New House...time to upgrade from 180 to 300

[Swicki]

I am getting ready to order Marineland's DD 300. We are building a new house and this tank is going to sit between and office and playroom. Custom cabinetry is being built around the tank, and the old 180 is going down into the basement as a sump.

We were going to build the 180 into the wall, but the tank is 10 years old and been moved 3 times....needless to say I don't want a seal issue in the new place.

I've been reading a lot of what you guys have done, and am very impressed! There are some amazing tanks on this forum! This was an invaluable resource when I put my 180 together 10 years ago. It seems as if a lot has changed tech wise with respect to lighting and pumps, and thats where I'm hoping to get some advise.

The current setup (18)0 has one-end overflow box with 2- 1'' drains and a Mag 9 fed return. I also have to closed loops driven by Iwaki's functioning on separate timers for additional circulation. It works very well and I'm not sure I won't do the same for the 300, unless of course there are some better suggestions out there. I have been contemplating 2 overflow boxes--one on each end. Any thoughts? Or stick with one overflow box that houses two drains and use the other end as the return?

Lighting is currently an Aquaspacelight with 3 250w 14k's HQI's and 2 175w 20k's, with 2 6' VHO super actinics. I'll probably be getting rid of the Aquaspacelight because it gives off a ton of heat, and the ballasts are way to big. I like the idea of 3 bulbs with some VHO's, but again would love to hear some feedback on how everyone else likes their lighting.

I've always been an LPS guy, but am using this opportunity to get more into SPS.

Any feedback you guys can provide would be awesome!

 

[MarkT]

You're going to love the 36" tank. It really gives you a lot of room to work with. I recently setup a 250 DD and it's great.

 

[bankerboy350]

Sweet. I am setting up the 250DD right now. Waiting on lights right now. Was initially going MH/T-5 combo but after seeing the AI Sol blues on the LFS display, I decided to go that route.

 

[brshriver]

I love the lumenbright reflectors. They have unmatched focus and par. They will only cover 24x24 area but the par in that area is fantastic.

I run three 400 w bulbs over my 210 (72x24x29). I run the 20k 12 dollar mh bulbs from 10000 lights. They are not as blue as other bulbs but they work well for me. With the lumenbrights, I only run each bulb for 4 hours a day or so. There are two actinic t5s for supplemental. I also usually only light one bulb at a time, starting on the left and moving right. The is some overlap in the photo periods of neighboring bulbs. This combined with the higher height that you run the lumenbreight reflectors at has eliminated cooling issues on my tank. I cool with just a couple of fans hooked to an aciii.

 

[Swicki]

Because the tank is viewable from 2 sides, I have to relocate the overflows to the center of the sides. Since I'm moving the overflows, I'm going to be paying for custom holes, and can do pretty much whatever I want. I'm having a hard time deciding between one overflow box or two.

I am planning on using a Hammerhead Sequence for the return water, and want to make sure I've got enough water draining. How much water will a 1.5'' hole swallow? What about a 2'' hole? I'd rather use less larger holes than a bunch of 1''-ers