Thinking ahead, way ahead

[thatguy]

I'm planning my future large tanks. When I say future I'm talking 1-2 years away. I wanted to get advice from the people that have a large tank/s.

The system will consist of a 300-500g mixed reef and ~300g aggressive tank with a shared sump/fuge in the ~200g range.


I know about the obvious stuff like a big skimmer, CA reactor, lights, pumps, CL, fish room ventilation, top-off, sand, rock, stands and tanks. What other things have you encountered while building/maintaining your setup?


Save & Research is my motto for this project.

 

[OoNickoC]

mixing your sumps in an aggresive fo syst. will cause issues or at least make water quality an issue in the reef proper. The filtration should be all DIY anways....off the shelf for a system that size that combines two tanks would be insane and less effective. If your already on the diy path then a 180 gallon 2nd hand acrylic tank for the reef and another for the fo. mixing the sumps will lead to problems in the long run.

 

[OoNickoC]

elaborating rather than editing...

elaborating rather than editing...

Ive a couple customers with similar sized tanks,
Sharing any sort of filtration will lead to possible cross contamination as ive seen before.....ie 'ich' (i know that sw cannot get ich....rather another) fungals, isopods, gen disease/communicable infectious disorders. Not ust that but Ive also found that running the typical DC method of hyposlaine helps immensly in FO systems. Basically put, youll be better off in the long run with 2 seperate filtration systems regaurdless of uv and micron filters. makes isolations of problems much easier and possible to correct.