90 gal newer setup ready to add lights and? (help please)

[canar]

OK,

I have a 90 gal All Glass aquarium. It is drilled and has the glass doors on top. It has a canopy that also has glass doors on the top of it.

I did a lot of research and bought a super high quality protien skimmer with a filter box and 2 blue line pumps. I used 1" PVC to plumb the filter box etc from my family room down into the basement.

I bought 150 lb's of live cured rock and have 2.5" - 3" of sand on the bottom. There are a couple sand eater goby's in it right now, a shrimp and a small urchin. Oh yea also a nemo that I have had for more then 5 years.

The filter was working and I believe the tank had cycled before I put the rock in it. When I switched from my old wet dry with the cheap protien skimmer to my new one I took out the bio balls and moved them to the baffles of the new one. I have since been slowly removing them. My nitrates are under control so far and all looks well.

OK here comes my questions.

Let me say one thing first. I have money. I am not rich but I have enough not to cut corners. That does not mean I want to spend it foolishly. That said here we go.

I want to be able to put lots of colorful coral in this thing including blue clams. I want to make this tank as low maintenance as possible. My next purchase will be a new light. I am using a 100$ jebo light right now just so the tank is not dark :)

I like the idea of the Metal Halide light. 18 months between bulb changes. That is a LOT better then 6 months. My concern is it has to go under my canopy. I read someplace I need 12" between the light and the water? Also will this cause a problem with the heat? From what I saw I need 400-450 Watts. Any good brands out there I should be looking at?

My next question is addatives. Calcium etc. etc.
Adding stuff to the aquarium and dripping some of it in? I have read a lot about this and I still am in the dark a bit. Calcium reactor? CO2 injector? Bubble counter? Do I need these? DO I want these? Would this make it so my water was more regulated? Would I not have to add the supliments to the water any more? I saw something called a PH regulator too.

Here is my thing. Once the tank is set up and ready I want to add some decent coral to it. I have watched so many people cut corners or not know about something and just WASTE money. My father in law went through 3 big blue clams before someone told him he did not have enough light. If there are things out there that are going to help me with taking care of my tank and they are important please help me out here. I want to do this right the first time.

Ted

[Randall_James]

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Lights:
250W @ 10-12" should be fine IMO, 400 do put out more light/heat however. 12 months is a more likely time for bulb changes as well.

You could go with 14K lights (I do like a bit of blue in my tanks) and that would pretty much eliminate the need for actinics.

A pair of thermal 4" cooling fans mounted in the hood are a great idea and you may want to just look at chillers 1/5 or 1/4 hp.

Additives: (never add what you do not test for)
Kalk is good for maintaining PH and ca levels

calcium reator/ DIY 2 part/ store bought 2 part:
Listed in order of preference but the reactor is not cheap. I use the DIY 2 part.

Managing PH is not that tough to do after you run the tank for a bit. Mine never gets below 8.2 and never above 8.4. I run kalk over night while lights are out and that takes care of top off and ph as well as maintaining my calcium (does not work well for bringing it up)

[canar]

Is there any way to have a Kalk reactor run automatically when it tests the water and finds out it needs to run?

[Randall_James]

There are a number of monitors that will do this. I just put mine on a timer to run for 2 minutes per hour from lights out to lights on. Here is what I use, I have a rigid plastic tube that is sealed on 1 end and has several openings about 2" up (so that the tube can rest on bottom of container without picking up kalk paste on bottom) Make sure discharge end is above container level so siphon does not occur.. The timer allows for 14 events per day so the hourly dosing is easy. (I use 3 gallon laundry soap containers for kalkwasser)
http://mytankpics.com/tanks/albums/userpics/10002/kalkpump.jpg

[canar]

Thats a lot more work then I want to keep up with regularly. I need to find something that I can set up once and then maybe change the media once every couple months or something.

[canar]

I have been reading more about the Kalk reactors. It seems like they will do what I am looking for but I need to find something that will test the water and then regulate what it puts into the water. Does something like that exist? Is there anything other then a Kalk reactor I should be looking at?

[Randall_James]

There are a number of monitors, I frankly do not trust any of them that well.
I can assure you that the time involved in getting the ph stable is nothing compared to the rest of this hobby. If you are going to have time problems with this you may want to consider a FO or FOWLR.
A Reef tank is a daily exercise in husbandry. Without the "hands on" I feel you may be disappointed in the final product is all.

I know of no single aspect of this hobby that can go "months" without diligent oversight is all.

