Roast My Reef Tank Plans

[208reef]

I'm building a 210g reef that will primarily be a giant wall of mushrooms, zoanthids, and anthelia. I might toss in an LPS or SPS here or there, but 20+ years in the hobby and SPS still don't excite me the way mushrooms, zoos, and anthelia do. Please roast my build plan and or let me know if I am missing anything major or making any horrible mistakes! Thanks

-Aqueon 210g Reef Ready Aquarium (2x600gph overflows) w/ glass tops to keep the cats out (already own)
-DIY stand/metal halide hood
-Aqueon 60g Breeder Sump w/ ebay refugium baffle kit (already own)
-The refugium section of the sump will an inch or two of crushed coral mixed with live rock rubble to encourage growth of pods, mini-stars, sponges, worms, and provide extra surface area for biological filtration (gotta have me that old school GARF grunge effect lol)
-IceCap Turf Scrubber Pro Medium
-2x Seachem Impulse 800 return pumps (basically rebranded Tunze Silence pumps)
-2x Eheim Jagar 200w Heaters (may need to bump up to 3)
-Deltec 1000 series protein skimmer
-Media reactor for carbon (which one TBD)
-2x Ecotech MP40
-2x Tunze 6905
-3x Reef Brite 250w metal halide ballasts
-3x Radium 250w 20k single ended MH bulbs
-Around 130 lbs of Caribsea special grade reef sand (mix of dry and "live")
-Metric crap ton of rock
-Hanna marine master photometer test kit
-Spectrapure 150gpd RO/DI unit (already own)
-Tunze Osmolator 3155 Auto Top Off (already own)
-Milwaukee digital refractometer (also have manual refractometers, floating glass hydrometers, etc.) (already own)
-Magfloat 400 w/ scrapper
-35" algae scrapper
-Milwaukee iodine photometer
-Milwaukee or Hanna total chlorine photometer (tbd)
-Milwaukee pH meter w/ ATC probe (already own)
-I have an old Reef Keeper Lite that I might use or eventually upgrade to Coralvue controllers
-A couple of Rubbermaid Brute 44-55g trash cans on dollies (having flashbacks of there being concerns with Brute containers leaching something into the water, so need to research this again)
-Red Sea Coral Pro Salt (already own) (I have a feeling the dKH may be a little to crazy high on this salt, so may need to downgrade to regular Red Sea, Franz, or Tropic Marin since I won't have as much stony coral - aiming for 8-9 dKH)

For fish, will probably do a large school of green chromis, a few clownfish, a dwarf angelfish, and maybe a tang or two.

 

[BristleWormHater]

I'm building a 210g reef that will primarily be a giant wall of mushrooms, zoanthids, and anthelia. I might toss in an LPS or SPS here or there, but 20+ years in the hobby and SPS still don't excite me the way mushrooms, zoos, and anthelia do. Please roast my build plan and or let me know if I am missing anything major or making any horrible mistakes! Thanks

-Aqueon 210g Reef Ready Aquarium (2x600gph overflows) w/ glass tops to keep the cats out (already own)
-DIY stand/metal halide hood
-Aqueon 60g Breeder Sump w/ ebay refugium baffle kit (already own)
-The refugium section of the sump will an inch or two of crushed coral mixed with live rock rubble to encourage growth of pods, mini-stars, sponges, worms, and provide extra surface area for biological filtration (gotta have me that old school GARF grunge effect lol)
-IceCap Turf Scrubber Pro Medium
-2x Seachem Impulse 800 return pumps (basically rebranded Tunze Silence pumps)
-2x Eheim Jagar 200w Heaters (may need to bump up to 3)
-Deltec 1000 series protein skimmer
-Media reactor for carbon (which one TBD)
-2x Ecotech MP40
-2x Tunze 6905
-3x Reef Brite 250w metal halide ballasts
-3x Radium 250w 20k single ended MH bulbs
-Around 130 lbs of Caribsea special grade reef sand (mix of dry and "live")
-Metric crap ton of rock
-Hanna marine master photometer test kit
-Spectrapure 150gpd RO/DI unit (already own)
-Tunze Osmolator 3155 Auto Top Off (already own)
-Milwaukee digital refractometer (also have manual refractometers, floating glass hydrometers, etc.) (already own)
-Magfloat 400 w/ scrapper
-35" algae scrapper
-Milwaukee iodine photometer
-Milwaukee or Hanna total chlorine photometer (tbd)
-Milwaukee pH meter w/ ATC probe (already own)
-I have an old Reef Keeper Lite that I might use or eventually upgrade to Coralvue controllers
-A couple of Rubbermaid Brute 44-55g trash cans on dollies (having flashbacks of there being concerns with Brute containers leaching something into the water, so need to research this again)
-Red Sea Coral Pro Salt (already own) (I have a feeling the dKH may be a little to crazy high on this salt, so may need to downgrade to regular Red Sea, Franz, or Tropic Marin since I won't have as much stony coral - aiming for 8-9 dKH)

For fish, will probably do a large school of green chromis, a few clownfish, a dwarf angelfish, and maybe a tang or two.

You know whats better than mushrooms, zoas, and anthellia? BLASTOMUSSA!!! #1 coral

 

[BristleWormHater]

Seems like a great plan though, do what interests you Are you planning on adding any gorgonians?

 

[GoReefin]

Metal halides for softies... why?

 

[KrisReef]

Looks great.
The rubber maids don’t leach anything.

Get at least 5 pounds of real live rock for the rubble area in the sump to get the sponges, pods, and bacteria from the ocean and not a bottle.

I’m fond of Eric’s stuff:

SPONSOR - Livestock - Australian Live Rock - NEW BATCH PHOTOS!!!!!

With each new batch of live rock I import, I like to post photos for you all to see and make clear decisions. The rock comes directly from Australia on the same flight as we would receive fish and/or corals....so it's the fastest way to get it to me here in Los Angeles. The rock is collected...

www.reef2reef.com

Love MH and old school sensibilities.

 

[208reef]

Metal halides for softies... why?

Seems like the most economical way to light a 30" deep tank that isn't spending $3k on Ecotech Radions?

 

[GoReefin]

Seems like the most economical way to light a 30" deep tank that isn't spending $3k on Ecotech Radions?

Power bill will eat the savings in no time. Consider 3 kessil ap9x over the tank it'll make it 30 inches deep no problem. Can find them used for $550.

 

[Spare time]

I personally would swap the MH for something like those new quanta atlas lights if you really need the power and scrap the rubble in the sump. However, I think noopsyche lights or any of the led bars would work well and cost a fraction.

 

[Sdoutreefer]

I have an old XR30 if you want it. It's a gen2 pro.. I doubt you'll have good PAR at the sand, but I won't charge you anything. Maybe we can do a coral swap at some point. Let me know and tagging along.

Happy to see another Idahoan on this forum