Oh man, what I would do to be able to design a new tank around a move into a new house! (well, maybe not new, but new to you at least)
Don't worry about stealing ideas...it's not really stealing, it's just getting a bit of input and experiences others have gone through or ideas people came up with...it's a great part about this hobby and reefing community...we're all here to help!
I'm happy to admit poaching a lot of ideas from others! :lol: Besides, emulation is the best form of flattery, right?
Some things I would keep in mind when planning your tank, many of which I'm sure you have thought about already:
1. location, location, location! adjacent room or closet you could
use as an equipment room
is ideal while still being able to view the tank at your comfort.
My big tank is very viewable from my living room couch, and it
is nice to be able to watch it even if I am sitting on the couch
watching tv (in fact my attention is usually drawn to watching
my tanks...much more interesting to me than tv!
) The
downside is that I have no choice but to
have everything under the stand. I really had to design my
sump, refugium and equipment layout to maximize the space
efficiently and I still wish I had more room. Finding a location
suiting both is ideal. I wouldn't want my tank in a room/area
that I was never really hanging out in or using though.
2. again, go as WIDE as possible. Don't go more than 30" tall.
beyond that it is a pain to clean/place corals, etc. as well
as it increases your lighting requirements of course. (I run 3
10K 400W SE Hamilton MH with VHO supplementation on my
270 tank for your reference. Really like the color...nice and
crisp and white and good sps growth)
3. keep humidity issues in mind, especially with a tank that big
and your geographical location. I hear Florida can get pretty
humid! I'm in Southern California, so we have pretty dry
conditions here and I run my AC a lot which helps control the
humidity. But, I've got what I figure to be over 600 gallons of
total system volume combined between my three tanks, which
are all in the living room and in winter I do notice
condensation on my window panes and it does get humid in
my living room (wifey always complains about it).
4. Plan/design to plumb everything to be as automated as
possible, i.e. water changes, top-off, etc.
5. Electrical requirements. Make sure you design enough outlets
and that your breakers can handle the wattage/amperage.
(sorry, I'm not an electrical guy so I may have mis-stated that,
but you get my drift). I had my friend who is an electrical
contractor figure that out for me ahead of time and run new
outlets to the areas I needed and put the appropriate gauge
wire and breakers on my breaker box.
6. Flow, flow, and flow. Lot's of it, and random/turbulent flow,
especially if your are going to plan on keeping SPS. Drill/plan
your tank accordingly. I happen to like closed loops on sea-
swirls, but that is up to personal taste/preference.
7. Systems redundancy, back-up to your back-up.
8. Buy a backup generator. I have a Honda eu2000i that
although relatively expensive has been worth EVERY penny.
had power outages a few times now where it has come in
handy. VERY quiet and sips gas, easily powers all three of my
tanks (no lights of course) and other appliances.
9. Heavy skimming. I don't know about you, but I love fish, as
you can tell from my pics.
I also like SPS. Fish poo and SPS don't go well together.
Big refugium and heavy skimming help a lot.
Many comments about the clarity of my water. I swear by two products which contribute greatly to my water clarity IMO/IME:
1. poly filters
2. chemi-pure
Run them 24/7 religiously on all three of my tanks.
HTH! I want to see some pics when you get it going!
Man your water is crystal clear.
