New Marineland 250 DD... Any Advice?

[brandonst878]

Hello everyone... I currently have a 90 gal reef tank thats been running for 5 yrs (basically LPS with fish) that I decided to upgrade. A guy being a guy, I have decided to upgrade to a 250 DD Marineland tank that I want to transform into an SPS dominated reef tank. This tank size worked great because 6 ft long would have been too much for the room it is going in. I am doing everything through my local LFS because i want to support them and I think that support locally will be important in the future. I am switching from 2 250 MH lights to T5 lighting with the hopes of elimininating a chiller. I also have a reef octopus dual chamber calc reactor/ a kalc reactor and a reef keeper lite controller on order. My current sump/ fuge will be used in adition to a berlin sump. I live in FL so we have no basements and my garage space is limited.

That said, is there any advice that any of you large tank keepers might be able to offer as I transition? Any do's/ donts/ wish I had's etc...

Thanks for your input...

 

[MarkT]

As you are probably aware, there are 80w 60" T5 fixtures that work well for that size tank. You'll probably need 10-12 bulbs to get complete front to back coverage. I used 2 ATI SunPower fixtures for a total of 12 bulbs over my 250 DD tank.

Other than lighting, it just takes more sand, more rock, and more water for top-off and water changes. If you're using buckets for top-off and water changes, you might want to think about how you're going to do 25-50 gallon water changes because moving that many buckets of water and the inevitable messes gets old real fast.