[Twistedpro]

Hi Guys,

well i have had the worst week of my marine keeping life, my house got flooded last thursday. I had 2-3" water throughout the ground floor. The problem with this was the cabinet on the marine tank got very wet and the chipboard expanded. Can u guess what happened next the marine tank cracked and gave way. I Managed to save the stock though which was my main concern.

So now i am in a position that i might be able to put a new tank together. I am not used to designing a large tank as i have only ever had a maximum of 150litres. What i would like to design is a 3'x2'x2' tank with sump. I dont want to have any powerheads in the tank and run it on a closed loop and sump return.

For the closed loop i was thinking of a sequence 10000 with an oceans motions 4 way, 2 outlets, in the base at the front blowing at a 45degree angle back over the rock. and 2 outlets back corners. I am unsure of where i should place the intake

I thought i would have a central weir with the 2 outlets coming back either side of it. With the overflow i thought i would hard pipe it into a deltec APF600 skimmer to feed it. I would like to run the tank on ZEO where should i have the reactor?

For lighting i would like to retrofit as i dont want a expensive pendant, was thinking about getting lumen arc reflector and 2 t5 tubes fitted into a pelmet that sits on the top of the tank, leaving the pelmet open. Would i need more than 1 reflector? Should i go 400w or 250w?

I would like a shallow sandbed in the tank and was going to put live rock on reef rack. I dont want a massive rock structure to allow for more growing room for the SPS. I will use the rock from the old tank, how long do u think it will be before i can place the SPS back in? Would i need anything else in the sump area? Would i get enough flow? can anyone think of anything else i would need

Thanks for your help

regards

Peter