[canar]

It is not as much time problems as it is trying to make it as simple as possible. I do not want to meadure 8 things every day and then try and figure out what to add to make it right. Automating as much as possible is my goal.

[WillyJ]

Randell_James has a point. I think daily hands-on is a must. However, nothing is wrong with automation, as long as it works.

Look in the Large Reef Tank forum. A couple weeks back, there was a guy showing his new setup. He had really automated things. Using sensors and his PC to monitor and adjust most parameters in his tank. I just went looking for the thread, but cout not find it. I'm sure it has rolled back aways by now.

I have not been able to use the search function on this site, maybe you'll have better luck.

[canar]

Yea I have been looking at a lot of the automation sites using X10 etc. There are a couple places that wrote software to at least keep up with the measurements. It looks like they can only measure a few things though. Then there are meters that look like they will do PH and Cacium amongst some other things.

The confusing part is it looks like some of the levels effect other levels. I wish there was a good guide out there someplace that listed what you needed to check in order of importance. That way I could work down the list and cover the most important stuff first. The more I read the more I find. Iodine, etc etc etc.

I guess it comes down to balance. No I do not want to spend 2 hours a day taking care of my reef. I want it to be the best it can be with putting in a resonable amount of time.

I am into IT for a living. I look at it like security. You can get to 90% secure on a network pretty resonably. The last 10% costs you 9000% more then the first 90% did. I am just looking to get to that 90% mark. If automation can make that easier then that is what I want to do.

I saw blueline has a dimmer too that will do many of the measurements and do dosing etc. DO not see any software for that though. I will keep reading. Hopefully someone will read this that can help me out. I also found a thing called doctor aquarium. Looks like the sensors need to come from europe though. Neptune systems has some stuff that helps automate also. Anyone out there messed with this stuff yet?

Ted

[Randall_James]

1. Do not rely on any X10 stuff PERIOD.... (I would hesitate to even use any of it)
2. There is a place for your information here on RC/
http://reefcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=112
There is a years worth of reading in the chemistry threads..

Plenty of folks automate lots of things on the tanks, however most will vouch for the daily "Looksie" that is just for piece of mind.
ALL automated devices fail eventually. Some sooner than others, You must account for a worst case scenario no matter how you set up I believe. There are reefers that have had triple redundant setups fail and kill entire tanks.

Topoff is easily the most popular (excluding temp) and the best as it helps keep salinity in vary narrow parameters.

Most of the other additives are pretty stable after you figure out the consumption rates. All tanks are different and you will after some time see that your system needs X amount of X additive every X days...
I am not knocking all the automated stuff but to rely on it to maintain your tank is just a big big risk.

Calcium reactors are great if you have the need for one. Upon setting one up and running it for 4 to 8 weeks, you will see it just needs to run at X settings to maintain ca levels. The process of adding ca is automated but the process of checking is not. Those checks are your protection I suppose.

Besides, half the joy of this hobby is doing the checks, evaluating the results and making changes that hopefully make improvements.

Besides the "autotop off" I think the biggest help in this hobby is stuff to help automate things like "water changes" and "mixing" of new water. They can be time consuming and really are very vital IMO to a healthy tank. So if those are easy to do, you are more likely to do them on schedule.

If I did not get to mess with my tanks I would grow bored with them anyway.

(all the above is just my personal opinion and everyone has one :D but I can think of a lot of easier hobbies if the effort is an issue)

[WillyJ]

That other post I referred to, the guy was using AquaController, I believe.

http://www.marinedepot.com/aquarium_controllers_neptune_systems_aquacontroller.asp?CartId=

[canar]

How about X10 for just the lighting systems?

[Randall_James]

The issues I had with the X10 stuff was a grocery list....

Lights come on and wont go off
Lights wont come on but go off
Lights go off and on randomly
Every known combination of the above.

They tell you to buy the 100$ + noise filters etc...

X10 is fine for your coffee pot, or any non life support system in my books. But when you have no control over random events, well I think you get the idea.

Stick with hardwired solutions. I have owned the Neptune system and I am aware they are a sponsor here but everything is an upgrade (meaning$$$)
You buy the controller, modules, and then they even want you to pay for the software to connect to your pc and monitor long term.
humbug.....

Before you are done it is 1000$ The premiumAquatics lighthouse at least comes with the web server built in already but the down side is it can only control a chiller OR heater, not both.

UPSIDE, 300$ W/hardwired controls strip. Superior temp probe Neptune will get that for just the powerstrip and the software, no controller.

Keep in mind there are some guys that had good luck with the X10 stuff but I have way to much invested to run the risk. I just finally gave up trying to make it work consistently