Preparing for 220 Build

NySharkBait

NySharkBait

New member
I just recently purchased a 220g tank with dual overflows on back wall. I've only had a 29 BioCube to this point, so it's going to be a HUUUGE leap. I'm going to be asking 16,235,846 questions along the way, give or take a question. I'm planning on picking the brain of all you genius plumbers, engineers, chemistry experts and marine biologists. To be completely honest, I have no clue what I need. I've done some research, some comparisons of equipment, read testimonials and build threads...ect ect. I am completely open to idea/suggestions/tweeks/criticism. So let's start with some fairly simple questions to get this moving.

-Powerheads- I've read some opinions and critiques of Jebao WP60 and EcoTech MP60. My tank is 6', so I need powerheads that are effective over 4'. From everything I've read/deciphered, the quality of PH between those two specifically doesn't justify the $400-500 price difference. Thoughts or opinions?

-Lighting- The area I'm most worried about screwing up is lighting. I know nothing about it, and the more I read, the less I seem to know. I plan on having some acans, palys, zoas, hammers and a chalice or two, but nothing crazy. Just like the aesthetic of it, more so then being a "coral guy." I'm not looking for a $3000 lighting setup, just something to keep my corals happy and growing and show some color pop with the blues. I also understand that with a 30" deep tank, that can cause some headaches. Any suggestions?

-Stocking-I'm going to relocate my current BC29 squatters into the 220 when it's up and running. Clown pair, Diamond Goby and a Leopard Wrasse. In addition to them, I was interested in:
-Blue Tang
-Yellow Tang
-Emperor Angel
-Flame Angel

Obviously, that's a wish list, nothing is set in stone, except for "Dory" cause I have girls. That's how it works. I'm a big fan of the two tangs and the emperor, but aside from them, I'm really not set on any other "big" fish. I'm content with little fellas. Any ideas or suggestions?

I have a million more questions, but we'll start off slow. And thank you in advance for all advice and comments. This is going to be fun....expensive....fun....exhausting....fun.....:uhoh3:
 
Just buy everything in my signature. Seriously,I found going to all the suppliers,on the Internet was fun,studying about all the equipment and planning out what to buy.It really is affected by your budget,in the end.This is a good forum to get feedback,and opinions.
As far as setting up plumbing ,I just went with vinyl tubing,because it is easy to work with.You can get away reasonably with lights,found on eBay,that will suit your needs.I purchased a few Chinese Mars Aqua 165 watt LEDS,as supplemental lighting and have found them to be a good product,as an example.But ,there are plenty of other options of course.I recommend a Max Spec Gyre150 for you powerheads,portion,of what you plan to purchase.From my experience it is a good product and is good value.
You also need to consider a new skimmer and consider landscaping and purchase of LR.220 gallon is a lot of real estate,so spend some time thinking about what you will be creating.
My DT is the same dimensions as yours.Buy long gloves and long tongs when working in your aquarium.As you say 30" is deep.And yes your arm pits will get wet at least once.
Because it is a heavy load consider what the floor is able to handle,as well.
 
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I do think the price differential is worth the money. Cheap equipment is almost always that, cheap. When it breaks a year from now and needs replacement you will be asking yourself why you wasted your money on an inferior product. As far as powerheads the Neptune WAVs and Tunze 6255s should also be considered.
Again with lighting you are going to get what you pay for. Many of us thought we didn't want to get into high light demanding corals but once we started most of us end up wanting them. There has been a fortune spent on lights that a year down the line end up needing to be upgraded. I know it's easy for me to spend your money, but I would plan on getting high quality lights even if you get fewer than you would need for a full SPS reef tank. That way you can always add another fixture or two and at least not have to sell your original lights.
I doubt a 36 gallon sump would be big enough. It has to handle the drain down water that will flow back into the sump when the return pump is turned off. In a 220 gallon tank that is usually at least 40 gallons alone.
 
