts i think that will be more then enough lighting im thinking 3-10,000K daylight and 2-true actinic blues, does that sound like enough lighting? it comes out to be about 9 watts a gallon for the new tank design? Link to comment
calvin Posted October 10, 2006 Share Posted October 10, 2006 WPG means nothing. why not go T5? Link to comment
mattyice Posted October 10, 2006 Author Share Posted October 10, 2006 well T5 have less power, im thinking for the lighting go with 2 175W 14,000K MH bulbs, and 2 VHO true actinic's Link to comment
calvin Posted October 10, 2006 Share Posted October 10, 2006 well T5 have less power, not true, you should really read up on how good T5s with individual reflectors can be, especially when compared to the VHOs you mentioned earlier Link to comment
mattyice Posted October 11, 2006 Author Share Posted October 11, 2006 well im going to have to do some good research then and try and find some good reflectors and get 2 actinic T5's Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.