My new 400 G tank

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Hi everyone. Well I had been slowly working on setting up a 190 but things have changed. I just put down my deposit on a 400 gallon tank complete system w/ 90 sump and 30 skimmer sump. I should be moving the set up next week on the 24th of july.

Right now it is set up as a FOWLR but my final goal is to turn it into a reef. It currently houses several species of tangs, one being a mated pair of Naso's, a pink tail trigger and a christmas wrasse, all of which are going with the tank.

I do have a few questions though. It currently has only PC lighting on it and I know that will not suffice for a reef. The tank is 36" deep which will require some serious lighting. My question is what lighting? Will 400W MH be enough? Will 250 W MH DE's work? Do I need to go up to 1000W MH? I want to make this a mixed reef but mainly dominated by plating types of SPS. Any ideas or help will be appreicated.

Some of you may recongise the tank from the pics as I am buying it from a fellow RC member. Here's a little eye candy for you.

Tank is 7' long, 3' tall and 2 1/2' deep.



Some of the fish. I don't get all of them but the ones listed above will be staying with the tank.



The equipment. Skimmer is 6' tall.




Lights.

[Jeffie]

Nice collection of fish. I love the chrysyrus!

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Yea me too. Unfortunatly I don't get him, the owner is keeping him.

[thrlride]

Good Lord! That's going to be nice!

I'm not sure how penetrating 250 de's will be with 36" of water to go through. You might want to look at 400's.

Either way, keep un informed! If I lived closer I'd volunteer to help you move it.

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Thanks T Ride. Yea, I'm stepping up to the big leagues now. Took a bit of smchoozing with the wife but she gave in. Now I just have to sell the 135 and 190 that have been collecting dust in the back yard.

I'm thinking 4 400W MH will do the trick. I'll keep the higher light corals up higher in the tank.

[thrlride]

You 'might' be able to get away with 3 400's depending on the reflectors. If you used the LO3 reflectors they have a better coverage. Electricity savings could be significant.

[Bamm Bamm]

SWEEEEEEEET>>> WOW that is an awesome setup!! CONGRATS!!!

[pferboy]

that is so cool. goodluck.

[SFlogic]

cant wait for it to fill with SPS

[Jeremy Blaze]

Nice big tank!

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Thanks everyone. I get to move it this sunday so I'm busy this week getting everything ready for teh move. It's almost like waiting for Christmas to open presents.

SFlogic, it will have some SPS but not completely dominated by them. I've got to leave room for the big fish to swim around. That and I want some LPS in there as well. It may take a bit though as there's a lot of room to try and fill up.

[Crusty Old Shellback]

OK, it's now official. I AM the proud owner of the 400 G tank as we got it all moved to my house this weekend. I'll post pic's on my progress as I start to clean and reassemble the system.

As for now, I think things will basically go back the way they were. I'm going to change some of the plumbing so that I don't have to rely on flapper valves to close in case of a power outage to keep the tank from draining.

I'm going to set up a closed loop with 2 inputs from the bottom of the tank and 4 returns that are on the overflow box. The 4 returns were originally used for the return from the sump and that is where the flapper valves were installed. With the new closed loop, I won't have to worry about that. The 2 intakes on the bottom were not used when he had the tank set up.

For returns from the sump, I'm looking at installin 2 spraybars around the top of the tank. I have 2 return pumps so 2 seperate spray bars should do the trick. I'm still debating on weather to use just an open PVC pointing down into the tank or to put on some rotating sprinkler heads that I've been playing with and just have the tip in the water. This would give a more random flow and I currently have one set up on my 190 holding tank that the fish are housed in.

Other than that, everything else should be about the same as before, water is skimmed off the top thru the overflow, goes into the skimmer sump for skimming and then into the main sump. from there, it will go back to the tank via spray bars.

The closed loop will use the pond filter cartridge that was used on the tank before but will be plumed as described vice HOB pipes.

The tank currently has 8 X 55W PC lamps but I will be upgrading to 3 X 400 W MH bulbs so that I can keep corals in it. I've also purchased a small calicum reactor that will be set up on the sump. The sump also has a auto topoff valve so I'll be setting up some type of auto topoff for it.

Unfortunatly, the room for the tank is not done yet so it will be setting in my garage for a bit until I get the room, or at least the floor completed. I've got to level the slab that the room is built on.

Stay tuned for more updates. I'm also opened to any ideas or advice on setting up the system.

[waynesworld]

I have a 240 that is 30" deep and 3 400s work but you may want to keep the sps up a little. the fish you are getting:

Right now it is set up as a FOWLR but my final goal is to turn it into a reef. It currently houses several species of tangs, one being a mated pair of Naso's, a pink tail trigger and a christmas wrasse, all of which are going with the tank.

I don't think that trigger will be reef safe?

One thing you will need is a good long gripper thing to move things around the bottom as you are 6" deeper and I already get my shoulder wet in mine and I am 6'3"

[Crusty Old Shellback]

I think the pink tails are one of the only reef safe triggers, along with the blue throats. Don't know for sure but will have to keep an eye on him and do some research to make sure. I also picked up a huma-huma from a friend who had to get rid of him so I know I can't keep clams or inverts in the tank for now. Corals should be OK though I hope. Again, research will do the trick.