I was thinking the same thing. I don't mind making the big boy purchases, I just want to make sure I'm not doing it for no good reason. If there is a quality difference in the product, that's important to me. I don't wanna replace 10 powerheads over the next 5 years. Or light units
 
Preparing for 220 Build

Good luck with your build. I moved up from a 75 to a 220 about a month ago. My build thread is here...
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2563684

For what it's worth, I had two ecotech mp10's on my 75, which were obviously too small for my 220. I considered getting two MP40's for the new tank, but I was never super happy with the mp10's. I felt that they provided too much flow right next to the pumps and not enough in the middle. I wound up going with a single gyre 150 and I absolutely love it. My tank is set up in the wall, so you can see it from both sides, so my rock work is all in the middle. I have the gyre installed vertically on one end of the tank and it creates great flow throughout the whole tank. Originally I was thinking I might need to get a second, but I'm not even running this one at full power.

I'm using three radion xr30w pro's for my lighting. I had two on the 75 and I added a third when I got the 220. They did great for me with the 75 and I'm still loving them on the 220.

I do think 36 is way too small for a sump. I'm using a 100G tank that I cut down slightly and honestly I would prefer something a bit bigger, but that's what would fit in my stand. I have a refugium and a frag section in my sump, though, so without those you could probably go a bit smaller. When the power is off I think I get a good 15 or 20 extra gallons in the sump. With a 36G sump that would be half the capacity of the sump.
 
I love your build man!

I do like that Gyre 150. I was wondering about those, but more people were talking about the MP's and WP's. I'd love to get away with one PH doing everything I need. Now that I know your 6' is, I might just go that route.

I like your lights, but I don't know if I like them $2100 worth. That's a little steep.

Your sump is boss. I started looking on CL for 100 gallon after I seen yours. You've given me ideas....which will probably end in disaster. But they'll be fun trying.

What type of skimmer did you go with?
 
Preparing for 220 Build

NySharkBait said:
I love your build man!



I do like that Gyre 150. I was wondering about those, but more people were talking about the MP's and WP's. I'd love to get away with one PH doing everything I need. Now that I know your 6' is, I might just go that route.



I like your lights, but I don't know if I like them $2100 worth. That's a little steep.



Your sump is boss. I started looking on CL for 100 gallon after I seen yours. You've given me ideas....which will probably end in disaster. But they'll be fun trying.



What type of skimmer did you go with?
Click to expand...



Haha... Hopefully you won't blame any disaster on any of my ideas;)

I love the radions, but they definitely are pricy. Luckily I got to spread it out a little by getting two when I set up the 75 and then just one more when I moved up to the 220. It definitely would have been hard on the wallet to get all three at once. I'm sure there are cheaper lighting options that will work out well for you.

The 100 was a great size for the sump for me... It was five feet long, so it fit in the stand well, but had an extra foot over the other four foot tanks I was looking at for a sump, plus it was reasonably short and still high capacity. Like said, I still wish I had more room, but I really couldn't get anything bigger into the stand.

For my skimmer I got an atb 1050a. It's a pricy skimmer, but I got a good deal on a used one from another member here. This thing is a monster too... The neck is about 5 inches in diameter and the bottom of the cone is almost a foot across. It seems to pull a lot of junk out as well.
 
NySharkBait said:
Sweet. Makes me a little nervous without center support....but I'll give it a whirl.
Click to expand...



Yeah, the lack of center brace made me a bit nervous too, but lots of people on that threat have built these stands and I don't believe that any have failed. You could always add a brace if you wanted to, but I left it out so the sump could be removed later if necessary.
 
Flagg, I'd like to buy used if in good condition. I'm not opposed to saving money.

Brett, I'll trust the engineer on this. I'd like to have room to work below it as well.
 
So, I've been reading a lot of information and opinions. I've decided on the following pieces of equipment.

