Starting Over (Literally) - My upgrade to 270G

[drummereef]

Originally posted by kelhuffman
good call if you're into DE's. three optix iiis' would work but they do really show shade areas between them.

Yeah, I definitely don't want shaded areas. That's what I was afraid of with the Reef Optix. I'm down to either the Lumen Max or Lumenarc Stealth for a DE setup.

So no shaded areas with the Lumen Max 3 then?

[kelhuffman]

I can't make that promise since I have light sources that come from everywhere on my tank so I can't be sure. But I don't think you'd have a problem. I just looked up a lumenarc stealth, as I didn't know they released a DE version. What I DO know is that the mogul lumerarcs rock! I moved away from moguls but if I still had em I'd go lumenarc for sure.

[NewSchool04]

kelhuffman, do you find the lumenmax III's brighter than the reef optix 3? I have a 250 Reef Optix 3 and I can't seem to find a bulb that is bright. I'm using a the bluewave HQI ballast. I thought it just was me and a guy came over today saying my light didn't seem that bright!

[NewSchool04]

Just to make my question clear, I understand that the spread is much better with the lumenmax III's, I'm wondering if they look brighter.

[kelhuffman]

No, they don't look any brighter. Brightness is only visible to me if the reflector is shiny. neither of these are shiny. But shinyness doesn't mean they are more reflective. the dimpled material apperantly is very efficient. what kelvin are you running?

[drummereef]

Originally posted by kelhuffman
I can't make that promise since I have light sources that come from everywhere on my tank so I can't be sure. But I don't think you'd have a problem. I just looked up a lumenarc stealth, as I didn't know they released a DE version. What I DO know is that the mogul lumerarcs rock! I moved away from moguls but if I still had em I'd go lumenarc for sure.

Dang. Well, maybe I should go with the Lumenarc DE pendants then. Or, stick with the Lumenarc Mini's SE and use 20k Radiums on HQI. This lighting thing is driving me nuts!

[NewSchool04]

I'm using the Reeflux 12K now but I've tried a bunch. I think I'm going to try a 10K.

[kelhuffman]

Tank Update:
Thought I’d add an update post since the tank is now just over a year old. I will do photos shortly but frankly not a lot of noticeable coral growth over the past 8 months, at least not on camera. Overall the tank has proved to be quite stable in its first year and the maintenance required has been significantly less than with the 120G tank. This week was traumatic and depending on how one views it a good week or a bad week. One, I had a A. turaki that was growing like a madman suddenly STN on me. Not sure why. Then yesterday I came home to find a Tunze pump alarm going off due to a jam. That pump just needed a cleaning but then I noticed another pump had my only Holothuria sea cucumber actually inside the prop area and being slowly shredded as it was stuck to the inside of the fish guard. It must have been a recent occurrence and presumably had just disgorged its toxic innards. So my timing was good as the fish were all in serious distress, swimming erratically, all breathing heavily, some buried in the live rock, some trying to jump out but none were dead yet when I first noticed the issue. I put a new batch of carbon in my carbon reactor and crossed my fingers as I had no way to catch the fish and move them to a fresh batch of water. So unluckily I lost two (flame hawk and one Bartlett’s anthias) but luckily didn’t lost any of the 12 others despite how badly some were doing. Everything is back to normal today. I'm glad I was home, glad another pump jammed to alert me and glad that carbon is SO effective!
Regarding my overall tank build here are some lessons learned for those building their own similar systems:
1. The external Tunze boxes are a great idea but were not executed properly. The bottom intake holes cannot handle the inflow of water when running 2 pumps in each side. The small boxes cause the pumps to suck the water out so that the water level lowers and they suck air. Also, the intake holes require large cup strainers on the 2 ½ inch intake which defeats the purpose of the box, namely to hide the equipment. So now each box runs one 6200Tunze Stream drawing water from the two lower 2 ½ inch intake holes. Solution: Next time build a much larger intake area and a larger box to house the pumps.
2. Two 6200 pumps are not enough flow for a 6ft long 275 gallon tank. The plan had been 4 pumps hidden in the external box, so now two 6100 pumps reside in each corner of the tank. I had the two 6100 pumps in the tank but also on the same side by the external box. All pumps on one side simply don’t create enough random flow on the other side of the tank. A bummer to have visible gear but a necessary addition.
3. I thought that fish accidentally getting into those boxes would be fine since the Tunze Streams also have grilles to protect them. This was a bad assumption. The flow is so strong in these boxes that the fish get stuck to the sides of the pumps and drown. So now all fish I purchase are too large to get through the intake grilles.
4. Sun lifts and 4 grip-lock cables are not an effective way to easily raise and lower a lighting rack. A $20 bike hoist is. The grip-lock cables now serve an equally important function as the safety stop and light rack support when lowered to their ideal position using the bike hoist.
5. 500W aluminum heaters are not reliable. I have been through 4 heaters from two manufacturers and have given up and gone back to 350W heaters placed in the sump and also in the Tunze boxes.

[Bax]

Sounds like an interesting year. Looking forward to pics.