Free Cooling

[gabew]

ok interesting i havent thought of it that way but now i guess it makes sense
would the double glass still be necessary/helpful in that case

 

[norskfisk]

I wouldn't use anything between the lamps and the water surface, it absorbs light. Use smaller lamps instead. Some sort of top, preferrably with an opening directly above the lamps, would help to keep the air still. There isn't any way you can prevent the lmaps from heating the tank because it is the radiation itself that heats the water. Just make sure that you don't overdo the lighting. MH is not necessary, T5 are good enough. 100 Watts of T5 is max on this tank. If you want to grow algae, strong, wavy, realistic water flow is the biggest challenge, and expensive too. I would use 2 MP40s or MP10s on a wave controller.

 

[gabew]

ok so no glass
i was thinking to use 6, 4ft blue tinted T5s as lighting
as for the pumps if you are talking about THESE MP40s then that is CRAZY expensive 2 of those would be more than the chiller!

 

[norskfisk]

324 watts of lighting. Thats what I used for the 1000 liters tank.

Yeah, they were expensive those pumps. MP10 would be better for that tank, MP40 is probably too big. There are much cheaper alternatives of course. But my advice is to save on the lighting and get good flow.

 

[gabew]

thanks for the advice but i think i will go with some cheaper alternatives
anyway i am not focusing so much on algae as you are as invertebrates in this tank so i dont think i will need such good flow

 

[AquaticEngineer]

Here's a thread on my tanks over on Nano Reef. It documents everything I've learned so far with my temperate/coldwater systems.

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=240816

Also check out http://temperatereef.forumotion.com/forum.htm