Joe_P

Hi Guys, Been awhile since the decommissioning of my last 5 footer SPS project... Reason, I'm relocating... But now that I have gotten a new place to move into, have been putting some thoughts into my new reef project.. After a few rounds and visits to fellow reefers here, have decided most probably to go with a smaller reef... So here goes... I'm plannin to head towards a 2 by 2 footer footprint with basically 1.5 foot height (18 inches). plan to have 6 mm for glass sides, 10 mm base with 10 mm eurobracings on the top and bottom. Lights : either a combo of a 250W DE MH phoenix or aquaconnect bulb with 4 T5s.. or 8x 24W T5s... Filtration : Reef Maniac Beckett Skimmer = Mechanical DSB (grade 1 sand of roughly 4-6 inches) = Biological Reef Maniac Fluidised Reactor with Contraphos Koncentrat = Chemical Water movement : 1 x Tunze 6080, with intention to upgrade to a variable one Surge Device, If I ever find time to build one... Equipment : Dual chamber Reef Maniac Calcium Reactor with hang ons. 1.25 HP Hailea Chiller 1 x Resun MD 55 1 x Eheim 1262 Tubby Water Auto Top up System Intention to grow my new reef out from frags.. Low biolad, considering joinin the other goby crazy reefers out there. Any comments?

Used to keep a 4 inch Peacock Mantis in a acrylic compartment housed within my sump.... it did not take very long for the Mantis to smash open the acrylic casing and escape .... fortunately, the acrylic housing wasn't in my previous 5 footer reef.

Wahahahaaa... Any chance that reefers here might soon see ###### cream from a Barrs Aquatics Skimmer?? And yes, you are really stocking up on your SPS... Keep those pictures coming....

That 10 inch was small compared to the original plans... You should have seen the reaction when a 1:1 2D scale drawin of the former unit was presented to a few reefers. hmmmm... regret doing that now..... or else we would right now have great fun if the original plans would have proceeded...

Sure.... but I think this time you better secure them properly... you seem to be losing sps esp. frags in that carbonate jungle of yours....

Hi Guys, Will be moving to a new location soon therefore intending to sell off some SPS frags to ease relocation issues... Pls PM me for details as to when to view the stuff.... Btw, I have the various for sale.. 1) Pink Birdnest 2) Pocilloporas 3) Styloporas 4) Montipora Digitatas.... Cheers...

Flooding the reef with food... Gee..... thats gonna be a little too much for my new setup... since its gonna be much smaller than what I use to have...

Awesome news... If I ever venture into the realm of the tukas... , would defnitely look to you for some good advice....

Hi thc, Do keep up updated regarding the performance of the Heissner with respect to the Beckett... (visual of course)... Interested to know whether the Heissner could be a good replacment for the Beckett....

Nice tuka you have there... How long have this piece been in your reef? The other reefers who have them don't seem to keep them alive for long...

MHs with T5s do really give a reef much better colours... Thats what I'm intendin to do with my new setup......

Alfa, This unit's way much bigger and taller...... it runs on a 10 inch reaction chamber compared to 7 inches..... Anyway, its supposed to be bigger than this.... but we somehow backed out ( more like freaked out ) after realising the kind of pump required to fit such a monster... not forgeting the volume of water needed to fill up that space.... Such sizing skimmers would require the companionship of really huge sumps/reservoirs.... or you gonna have a dry sump or wet floor... Installing a port for ozone would not be a issue.... but I would need to check on whether the materials are ozone proof....

Huge enough for you??

I'm currently working on a series of smaller sized beckett skimmers catering to the smaller reefs found in SRC... so stay tune.... The larger one featured in this thread are commercial units..... Not suitable for home reefs .....

One MD 55 per beckett should be substantial enough ....... AT's running a MX 70 on a single beckett ( think he split the output )... you should see the skimmate.......

And this is from a Reef Maniac Dual Beckett Series..... though only running on a single beckett...(powered by a MX 70 output split into 2) Skimming event of around 24 hours....

Skimmate from my home made Beckett ...... Skimmer's running on a Laguna 5000 pump.... (non pressure rated) Skimmate of 3 days skimming event....

Hon, Your reef looks cool!!... You have been stocking up or are those jus growth from your acros?? BTW, any difference the phoenix/aquaconnect bulbs does for your reef than the previous bulbs used??

Hi Max, I think the issue here is no longer on who believes what .... or their preference.. But has to do more with proving or backing statements that has been mentioned... Frankly, I have never seen Deltec Skimmers function before and your claims on them being one of the best in the industry did make me pretty curious.. since IMO, most needlewheels function the same to me.... (sorry, I'm not a very technical guy either and will therefore tend to use my eyes to see how they perform instead of jus some information on papers )..... so let's not argue anymore on which is better..... Most reefers should be able to form their own conclusion once a skimmer test is made and results are out....

Frankly, I'm pretty interested in how different types of skimmers function against each other in terms of performance, power consumption, time factor which skimming commences etc... Putting aside the intention of this thread on Deltecs being better than most skimmers inclusive of Becketts, many reefers here (myself inclusive) would definitely like to see the results rather than just a thread with reefers gunning each other down..... In fact, it would be good also to introduce the other brand of new skimmers recently introduced into SRC for the test....

Hi Chipson, did you include a air inlet into your beckett housing?? Cos the picture you posted seems to indicate your nozzle not receiving enough air to churn out foam... thats what happens when I shut off the valves to my beckett housing... You will also find that by playing around with the tuning of air into the beckett housing, you get difference kinds of results...

That would definitely be interesting... I'm pretty keen as to how the performance of skimmers that employ multiple needlewheel pumps compared to becketts esp when they are the equivalent in terms of wattage....

Hi Blueheaven, I have used both Gardena and the so called cheaper versions for both my CR and Skimmer applications... and they are actually rather precise since they are also used for CR effluent drips rate ... Only issue in that due to poorer QC, a certain small percentage has slight leaks.... Jus run one on your skimmer and if it post any problems, change to another one...

Haven't you decided yet???

Lower in lighting requirements with relation to some light demanding SPS... eg.. you can keep montis under 150ws lightings and still retain rather good colouration .... compared with acros who would normally need much stronger lighting....