nikki_w

Hi all this is my first post here and I was hoping for some advice or at least opnions.

I have a salt tank from the 80's that is very cool and unique sitting dry in the parents garage for at least 15 yrs. Well up till now I have limited my salt experience to the lazy eclipse systems. I will try and explain how the tank was set up and then I was wondering what would be the best way with least amount of cost to set it up now. I would like to to corals in it and have an idea which lights I would like on it but the filteration is what I am most concerned about.

First let me describe the tank. The tank is a truvu acrylic tank and is actually 3-30 gallon tanks that are connected by 4 6"x6" tubes (2 on each side of the middle tank) so the over all length of the tank is 7' long 24" tall and 12" deep.

Now to the filteration system. Each of the tanks has 2 holes drilled in the bottom. Orignally this was setup to be a reverse underground filtration system. So one hole in each tank woiuld have a 22" tube that would suck the water from the top of the tank like a protien skimmer into a PEP inline filter then into a Ocean Clear canister filter then into a 1200 gph pump then back to the tank through the other hole into the bottom of the underground filter tray. Which would then airate the tank from the bottom up.

Current Tank Set up

90gal Tru-Vu tank
24” height x 24” width x 12” deep for each of the 3 chambers
18” long x 7” wide each of the 3 openings on top black acrylic
6” diameter x 6” length for each of the 4 tubes
24” height x 84” width x 12” deep overall measurements

rounded front corners flat back corners
each chamber has 2 holes drilled in the bottom

Lighting
2 x 30” florescent lights under hood

Filteration
Reverse Under Gravel System
Ocean Clear 325 Canister Filter with pleated cartridge
PEP Filter
Pump – 1200gpm

Thanks in advance for your help

Attached Images

tank diagrham.JPG (65.7 KB, 17 views)

Mike

Hi nikki - welcome to FishLore

What an interesting setup. You could go so many directions with this baby. One section could be a refugium, one section lps, the third sps, wow, with separate lighting setups over each. As far as filtration goes, since it's pre-drilled you could include a sump below and use a water pump to circulate water flow instead of using the canister filter. You could hide the protein skimmer, heater and any other filtration devices in the sump. The live rock and protein skimmer can be your primary forms of filtration.

Instead of going ugf, can you attach pipes into the outputs areas (in blue) so they can be above the sand bed?

agsansoo

Wow, This is different. I've seen two acrylic tanks connected this way, but never three. What are your plans ?

nikki_w

well I set the tank up last nite the way it was way back when (suck from top of the tank, goes through both the filters then return to under gravel plate) and filled it up with plain old water to see if even worked. Well...it worked like it was brand new YEAH

I left the tank on a book case that is in an up stairs loft where you can see it from both side. So now I need to really figure out a filtration system that keeps everything underneath the tank and nothing on top or over the sides.

I was kind of thinking like Mike suggested. My only concern was an overflow box but if I change the input tubes so that they are at a level that ensures no overflow I might consider a sump. What is the benifits/drawback of using a sump compared to the canister filter.

As for inside pearl beach sand & large pieces of Tonga deepwater in the 2 ends then tonga branch I think in the middle. I am thinking of eventuall moving the corals from my 5 gal to this tank then turning my 5 gal into dwarf seahorses

I havent got any farther than that. **** got to go or I am going to miss my bus to work. Have a great Monday everyone

GreenMan13

I think the main reason most use a sump is to increase water volume of the whole tank to have better stability, to hide all the equipment like heaters and protein skimmers, and to have a refuge for macro algae. With an overflow to the sump from the main tank, the water level will be constant in the main tank and the water level in the sump will fluctuate from evaporation.

Seems with salt water most people do not use canisters because they think it becomes a nitrate factory eventually. Same reason that most people have moved away from wet dry filters to protein skimmers also i think.

I like the idea of having large rock in the outer areas and branch rock in the middle. You could screen off the connections so fish can't pass between the boxes so you could keep non reef safe fish in one area too. Like a lionfish or puffer.

With two holes in each area you could set up one on one side to be the output from the sump with the other side being the output to the sump using both those for drainage (one as a safety). The three other ones you could use as a closed loop to circulate the water also.

GreenMan13

Here is a visual of what I said.

Attached Images

pipes.JPG (28.5 KB, 5 views)

nikki_w

I like visuals pretty cool idea for the sump and then just pump from one tank to another. As for the lion and other non reef fish that is what my son is doing to one of my 50 gal eclipse tanks. He went with very little live rock and is planning on a bamboo shark, lion fish, dog face puffer and a sting ray. He is working witha friend on how best to set it up specifically for these guys.

As for this tank I am in no real rush live rock is going to run $450 delivered, got 110lbs of sand this weekend and the good old bucket of salt. Found the lites of my dreams then hubby laughed when he saw the price on about $700 a piece for the 24" and I only need 3 Then I found them on refurbed from the company on ebay for less than $150 so he said maybe Here is the company info on them http://http://www.current-usa.com/ou...ithqit5ho.html like i said I have learned not to be in a rush while setting up my salt tanks.

So as for the sump any suggestions on which one is a good on and about how big it should be. Unfortunately I only have about 30"x16" in the cabinet under the tank.

Thanks,

agsansoo

A 30 gal sump would be about right. You want to go as large as you can fit in your cabinet. As for lighting, you could go with MH in the center tank and regular PC's on the outside tanks.

Rbacchiega

He's gonna need a way bigger tank....

But in terms of your setup. Is all the plumbing already attached and un changeable? It's possible to add ball valves that will restrict the flow in the event of a power outage or pump failure and prevent your sump from overflowing. Then, you can drain from the bottom of the tanks and return to the tops of the tanks. This, combined with powerheads in each section, will give you great water movement as well as good filtration with lots of live rock. You can hide the return pipes in the rockwork. Also, you're going to need to look at a big return pump, especially if you're running everything from one sump (which I assume you are) as gph decreases with the distances water has to travel.

I like the idea of keeping a different setup in each tank in terms of corals and allowing the fish to swim through the tubes. For example, the left tank can be softies or polyps and mushrooms, or a combination of both. These corals do fine under regular power compact lighting and don't usually require an insane ammount of flow. Look into button polyps, zoanthids, ricordea etc.

The middle tank can have LPS corals (fox, brain, trumpet etc). Although they can sometimes do okay in lower lighting systems, if you were to run MH over this tank, depending on the wattage, you might be able to heat the tank enough that you will only need one or two smaller heaters (or none at all) and keep a clam or two.

And last but not least, in the right, run some SPS corals (acropa, stag horn, monti's etc.) And set the lighting up as would be needed for the corals you want to keep, as these ones seem to change within the category depending on species.

Since each tank is only about 30 gallons I would look at keeping a whole bunch of "nano/reef safe fish" Ie Percs, Gobies, Dragonets (Blennies) etc, a list of which can be populated once we get further into setting this baby up. Not only will these guys stay relatively small, but they are usually quite active =, and shouldn't have a problem moving from one display tank to another.

Whew, there's lots more I could go over (flow, salinity etc) but that all depends on how you want to setup your tanks.

Best of luck

ps - check out aquatrader.com as they have great prices on lighting units. But again, depending on the setup you go with will determine if you go with normal pcs or mh...so research research research!