I currently have a 30 gallon with Power Compacts and have been planning to upgrade to a bigger system. Over the weekend I was able to procure a 65 gallon aquarium that had been used as a reef tank a few years back and was sitting empty in a friends basement.
View attachment 17633 View attachment 17634
The picture on the left is the new tank sitting at my office, the one on the right is the 30 gallon. The plan so far:
1a) I am planning on replacing the halides as soon as possible. If you reference the pictures you can see that one is warmer than the other, I put it on my 30 gallon at home to test it and you can clearly see the lights are different. I made the mistake when I got my 30 gallon and did not replace the PC's on it, a few weeks later I lost some corals because the lights had passed their good by date. One of the halides also whines, thinking there's a bad connection between the bulb and the connector.
Lighting: 2x150 watt MH (using Hamilton brand 14k) = 300/60 = 5wpg
1b) As far as I can tell this is a Current USA 36" SunPod 2x150 watt Metal Halide with blue and white moonlights light hood. I am not sure if it would be better to run the 65 with this or upgrade now to a DIY LED System and sell the SunPod.
2) I am going to cook the live rock. It appears that the rock had sat in a garage for a while as it is covered in leaves and grime. Also hoping this will fix any phosphates from leaching out/nitrates[ites] from dead stuff as I will be moving the contents of the 30 into this after cycling.
3) I am going to redo the sump setup. Currently there is one big center chamber to be used a refuge but no place to put the sump. I plan on separating the refugium into two so that the water flows half into the fuge and half to the skimmer. I also plan on increasing the chamber for the return pump as it is currently setup to only hold a few gallons and I want to be able to top off every few days and not daily.
4) I plan on increasing to a 4" sandbed, currently have 1" on my 30. I know it's not necessary and I considered bare bottom but I like the look of a sandbed. Figure 4" will take up at least 5 gallons of space, leaving 60 gallons usable space.
5) The last thing I plan on increasing is the flow rate. The tank came with a Hydor Koralia 240 and a 700 gph return pump. The return feed is split into the tank 2 ways. I am adding a SEIO 1000 and a Koralia 425.
700 (RP) + 1000 + 425 + 240 = 2365/60 = 39.4
I plan on positioning the SEIO near the top for high flow over the sps while low flow towards the bottom for the softies.
Stock List:
Fish - 2 OC Clowns, 6 Line WRasse, 3 Banggai Carndinalfish, 2 purple firefish
CUC - Narsissus Snails, 4 Emerald Crabs, 6 Trocus Snails
Refuge - Chaeto, Calurpula, Dragon's Breath
Corals: Montipora (Orange digi, forest fire digi, orange cap, purple digi, rainbow cap, grape cap), Zoas (fire and ice, eagle eye, tubs blue, candy apply red and pink, armor of God, God of war), Mushrooms (green rhodact, red, florsc green, blue rhodact).
What do you all think?
View attachment 17633 View attachment 17634
The picture on the left is the new tank sitting at my office, the one on the right is the 30 gallon. The plan so far:
1a) I am planning on replacing the halides as soon as possible. If you reference the pictures you can see that one is warmer than the other, I put it on my 30 gallon at home to test it and you can clearly see the lights are different. I made the mistake when I got my 30 gallon and did not replace the PC's on it, a few weeks later I lost some corals because the lights had passed their good by date. One of the halides also whines, thinking there's a bad connection between the bulb and the connector.
Lighting: 2x150 watt MH (using Hamilton brand 14k) = 300/60 = 5wpg
1b) As far as I can tell this is a Current USA 36" SunPod 2x150 watt Metal Halide with blue and white moonlights light hood. I am not sure if it would be better to run the 65 with this or upgrade now to a DIY LED System and sell the SunPod.
2) I am going to cook the live rock. It appears that the rock had sat in a garage for a while as it is covered in leaves and grime. Also hoping this will fix any phosphates from leaching out/nitrates[ites] from dead stuff as I will be moving the contents of the 30 into this after cycling.
3) I am going to redo the sump setup. Currently there is one big center chamber to be used a refuge but no place to put the sump. I plan on separating the refugium into two so that the water flows half into the fuge and half to the skimmer. I also plan on increasing the chamber for the return pump as it is currently setup to only hold a few gallons and I want to be able to top off every few days and not daily.
4) I plan on increasing to a 4" sandbed, currently have 1" on my 30. I know it's not necessary and I considered bare bottom but I like the look of a sandbed. Figure 4" will take up at least 5 gallons of space, leaving 60 gallons usable space.
5) The last thing I plan on increasing is the flow rate. The tank came with a Hydor Koralia 240 and a 700 gph return pump. The return feed is split into the tank 2 ways. I am adding a SEIO 1000 and a Koralia 425.
700 (RP) + 1000 + 425 + 240 = 2365/60 = 39.4
I plan on positioning the SEIO near the top for high flow over the sps while low flow towards the bottom for the softies.
Stock List:
Fish - 2 OC Clowns, 6 Line WRasse, 3 Banggai Carndinalfish, 2 purple firefish
CUC - Narsissus Snails, 4 Emerald Crabs, 6 Trocus Snails
Refuge - Chaeto, Calurpula, Dragon's Breath
Corals: Montipora (Orange digi, forest fire digi, orange cap, purple digi, rainbow cap, grape cap), Zoas (fire and ice, eagle eye, tubs blue, candy apply red and pink, armor of God, God of war), Mushrooms (green rhodact, red, florsc green, blue rhodact).
What do you all think?