This is it Guys My final Reef Design

[magyk]

Ok

After intense reading and asking plenty of questions I've decided this....

I'm going to empty out my two eheim 2217 and just run them without crush coral that's 154 turn over of the water times 2

I have a 402 powerhead inside the tank

and a Prizim protein skimmer

I'm buy a VHO 440 watt retrofit kit

and going to put in 65-70lbs of southdown and 70lbs of LR

I think this will do it in order to run a successfull REEF

I'm not doing a sump yet although I may in the future

Please let me know if this will do.

Thank You

 

[reefrunner69]

IMO, you should use more LR, in the order of about 1.5 lbs per gallon. If you decide to stay with 70lbs, you may need supplamental biological filtration.

I do not think the prism skimmer is the best choice for a 75g, if possible, I would upgrade to a larger skimmer. An Aqua-C remora is a good hangon skimmer and you can get the "pro" version that uses a mag drive 3.5 instead of a powerhead.

You may find you need a bit more light, maybe another 110 watts or so, you might be able to supplament the VHO with a couple of NO lights. The 4 X 110W VHO will work, but you will be limited in what you can keep to mostly shrooms, polyps and softies, with a few lower light tolerant LPS thrown in as well.

 

[magyk]

Not to argue but the common rule of thum is 3-5 watts per gallon right

so with a 75 and 440 watts I would have about 5.8 watts if I'm not mistaken that's alot of light

 

[Guest]

so with a 75 and 440 watts I would have about 5.8 watts if I'm not mistaken that's alot of light

Yes you are correct, however, the type of light that the VHO's will put out will limit you to the types of inhabitants you can have successfully grow. Now, if you say turned that into 500 watts of MH and 80 watts of NO Actinic, you will be in the ball park more to have whatever you want. The 3 to 5 watt rule barely stands up to todays needs as far as lighting goes. Believe me, it makes a huge difference.

 

[Guest]

Forgot to mention also, if you are handy with things, the MH and NO actinic setup will cost you less money...

 

[reefrunner69]

Not to argue but the common rule of thum is 3-5 watts per gallon right

Watts per gallon is a poor way to judge the amount of light a tank needs, however, you are correct, the 440 should be enough for most (if not all) LPS and most softies as well as shrooms and polyps, for some reason at 5:46am, I read 75g, but it processed at 120g. Brain flatulation is a terrible thing

 

[blhigbee]

what ratio should we use to determine amount of mh light and no actinic. i am pretty handy with things and probably build anything. any suggestions for a 50g fowlr tank?

 

[reefrunner69]

what ratio should we use to determine amount of mh light and no actinic.

MH will produuce usable light in a 2ft by 2ft squre (actually it's a circle, but you get the point), so it will provide light for 1ft in any direction from the bulb (horizontally speaking). To determine the wattatge you need, you have to consider how tall the tank is, and what your keeping. I would say 175 watt halides are good to about 16-18" in depth higher than that and the animals you can keep become limited. From 16-24" I would use 250W halides, anything over 24" I would use 400W and up. This would give you enough light to kep light demanding SPS at just about any depth in the aquarium, however, if SPS and light intensive corals don't interest you...you could up the scale a bit and use 175W upto about 20-22", still have lot's of light at the top, but at the bottom of the aquarium, you wouldn't have as much, etc.... So you can see there are many variables, as well as opinions. As for the NO light, you would use that for asthetics, use enough to make the light look good. If your using 6700K MH (very yellow) you may need 2 or 3 NO actinic tubes, but if your using a higher K bulb like a 10K, you may need very little supplamentation, if any, this will also be influenced by the manufacturer of the bulb, not all 10K bulbs look exactly the same.

Now with that said, what are the demensions of your 50g tank, and what are you wanting to keep?

 

[blhigbee]

the dimensions are as follows 20"deep 15"wide 36"long. not quite sure on the livestock issue yet. i do know that we want corals, anemones, and definately fish.

 

[reefrunner69]

due to the length of the tank...lighting with mh is going to be problematic. I would probably use a double bulb fixture of 175 W MH.

Kinda like this...

 

[blhigbee]

since i last logged on i went down to the lfs and found that the guys there are not at all knowledgeable and tried to sell me on a bunch of really expensive fixtures. i did however find one that looked good for my application. it is a helios 4x36 using realux light bulbs. is this going to work for me or not?

 

[reefrunner69]

It will be Ok for keeping soft corals, shrooms, some LPS (large polyped stoney) corals, you won't be able to keep SPS (small polyped stoney) or anemones.