New 165g 7 footer
 

Hi all,
Its time to start moving onto a larger tank from the beautiful 75 gallon tank that Dave @ Concept made for me!
Now that I have moved into a house from a condo, I have a whole basement to play with.

My equipment:
2xMP40s
various reactors for phosphates, carbon
Skimz skimmer (for up to 250g)
3 Radions
DC Return pump (2640 l/hr standard @ 0 hieght)
3 BRS Dosing pumps

My existing tank is overcrowded beyond reason with magnetic frags all over the glass.
I dose with Iron, Pottassium, Amino Acid powder, Vitamin C, Strontium and sometimes mix my own food using garlic, fresh seafood, Omega 3 oil and garlic.
Not a lot of fish...in fact I have great sucess with SPS, then soft coral, then fish (in decreasing order of sucess). I have a sailfin tang, 2 ocerellis, 1 yellow finned trigger fish and 1 lawnmower blennie.

No issues with hair algae at all, but the tank glass gets a brown film on. I may still have 2 emeral crabs but havnet seen them in a while and one fireshrimp

Kinda wondering if I need better CUC to help with the glass a bit




Questions:
Will 2 MP40s be enough from in the tank (other than return from the pump) for SPS? Should I add another MP40 or buy an MP60
IF I buy an MP60, how would I lay them out considering the tank is 2ft wide, 7ft long and 18" deep

Lighting: 3 radions... enough coverage? I have rics, yumas, cyphastrea...things that prefer lower light that I can put along the periphery.

The sump is HUGE.. also 7ft long. I am thinking of modifiying it so there is about a 3ft wide section for algea and maybe put in a smaller deep sand bed for more nitrification.


BULK HEADS: What do you recommend? I plan on drilling the display tank for 3/4" bulkheads 3/4 toward either end from the center of the tank. Should I use larger bulkheads?

Totally open to any suggestions people. Will start working on this over the next couple days!

Thanks in advance

Steve

one more mp40 at least. one on each end and one in the back pane.
skip the DSB, fill it with rock or try an ATS. my 0.02$

I don't have any experience with 7 footers or MP40/60s so can't really help there but definitely tagging along for the ride :-)

:pop2:

I have a 120G.. with 1 MP40 on the side I couldn't even imagine a smaller tank with 2 yet alone 3. I keep mine running at about 75%

I'm running 3 mp40's across my back wall and just bought a 4th. I'm also running 2 wave line dc pumps pushing about 4000gph through my returns...... And I still have a few dead spots. If you can run the mp40's on the opposing ends they can definitely do better but I wanted unobstructed views from the ends as well.

you needed this upgrade bad when i last saw your tank can't imagine it now lol! are you going to keep the old tank? she was a beaut.

@lastlight... you wouldnt believe the number of magnetic frag disks I have.. Its ridiculous. There is barely a free space on any of the rock..sps growing into each other... so the extra space is going to be great.

As for the MP40's, I cant imagine less flow in an SPS heavy tank. I run them on "reef mode" at up to 70% on a 3 ft tank.

I have a bunch of Korillias <sp> that I may play for the time being if the flow is less than I'd like and just figure out if I need an MP40 or 60

I altered the sump (7ft long as well) so that there is almost 4ft to grow cheato... Happy with that, but the pump area could be reduced... seems to be too big a compartment for that.

QUESTION... Why does the skimmer have to be in a separate container, is it just because of microbubbles and potential for cavitation on the pump blades?

Hey Steve. Are yours mp40es? I have 2 es on my 120g 4 ft tank and they where fine with all sps being frags. But now that they are colony I find its not enough flow. Couple colonies have some dead tissue in the center. However I only run then at 80%. If yours are ES. Consider getting another one for the back wall so you can run nutrient mode the way ecotech designed it.

And a dedicated chamber for you skimmer because you want the water level to be constant. It does help with micro bubbles as well.

Thanks for the input.. I've had so much sucess with my existing setup I want to make sure I do this right.

Its hard for me to believe I will get adequate flow with just 2 MP40's in 7ft of water. Someone suggested an MP60, but that seems like too much to shoot out from the 24" back wall and too lopsided to have an Mp60 on one end and an MP40 on the back and opposite...

I vote for 1 or 2 mp40es on the back wall. More pumps of smaller size will give you more random flow than one big pump.

You can always put 2 mp40 on each side if you don't like them on the back wall. That should give you plenty of flow.

@Ultra, yes they are MP40es and I agree... get another to work together


Everything makes sense and I appreciate the input


OK... NEW QUESTION on cutting GLASS
What I have just noticed though is the sump is too high for me to take the skimmer cup out and would like to cut the glass lover for that compartment by about 3". The glass is 1cm thick. Any ideas? Just etch and tap out? This is outside my comfort zone, but I want to be able to clean my skimmer regularly.

Drill 2 holes for the lower corners then cut the rest with a dremel & diamond saw bit. At least that's how I do it Steve.

Thanks Greg.. finally got all the bits to do that! Wont have time to drill away prolly till Sunday.

Starting the plumbing... tank is 3/4 full at proper salinity.. lots of water and salt mix ready once everythings in place.

Then to clean and sell that beautiful 75g one piece euro that Concept made for me just over a year ago... Sad to see it go, but there's no way I can take time to care for two tanks!

Nice! What are the dimensions of that tank again ?

the 75g. not the 165 :-)

the 75 is 3ft long, 24 high, 20 deep
Nicely designed sump with refugium. Plumbing has quick connects to dismantle.

Cleaning up the 75g. Will sell with sump, stand and can include now "live" marco rock (tank has been running over a year), sand. May sell skimmer. The tank is starfire on all 3 sides and of course one piece eurobracing. This isnt an official add, but thinking 700. This tank was designed to be displayed in a main living area... so very purty thanks to Concepts incredible workmanship!

Time for an update... after leaving the corals from the 3ft'r "thrown" into the tank haphazardly for over a month, I finally had time to arrange things.. Still work to do on the lighting mount for the Radions (5 of them).. very much jerry-rigged right now and quite high over the tank. Overflow emergency drain needs to be finished (right now the drain sounds like a waterfall). I also will be selling off some corals after things settle more in the tank.

How the heck did I fit most of these in my smaller tank!! My Ca and Alk use has almost doubled despite only a small increase in corals..sign of a growth spurt??

Heres a few pics. If you're interested, the photobucket link is on the bottom.

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...ps34549250.jpg

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2ca574b7.jpg

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0a955acb.jpg

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...psc2f137bf.jpg


http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...pscd698f4d.jpg

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...psc0acbaad.jpg

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...pse0860ce8.jpg

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0c05d6c2.jpg

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...ps48e59eda.jpg

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4ce3064a.jpg

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...ps682ef59c.jpg

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...psbce0c910.jpg

http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...ps75c5ac05.jpg


More at:

http://s1084.photobucket.com/user/St...?sort=3&page=2

Steve that is looking like a winner to me, very nice indeed.

Nice tank Steve