Yea, I figured I'd set up some shelves of rock higher up in the tank so I could put the SPS corals on them. The LPS and other soft corals should be OK down lower to fill in the bottom.

Once I get the right fish in/out of there, I wonder if the 400's will be enough for clams on the bottom or will I have to put them higher up in the tank.

Yea, as for cleaning, Figure I'll be snorkling a bit in the tank.

I see your from murfreesboro, I just talked to a guy out there at a Harley shop that I bought some parts from off Ebay. Kind of funny as I had never heard of it and now, 2 different people in the same town, I've talked to about 2 different hobbies of mine.

[waynesworld]

Ya it was funny I saw you were ret chief I was on the west coast as an A01, what ships were you on?

[Crusty Old Shellback]

I was on the Kitty Hawk back in '80 waiting for achool. Was an airdale for 5 years and then converted to Fire control Missiles in '85 and was on teh Halsey from '85 - '90. My last ship was the H.W. Hill from '94-'98. I spent about 15 years in San Diego. I retired in '01 after 21 years.

[Johnsteph10]

Crosshatches and Sargassums are the other 2 reef safe triggers (in addition to Blue throats and pink tails).

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Thanks John, I thought I had read before somewhere that Pink tales were reef safe. Do you know if they will bother clams, snails, shrimp or other inverts? I'd really like to keep him as he is very beautiful. He's been in the tank for several years and is quite large and fat. Plus he gets along with the other fish in the tank just fine.

[Crusty Old Shellback]

I just found an article in reefkeeping mag that sates the following triggers are considered reef safe.

Blue chin, crosshatch, black or durgen and the pink tale.

Also if you look at this months TOTM on the main page, you will see a pink tail in that reef tank. Guess I get to keep him and try it out.

[MargaritaMan]

Ray, The Pink Tail is reef safe. Besides, the only thing that fat fish has had to eat for the past two years is pellets. I think he has forgotten how to eat anything else. Oh ya, his name is "Green Hornet."

The large Naso is "Rudy."

MM

[camaro03]

them are some nice show sized fish

[keefsama2003]

how do the mated pair of naso's interact with the rest of the tank? are they more dominant in the tank or are they more neutral? i want a pair of naso's in my 300 so i was wondering about this.

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Since I've had them now for about a week in a holding tank, I can only comment on what I have seen. Maybe MM can chime in since I got them from him.

All of the fish just cruise around the tank and don't really bother each other. I have noticed that the Male Naso seems to be the boss of the tank. The two Naso's do swim together at times staying close but a lot of the time they are apart. I'm not for sure how long all of the fish have been together but I know it's been more than a year.

The only new fish in the tank now is a Huma-Huma trigger that I was given to take care of. He was in the holding tank before I picked up the new fish and tank. I think he is the one who took a chunk out of the christmas wrasse. He definatly is not in charge of the tank as even the pink tale trigger took his sleeping spot.

I have since added in some LR to the tank and it seemed to comfort the fish and they settled down more. I'm sure they are ready to get back into their big 400 but I'm still trying to get the plumbing the way I want. Should have it done by this weekend if I can find a couple of bulkhead fittings.

[zfunk007]

Sounds great Blown Chevy. Can't wait to see this thing up and running!

Your gonna have the same ammount of light on yours that I've got on my 210. I have 3, 400 Watt Halides 14K. Along with 4 Actinic PC's. Your definetly gonna have to put the stonies up higher though. Thats a deep tank!

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Thanks. After looking at the tank top last night, I'm going to go with 4 X 400W's. There are 4 openings in the top so I figured I place one Mh at each. That way I don't have one directly over teh braceing. The tank already has 8 X 55W pc's and I'll change all of those out to atinic. Just wondering if I want to go with 10K or something a little higher like a 12K or 14K. I want to have a nice white blue that's bright so i'm satying away from the 20K's. Maybe I need the 10K's just to get to the bottom of the tank.

I started figuring out and doing some plumbing last night. Right now, the water goes thru the overflow and into a duroso pipe to a 2" drain line. that goes over to the 30G skimmer sump set on the right side of the tank. That will be enclosed when I do the final installation. From there it goes thru another 2" line to the 90 G sump under the tank.

From the 90 sump, it will go into two Iwaki pumps thru a 1" line and into two UV sterlizers. The out put of each sterilizer will feed it's own 1" spraybar set up on either end of the top of the tank. Each spraybar will have 4 rotating sprinkler heads attached to give a random flow thru the tank. Only about 1 1/2" inches of the sprinkler head will actually be in the water so you will not see much of them.

For a closed loop, there will be 2 X 1 1/2" drains in the bottom of the tank. They will T into each other and feed a pool pump that is hooked up to a hayward cartridge pool filter. The out put is a 1 1/2" line that will feed 4 output nozzles mounted in the angled sides of the overflow box. The closed loop wil be run on a timmer set to run only when the lights are on.

With this type of setup, it will eliminate the need for flapper valves in the return line and if there is a power outage, there is no worries about flooding.

I may have to increase the flow of the sump return pumps if the current ones are not big enough for the spraybar setup. If that's the case, then I will trade them out for some Iwakia 100's or something similar.