3x XR30w Pro LED lights (thanks Brett:headwalls:)
Vectra L1 Pump
Vertex Alpha 200 Skimmer
MaxSpect Gyre XF150 (again...thanks Brett and Sounds Fishy)
Tunze 3155 ATO
100 G Tank for sump

I'm sure I'll get an Apex Controller as well. Good thing is, I'm in no hurry, so I can try to acquire these over time, preferably lightly used. Any thoughts?
 
NySharkBait said:
So, I've been reading a lot of information and opinions. I've decided on the following pieces of equipment.



3x XR30w Pro LED lights (thanks Brett:headwalls:)

Vectra L1 Pump

Vertex Alpha 200 Skimmer

MaxSpect Gyre XF150 (again...thanks Brett and Sounds Fishy)

Tunze 3155 ATO

100 G Tank for sump



I'm sure I'll get an Apex Controller as well. Good thing is, I'm in no hurry, so I can try to acquire these over time, preferably lightly used. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...


Excellent choice on the lights and the Gyre;)

The Vectra looks like a great pump, but the problem is that as of right now it's not compatible with the Apex. I lot of people (myself included) are pretty disappointed about this, especially since there is no reason that it couldn't work with the apex and there is no clear explanation about why it doesn't... Just a lot of finger pointing. Apparently Neptune claims that Ecotech chose not to provide support and Echtech says that Neptune is the problem. If you're serious about getting the Apex then you might want to consider a different Apex compatible pump. I'm using two Jabeo DC12000s, which have been working great. The Waveline pumps now have an apex interface as well. Or if you really want to spend a lot of money the Red Dragon 3 Speedy pumps look awesome.

You can also use the apex for ATO, so you wouldn't have to spend money for the Tunze ATO solution.
 
That's why I post here. Scratch that then. If I'm spending the money on the Apex, I want it to control everything. Back to pump research....
 
The other thing to keep in mind is exactly how much control you'll need/want over the pump. I was using a Jabeo DC3000 on my 75G tank for a while and I tried to play around with varying the pump speed to help randomize flow in the tank and in the end I abandoned the project because it didn't really seem to be making much of a difference in the tank, but it did vary the water level in the sump considerably, which made running the ATO a bit more difficult (While I was working on that project what I did was set to pump to a specific speed periodically to let the sump stabilize to a known level, then run the ATO for a few minutes)

The one thing that I did do with the variable speed pump that I kind of miss was lower the flow to almost 0 during feedings. I kept the pump running at about 15% which was enough to keep the lines full of water, but very little (if any) water was circulating through the sump. That way when the fish were fed I didn't have to worry about any uneaten food going over the overflow and into the sump.

However, your choice of a drain style will affect your ability to do any of this. My 75G tank had a durso type drain, which was pretty tolerant of flow changes and reasonably quiet on the tank side, but also created a lot of noise and bubbles on the sump end.

With my new 220G tank I have the sump under the tank and I'm using dual herbie drains. The herbie's on the 220 are *much* quieter than the durso on the 75 was, despite the fact that there is considerably more water running through them, however, they are also much more sensitive to flow changes, so right now, despite the fact that I have controllable pumps I'm still running them at a constant speed 100% of the time because of my drain choice.

Now, that said, there are still some advantages to using the controllable pumps in that you can fine tune them to adjust the flow in the tank. Right now I'm running my two Jabeo DC12000's at 65% because I would get way too much flow if they were both at 100%. Running them at 65% may also be a bit less wear and tear on the pump and help them to last longer. Additionally, if one fails I have the option to bump the other all the way up to 100% and still have adequate flow while I'm waiting for a replacement.

No matter what pump you choose you'll still be able to get on/off control of the pump with the apex. So you'll need to choose whether you want a fixed speed pump that you can just turn on or off (probably the cheapest option), a controllable pump like the Vectra that you can still turn on and off with the apex, but you would need to set it's speed with it's own controls, or a fully controllable pump like the Jabeo that you can turn on and off as well as adjust the speed with the apex.
 
I can control my return pump with my APEX. I slid my finger to off and it turns off. I slide my finger to Auto and the programing takes over. What more control do you need?
 
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