55 Gallon to 150 Gallon

[chaase68]

Hey Guys! I currently am running a 55 gallon tank with some live rock, some corals, and some fish. When I set the tank up I purchased all my filtration for a much larger system planning to upgrade in the future. My questions are for my upgrade. I posted this is the New to the Hobby section because I feel that I am still a novice in this and would love to hear some input from the experts.

My Current system includes:
55 Gallon Tank from Petco
Eshopps WD-200cs with Overflow
6" Reef Octopus Protein Skimmer
Pondmaster 700gph Pump
(2) Hydor Evolution Pumps 1050
(2) Hydor Evolution Pumps 550
Hydor Smart Wave System
Hydor ATS
Corallife 36w UV Sterilizer
Coralife 4 Stage RO/DI system.

Livestock:
About 80lbs of live rock from Live Rock n Reef
(2) Rose Bulb Anemone
1 Basslet
3 Clown fish
1 Blue hippo
1 Blue Throat
1 Banded Shrimp
Misc. cleanup crew

Corals:
I will have to get back to you on this.

I am planning on purchasing a 150gallon 60x24x24 tank from SCAquariums.com and wanted to know everyones feeling on this tank. Seems like a good deal. Starfire, Frameless glass, with overflows. Anybody have experience? I did some research and have heard good review from them. But bad reviews of a company they once worked with.

Would also love some input on my equipment, powerhead placement, anything else you think I would need to update or get?

Any good places to get a stand?

Thanks

 

[thegrun]

I think your return pump is going to be too small. You want a minimum of 750 gph delivered after head pressure loss and I would look for a pump closer to 1000 gph. Your total flow is barely sufficient for a fish only tank, if you start keeping anything but the most hardy corals you are going to want more flow from your powerheads.

 

[chaase68]

Do you think a 1800gph Pondmaster Pump would be ok? What about power head recommendations?

 

[thegrun]

That pump would be fine, although they use a fair amount of energy and tend to be a little noisey. I would try to get a total flow of about 30x your display tank for soft coral flow so your total flow should be around 4500 gph (powerheads and return pump total).

 

[chaase68]

What pump do you recommend and what kind of powerheads would u recommend?