48" Deep Reef Tank With Biological Filtration

[osi]

Its 96" × 36" × 48"

 

[raynelson23]

awesome!

 

[trickedout900]

Very impressive. I can't wait to see that beast filled.

 

[PistolShrmp]

Wow, amazing....you may need scaffolding to clean the glass lol.

 

[dzfish17]

I thought your tank looked familiar... my tank is 96x36x46. You have the perfect size tank my friend. A tall tank looks much more natural to me... cant wait to see this finished.

 

[NaClH20NMYVEIN]

I work on a tank that is 48" deep and the 400W halides were only getting about 50 par on the sand bed. It was bright enough for the eye but not really for anything nice. I added 3 of the 100 watt cannon LED's and now we are getting from 150-250 par at the bottom. Now we have LPS & SPS at the bottom Good luck with your build.

 

[coralreefdoc]

Osi. Your build is truly unique, I appreciate the experimental aspects of it.

However, with that said, your prospective use of only 8 - 60" 80w T5s, especially with 2 of them being pure actinics, on this system is more of a guaranteed failure with SPS rather than an experiment. That lighting scheme would arguably be underpowered for even a Fish-Only system of similar dimensions, let alone SPS corals. The fact that you are using 2 pure actinic bulbs is good for a multitude of reasons, so dont let people tell you to just replace them with higher PUR/PAR bulbs.

What I would suggest, as Im sure many others on here would as well, is if you are sold on the T5s go with at least 10-12 bulbs, make sure to use SLRs, and aquascape with the SPS being as high up and directly under the light as possible, within reason.

Good luck, Osi, this looks to be a very interesting, unique reef build !

 

[osi]

Hey!!! Thanks for all the comments…

 

[osi]

I work on a tank that is 48" deep and the 400W halides were only getting about 50 par on the sand bed. It was bright enough for the eye but not really for anything nice. I added 3 of the 100 watt cannon LED's and now we are getting from 150-250 par at the bottom. Now we have LPS & SPS at the bottom Good luck with your build.

That's strange coz one of my friends had 50" tank with 3 × 400W 20000k MH and he got 170+ on his DSB. I was thinking about using LED on my build but because of the cost it's not a feasible option right now.

 

[osi]

Osi. Your build is truly unique, I appreciate the experimental aspects of it.

However, with that said, your prospective use of only 8 - 60" 80w T5s, especially with 2 of them being pure actinics, on this system is more of a guaranteed failure with SPS rather than an experiment. That lighting scheme would arguably be underpowered for even a Fish-Only system of similar dimensions, let alone SPS corals. The fact that you are using 2 pure actinic bulbs is good for a multitude of reasons, so dont let people tell you to just replace them with higher PUR/PAR bulbs.

What I would suggest, as Im sure many others on here would as well, is if you are sold on the T5s go with at least 10-12 bulbs, make sure to use SLRs, and aquascape with the SPS being as high up and directly under the light as possible, within reason.

Good luck, Osi, this looks to be a very interesting, unique reef build !

I guess you are saying I’m not having enough lights coz you believe in gallons per watts theory which I’m not believe in at all. I’ve seen what T5’s can do when used with good quality ballasts and mirror shine SLR specially designed for deep tanks. yas i know my tank is bit too deep than most of other tanks but hey, if we dont try we will never know..

Yes I’m going to add another 2 × 80w bulbs. But I’m not sure what to choose between Midday and aquablue. I don’t want my tank to look whitish but midday tubes put out 4900 lm/w and aquablue got only 4450 lm/w to offer.

Anyway will see what’s going to happened. I’m not that bothered about lights anyway.Mainly I want to see how my Biological filter system going to turn out.

 

[osi]

I finally decided to go with

3 × Aquablue 80w
2 × Actini plus 80w
2 × Pureactinic 80w
1 × Aquapink 80w
2 × Midday 80w

Since I’m not going to place any of the photosynthetic corals bottom 24” of the tank guess this will be enough lighting. Monti cap and across going to go on top parts of the rock pillars and frogspawn, hammer will go on middle parts of the tank.

None of them go below 30” from the water level. According to Giesemann their T5 tubes are good for SPS within 80cm(31.5”) depth.

 

[osi]

Last week I done the Base rock structure of the tank using cement and dried live rocks. And fill the tank with fresh water and leave it to cure. I forgot to take pictures before I fill the tank.

 

[osi]

Yesterday I fix the sumps in place and also finish the light structure.

 

[osi]

Cannot say I'm happy with the color combination of the lights. I thought Pure actinic will be deep blue in color but it's only violet. And also it emits very dim light.

I bought 10 lights but fix only 8. Got another 2 aqua blue plus. But I thought it's already too white so I'm going to change those to actinic plus.

Few pictures of lights"¦

 

[rpjaws74]

I like your set up..have you thought about stock list?

 

[Neogenocide]

Very nice looking build, can't wait to see the finished project!!

 

[osi]

Today we manage to empty the tank and fill it with NSW. Also fix few pieces of live rocks on top of dead rock structure using epoxy.

Few pictures of emptying the tank.

 

[osi]

 

[osi]

 

[osi]

This is where we got water and live rocks. Just 30 minutes away from the tanks location.