New 165g 7 footer

[SteveConn]

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

[claymax]

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$

[kien]

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 :-)

[HaZRaTTy]

Originally Posted by claymax

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 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%

[subman]

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.

[lastlight]

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.

[SteveConn]

@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?

[ultreef]

Originally Posted by SteveConn

@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.

[SteveConn]

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...

[ultreef]

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.