My 470 gallon reef
- Thread starter Goodwin9
- Start date
Is there anything you wish you could go back and do over to make maintenance easier? I was thinking about building a plywood tank for a reef and want to make it as easy as possible to maintain so I was wondering what you would want to do (or did) that would make it as easy as possible to maintain
If I could do it over again, I would try and find a better way to hang the lights inside the canopy. The 3 400 watt MH's need to be moved to clean the sides of the tank, and the fixtures behind the MH's are almost impossible to change the bulbs. What I do like about this particular tank is the fact that all of the filtration, pumps, ect are located in the basement. Easy to get to and work on. With my other tanks, all of the support equipment is located under the stands which makes for cramped quarters and more difficult to work and clean.puffcrusader696;3182484; said:
Sweet 
you could mount the halides on light tracks and move them to one side when cleaning and to the other side when cleaning that side... that's what I plan on doing when I get a bigger tank.
you could mount the halides on light tracks and move them to one side when cleaning and to the other side when cleaning that side... that's what I plan on doing when I get a bigger tank.Goodwin9;1035311; said:
How about adding a kitchen sink to your tank room? Seriously thou, seems like a bit of overkill on the filtration side.
I'd definitely nix the sand filter and UV canisters. Not sure what you have for mechanical and chemical, but probably not necessary either.
The setup I would recommend is the one used by the Waikiki Aquarium. Basically, a protein skimmer (small is fine, I prefer ETS, they use Tunze & custom), a kalkwasser freshwater topoff (using Reverse Osmosis water), good live rock and strong lighting.
That's the most basic setup. I'd add to that a refugia with a Deep sand filter, and a surge device.
So pricing it out for a 200 gal tank:
protein skimmer $200
Reverse Osmosis $200
Kalkwasser mixer $50 (using a plastic tub, timer, solonoid and a power head)
live rock $$$ (depends on a lot of things)
lighting $$$ (also varies too much to put a price on).
Refugia - $30 for plastic tub and 2" PVC fittings. The price of sand is too variable to put in here.
Surge device - $50 (plastic tub, pvc and a powerhead)(timer optional).
Deep-sand bed $50 (a refugia is a good place to put that)
There will be a couple hundred bucks in various things that you don't think of like PVC fittings and additional hardware.
I've omitted the cost of the tank, stand, etc as that's the same whether it's salt or fresh.
My point is that there is no reason to go overboard with equipment for a reef tank. You can get a beautiful tank without putting money into a lot of extra equipment.
I would say it's comparable to a freshwater planted aquarium. The cool think is that if you build the tank and lot of the equipment yourself, and then put the $$$ into lighting and liverock.
...
When planning a reef tank, the most important aspect is that you keep it well balanced. You can't have a heavy fish load and expect the fish or inverts to do well. You can have a large number of corals if you have good lighting and good water quality (and only a few fish).
Tangs/surgeon fish are best as they can support themselves by eating algae. I try to keep feedings down to once a week, so fish that can't find their own food in the tank wouldn't do very well.
Three of the below pics are from a 200 gal reef tank at Waikiki Aquarium. Sorry the pics are so bad, all are from a movie I shot of that tank.
The first pic is of the "kalkwasser" mixer/adder. Second one is the Tunze protein skimmer. The last is a nice soft coral. Sorry all this pics are screen shots taken from a movie I took of the tank.
The 3 larger photos are just some corals from their other tanks.
Here is a picture of the lighting, the MH's are hung by chain, (only one showing in this picture). No room to move fistures behind the <MH's.puffcrusader696;3185062; said:Sweet
