Advice for big tank w/ apex

[garbled]

I have a 10' long, 4' wide, 3' deep tank, which will primarily house SPS corals. Currently I have 2 Dolphin 3000 amp master pumps providing sump return and circulation. I'm planning on buying an Apex controller.

I'd like suggestions on what tunze stream's I should buy that will both work with the Apex unit, and provide good water movement, as well as allowing me some flexibility in trying different things, such as waves, or chaotic water motion.

Also, If I buy the stream rock to hide the pumps, will that serve as the mount, or do I still need to use the magnet mounts? Do you sell some kind of magnet booster for use with 1" thick acrylic, or should I just go buy some big niodium magnets?

 

[rvitko]

The 6205 and 6305 will work on 1" acrylic as is. The stream rocks are the holder, no magnet is needed when those are used, just keep in mind the rock should be a top rock to avoid gravel getting into the pump and for easy removal of the pump for cleaning. Your tank is almost in the size category where a Master Stream might be appropriate like the 6508 but I think the best bet if you want waves will be a 6215 and 2 6215.500 and 4 6205 or 6305 for flow. The tank is too big for 4 6305 to make much of a wave. A pair of Master Stream 6508 could make a wave but they are quite large and generally for 1000 gallon plus tanks.

 

[garbled]

Thanks for the quick and informative reply. A few more questions that popped into mind if you don't mind:

1) Are the outside magnets on the 6305 and 6205 models water-safe? I have some overflow boxes, and was wondering if I could mount them to those, which would leave the magnet in the water of the tank.

2) I've heard you offer some kind of battery backup for your pumps. Is that available for the 6305? Can I still hookup the battery backup, even though I plan on using the neptune apex to control the pump?

 

[shawnz28]

The magnets are identical on both sides so are water safe.

As for the battery backup, Tunze doesn't make a battery backup but they have a part called a safety connector which will work on any of the 01, 05 series streams and the 6055 nano. It lets you hook the pump up to a 12v battery of choice. Once power is lost the safety connector then has pump bypasses wall power and switches to the battery. The Apex is out of the loop when this happens as power will be lost to it as well.

http://www.tunze.com/details.html?&L=1&C=US&user_tunzeprod_pi1[prodid]=6105.500

 

[garbled]

Yeah, the safety connector is what I was thinking of. I just wasn't sure if it had to use the same connector or whatnot that the apex would plug into for control. I assume the safety connector allows some kind of adjustment, or drops down the speed in some way on the controllable pumps, so they aren't running at full blast?

 

[shawnz28]

The pump will run at a constant 12v speed provided by the battery unless it is a higher voltage battery, 12v is most common

 

[rvitko]

Just a note on what Shawn has mentioned. Since unlike our controllers which are powered by the pumps and work so long as the pumps have power, the Apex is powered seperately, if the Apex shuts down, so will the pumps even with battery back up. The Apex must also be backed up or the pumps disconnected from the Apex.