GAtroutbum
Community Member
I’m new around here but not to the hobby. Long story short, had a 200 gal reef running from late ’99 – ’05. Tore it down and parted it out instead of trying to move it to the new house in mid ‘05. Fast forward to 2010, my wife talked me into setting up a tank for “her†this time. Oh yea, “her†tank, lol. I should have know better than to set up a 65 gal; got the big tank itch before I had the thing running. Needless to say, here I go again…
I’ve been out of touch for the past 5 years and things have quite a bit. My goal is to set this up right the first time with a minimum of costly mistakes. The plan is a 150 gal (48â€L x 24â€w x 30â€t) mixed reef. I’ll be talking to MRC in the week or so about a sump and skimmer. Lighting, leaning towards duel 400w MH’s with either T-5’s or LED’s to supplement. Circulation, on the fence between a closed loop or power heads. Controls, seriously considering a RKE system.
A couple of question on the sump / skimmer… I’m probably going with a MR-2 skimmer. Do you see any notable performance loss with an in sump skimmer? Space under the cabinet is going to be tight. Anyone using Seachem Matrix in their sumps to help with filtration? I’m either going to reduce the sump size and go with a separate refugium or up size the sump and utilize Matrix in the sump (no refugium). Either way I’m going to stick with my Phosban reactor with Katalyst & dosing with MB7 / Biofuel.
Any other comments or suggestions?
I realize that the tank is only 150 gal but I figured this would be the best place to post, total water volume will be over 180 gal. If the mods disagree move it to where you think it best fits...
I’ve been out of touch for the past 5 years and things have quite a bit. My goal is to set this up right the first time with a minimum of costly mistakes. The plan is a 150 gal (48â€L x 24â€w x 30â€t) mixed reef. I’ll be talking to MRC in the week or so about a sump and skimmer. Lighting, leaning towards duel 400w MH’s with either T-5’s or LED’s to supplement. Circulation, on the fence between a closed loop or power heads. Controls, seriously considering a RKE system.
A couple of question on the sump / skimmer… I’m probably going with a MR-2 skimmer. Do you see any notable performance loss with an in sump skimmer? Space under the cabinet is going to be tight. Anyone using Seachem Matrix in their sumps to help with filtration? I’m either going to reduce the sump size and go with a separate refugium or up size the sump and utilize Matrix in the sump (no refugium). Either way I’m going to stick with my Phosban reactor with Katalyst & dosing with MB7 / Biofuel.
Any other comments or suggestions?
I realize that the tank is only 150 gal but I figured this would be the best place to post, total water volume will be over 180 gal. If the mods disagree move it to where you think it best fits...
