500 gallon Main/500 gallon sump

Engine8ff

Engine8ff

New member
OK everyone I am moving and the wife has OKed building a 500 gallon system. I will be taking down the 215 and selling it to help with a little funding for the new build. What I am looking for is input. I will be asking a lot of questions and polling the 500 gallon club. This is the tank dem. that we want to build, 96L x 48W x 32D island, for the sump, fuge and grow out I want to have some of the rubbermaid 200 gallon tubs. Everything will be hooked together. Everything except the Main will be in a fish room in the basement.

The first question is with a basement fish room is a closed loop out of the question if not what size pumps are you all running and what brands. If it is out of the question how about 4 mp40's?

The second question is skimmer what brand, and how big? Can you go with 2? I was thinking about 2 cone because I cant find a nice cone rated for 800 plus gallons, looking for input.

Last question for the night is lighting. I have 3 250SE with lumin reflectors fired by icecap ballast on the 215, should I look at 4 400 watt or 4 250's? I'm also running T5 HO should I look at VHO or stay with the T5?

Thanks for the help!!!!!
 
Your asking the three questions that often come down to individual preferences and always spark much debate.

As for the CL vs PHs. Have you read this thread?

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1625773

He's running all internal circulation with big PHs and it seems be be doing the job. The only thing that has ever made me switch from CLs in my smaller tanks is power consumption and the addition of heat. There is always somthing else to spend watts on. Personnally I am leaning to a mix of Tunze and MP40s.

I am with you on the 2x cone skimmers, for the redundancy and watts savings. I love my PHAT dual beckett MRC, but it's a watt hog!

Lighting is so personal in terms of the look that appeals to you. I like MH. On my 8 foot tank (If it ever sees water in this economy) I am leaning to fixed 250s on the ends with a 400 on a lite rail in the center. Again, for the overall watt savings. I use T-5 for supps but I've never run VHO. I think the current TOTM is using MH/VHO.

Good luck with the build!
 
Thanks for the input. This is the great thing about building a new larger tank. I did the samething when I put together the 215 and loved the way it turned out. You can get so much input on this site its unreal. I am kinda hopping that Vortech comes out with a bigger power head, they have the mp10 to cover the smaller tanks and the 40 to cover the 6' so they need to get something together to cover the 8' above.

Anyone out there that can talk on VHO vs T5 even on smaller systems?
 
I assume a tank with those dimentions will be 1" thick. If that is the case vortechs will be out of the question. I spoke with vortech and they said they have no intensions of building a powerhead to work with 1" thick tanks.
 
That was something that I totally forgot all about. Well it looks like closed loop.

Closed loop guys: Anyone out there with a island tank and closed loop that can give some input on design. I will start to work on getting some drawings together to post for everyone to look at.

This is the second time my wife said "yes" I'm not sure she knows what we are getting into this time!!!!!
 
Before you comit to a CL, look at Steve's thread linked above. The tank is 96 x 48 but shallower, 24 I think. His tank is at least 1" acrylic and he's using 4 x 6305 Tunzes and 4 x Wave Boxes. His flow is SICK!

Wave Boxes make me squirely as they rock the tank structure so much, but maybe a combo of a CL and the Tunzes?
 
I will take a look at it but I'm not sure if I want the larger power heads in the tank. I spent the money on the Vortechs for the 215 and love the clean look inside the tank. I will for sure take a look at them.
 
I have done more reading on pumps and flow. Looked at a couple builds, found a couple 8' tanks but not quite as wide and they were running 1 and 2 pump systems. What do you all think of this 3 hammerhead 3600 gallon on the Apex so I can controll the amount of flow, run 4 returns on each pump. The thing is I will need to pump up from the basement, atleast a 12' head.
 
I had seen the tank once before and couldnt find it again. Thanks for the link. I wanted to look at how he had the pumps mounted.
 
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