'Fringe Benefits'... On hold...

[BlueAbyss]

Alright, so here's the proposed tank plan, if anyone would like to critique...

20 gallon display, 15 gallon sump.

I was thinking that I'd like to go with a coast-to-coast across the back of the tank because the vast majority of the water flow through this tank will be surged, and I don't think I'm gonna bother with trying to make it all quiet beyond making the siphon for the CSD quieter... Herbie's don't work overly well with surge. There will be a 1" bulkhead returning the water from the tank to the sump, which should be enough to handle the 600 gph I want to run through this tank. But without further ado, lets talk about flow and surge!

I will be running 2 pumps on timers. Pump 1 will run during the day, turning over the tank at a total rate of roughly 600 gph or around 30X. Most of this will run through a tuned surge tank that will drop a volume of about 1.5 liters every 2.5 seconds, the balance will run through the tank directly. Pump 2 will run at night, about 300 gph... 15X turnover. More of this will make it through the tank without being surged, though there will be a smaller surge of 1 liter every 4 or 5 seconds. Both surge and direct flow will be piped into the tank through a plenum system built into the rockwork... likely 4" acrylic tube will be used for this.

I will be running a skimmer (I've been looking at the Tunze 9005 or 9205), at least during the startup phase (first 4 months). I also have a pair of 100W heaters...

that will reside in the sump with the pumps and skimmer. I may also consider an ATO, though probably not unless the need is shown ie: the fluctuations in the sump are severe enough to warrant it. This tank will be uncovered, so evaporation may become a problem but I'll welcome the extra humidity in the mean time.

As far as lighting goes, I'm currently torn. MH seems like the way to go, but I'll still need T5s to go with it, so I'm not 'light-shocking' the tank when the MHs come on. It may be better to just get T5HO to start off with... any thoughts here would be greatly appreciated. One problem with MHs is I find many to be too blue for my liking, but I still want to be able to get some fluorescence out of my corals and zoos... and I love the shimmer they produce. So what is everyone's experience with lighting? I could really use some insight.

TENTATIVE STOCKING LIST!

Plants:
Halimeda spp., calcareous algae
Chlorodemsis spp. (Maidens Hair algae)
Peyssonnelia spp. (Red Plate algae)
Halophila spp. (Oar, Paddle, or Star grass)
Halodule spp. (Shoal grass)

Sessile Inverts:
Christmas Tree Worm Rock, with Porites spp. coral... I love feather dusters
Photosynthetic sponges Halichondria or Haliclona spp.
Zoanthids, I'll be running carbon.
Montipora / Acropora spp.
Caulastrea or some other LPS coral that will keeps it's tentacles to itself. Maybe Blastomussa?
Muriceopsis flavida, Purple plume gorgonian, or some other photosynthetic gorgonian.

Benthic Inverts:
Gnathophyllum americanum (Bumblebee Shrimp) - probably a group of 5
Lybia tesselata (Pom Pom Crab) - single. I may decide against this one, I haven't decided yet.
Snails - I haven't decided if I will buy snails for this tank, I'm hoping something comes in on my live rock. If not (or if nothing survives) I'll go with a couple Nerite spp.

Fishes:
Doryrhamphus excisus (Bluestriped Pipefish) - a pair. These will likely be the only fish in the tank.
Discordipinna griessingeri (Flaming Prawn Goby) or Stonogobiops yasha (Yasha Goby) - single if I decide that I need another fish, and the 'pod population can handle it.

Thoughts are appreciated, thanks for reading

[BlueAbyss]

The section of the reef I am trying to replicate is called the 'fringe', where seagrass beds meet the edge of the reef. Hence the change in name to this thread. A little wierd, I know... but I'm up late reading about aquarium stuff, so I'm probably slightly delerious

[Whatigot]

can't wait to see it in action.
sounds like a lot of planning, and that always seems to translate into a very nice tank.

[BlueAbyss]

Yeah, planning partially because it's my first saltwater tank, partially because I'm sort of going overboard in my plans what with the variety of stuff I plan to keep (and have yet to find a source for seagrasses in Canada), and partially because I'm on a slim budget.

But if things go well I should end up with something I can brag about

[Whatigot]

your best bet for seagrass may be from a fellow reefer...
When your at the stage that you need it, try posting in the classifieds for some.
People get all kinds of cool macro hitch hikers and you might get lucky.

[BlueAbyss]

Yes I'll be doing that, I've figured out that much of what I need will not be available through mail order... photosynthetic gorgonians and sponges, macroalgae, and seagrass mainly, but we'll see. I won't be at the stage where I'm ready to plant the seagrass, which will occupy approximately 1/3 to 1/2 of the tank, until 6 months after I have the tank set up and the rock, sand, and mud in the tank. By then it will likely be winter and I will probably have to wait to find the seagrass from someone who wouldn't mind shipping.

I don't think I'll mind waiting, watching all the things that survive the cycle with the uncured rock grow and take over a predator free tank will be interesting

[BlueAbyss]

So I was doing some measuring today, and the stand that I had intended on using... well not really a stand, but that's beside the point... isn't going to have enough room to have a very large skimmer at all. I have a total of 16" of height where I want to put my sump, so with the height of the sump (around 13" with the trim on the tank) that leaves me with 3" of headroom, not enough to remove the cup on a skimmer. AND I'll have to pull out the sump to do any maintenance, requiring me to have spaflex shipped to me...

ARGH! Why didn't I think of this before?

So, now I need to build a stand. This is actually a blessing in disguise though, for a number of reasons.

1. It will cut down on noise, having all the components enclosed in a cabinet.
2. I can hide ALL of the plumbing by drilling a short side of the tank.
3. I can build an overflow into the same short side, saving some space in the tank AND allowing the tank to be viewable from 3 sides.

Hmm this is gonna work out to be cheaper in the long run, because I don't need to buy good looking equipment... nothing will be exposed. I can also use both MH and T5HO, a la retrofit kits. I still need to do some research on reflectors though...