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New tank setup help


moovinfast
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So we are getting a new tank. About 26 gallons. 20"x20"15" tall. Its going to be hooked into our sump for our other tank. How large of a pump do you think I will need. The line for the pump will have to run about 8 3/4 feet along the wall and about 3 3/4 up to the tank. I have an extra rio 1700 but not sure its large enough. Also what lighting should I do? I want to be able to keep sps and clams. I was going to try to build a led fixture for it, but thats out of budget right now unless I can find some of the parts for cheap. Think a 70w 20k hqi bulb in a reflector would be enough?

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that is a pretty long run i would try... if you want to keep with rio a 3100. Or a ehiem 1260 or 1262 should work also. as for lights youve seen my 24g aquapod that is running a 250w 20k DE halide, so minimum wattage i would go is 150w halide, or some sort of t-5 or power compact setup

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Remember if you are combining with your existing sump, then all the water is shared and it wont be a true QT tank. (If that was what you were planning for.)

 

If you need a sump, I have some 10 gallon tanks lying around that I could part with. We could have a sump building party. I need to modify one for my calcium reactor anyway.

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I didnt get it as a QT tank. Wanted to try to build a LED light, but one for my 72 would be way to expensive. Still trying to see if I can get a better deal on the leds I need. If not I think we will go with MH of some sort til the price comes down on the leds a lil bit. Also we wanted another pair of clownfish. So this tank will just have a pair of skunk clowns, an anemone, sps and clams. Things I wanted to try to grow with leds. I just figured hooking it into the other tank would be the easiest route since they are going to be next to each other.

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two considerations:

 

back flow in a power outage will put additional strain on your sump, make sure it has the capacity to hold all that new water without flooding.

 

by the time you get a pump with the oomph to move water that far, you can make a whole new sump setup for cheaper.

 

if you are tying them together to get more water volume in the smaller tank (not a bad idea at all) make sure to address the backflow issue, and then start looking at some pressure rated pumps. you can see the flow curve for most pumps on marine depot or the manufacturers website, and then you can look around locally for the same model. Most stores will special order a pump for you if you know exactly what you want.

 

if heat isn't an issue for you, look at velocity pumps, i have used them to feed remote tanks in the past and they are very nice for that task, particularly the t4, but read about them, expect a good 3 to 5 degrees added to your tank water. if you can't take the heat, i second the suggestion of an eheim 1262 (1260 wont push that far iirc).

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I gravity feed from my 125g display into my growout tank so I end up with the same flow through both (about 800gph) without the expense of an extra pump.

 

To calculate the flow use this calculator: http://www.reefcentral.com/calc/hlc2.php

It looks like the equivelant head height for your plumbing will be around 5 feet with a flow rate of around 300 GPH using the Rio 1700. Not spectacular but adequate for circulating through the sump if you have powerheads in the tank itself.

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