setup a 3ft reef tank

[Jameshong]

I'm a newbie in marine world and would like to set up a reef tank, please enlighten me if i'm wrong.. thanks

Do not know whether is it possible to set up a Reef tank that has the dimension of 36"x18"x43",with a 8~10" DSB?

Which type of lighting is suitable for such depth of tank ,.. T5 or MH(watt?).

Again . thanks in advance...

[ryz]

what are you planning to keep? what type of corals? if yiu;re gonna have such a Deep Sand Bed, better make your tank thicker, especially your base...

43" height??? or 36" inch height?? 3 feet in height is really tall... gonna have problems scaping and all... if you wannabe able to keep most corals in such a deep tank definitely have to go for at least 250W MH...

[Kalib]

How thick is the glass?

At 43" depth, you will need very thick glass maybe 15mm minimum otherwise you risk having problems in future.

43" -> Around 3.5' depth leh. Did you make a mistake?

[Jameshong]

Hi ryn,

The height is 43 inches ! After deducted off the 8~10” DSB , it is only left 33++” in depth.

The water level will be targeted @ 30~33” only. I’ve no idea yet what type of coral to buy…but hard and soft coral is a must.

I'm also intend to buy chiller and Ehiem 2260 Canister Filter

.(The internal DSB act as a bio filter and the ehiem as mech filter la..)

What do you think? is it workable?

Thanks.

[Jameshong]

Hi Kalib,

The thickness may be 12mm~15mm but anyway , I will consult the tank maker first and get their advice.

I think it shouldn’t be a problem to make such a custom tank but what I afraid that the fish n coral can’t survive. I love marine creatures and do not want them to suffer so I wish to make it possible…

Come on dearest marine friends, i need your advice..

[typrobin]

since u are willing to get such a big set up, y not get it done with IOS and a sump?

cannister filtration is workable but very troublesome....especially when u need to wash the filters.

for such a tall tank, i think at least 12mm, gotta check with tank maker to be sure. at such a height, u might wanna use at least use 250W MH to penetrate the water.....well, when the MH comes in especially 250W, chiller is a must. 2 X 250W will be ideal to give the light a good spread as your tank is 3ft....to be frank i would suggest a 4ft tank, coz 3ft is kinda weird for MH...if 1 is placed in the center, the spread is not good. if 2 are used, it is a little overkill...juz my opinion...

[Jameshong]

Hi typrobin,

Thanks for your advice and opinon.

IOS and sump is my second priority.

I have read a reef website said that a good DSB do not need any filter system, skimmer or change water for 3 ~5 years but it need about 6 to a year for the DSB system to work efficiently. So I intend to use Ehiem 2260 external filter to run first

I have space constraint and 4 ft tank is too big, so no choice stick to 3 ft la...

[Eric]

Hi ryn,

The height is 43 inches ! After deducted off the 8~10” DSB , it is only left 33++” in depth.

The water level will be targeted @ 30~33” only. I’ve no idea yet what type of coral to buy…but hard and soft coral is a must.

I'm also intend to buy chiller and Ehiem 2260 Canister Filter

.(The internal DSB act as a bio filter and the ehiem as mech filter la..)

What do you think? is it workable?

Thanks.

My tank is only 30" height with 6" DSB and already I have problems reaching to the bottom of my tank with the help of a ladder. Yours is 43" height, good luck man!

250W MH is not enuff for you. You definitely need a minimum of 400W MH with 6500K for PAR to reach your depth. My 250W 20K MH can hardly give the corals enuff PAR at 24" depth, need a 10K MH to reach them.

Another problem you will face is the water circulation, you will need a lot of powerheads at various depth else there will be lots of dead spots and algaes & Nitrates will be building up at these areas.

[Kalib]

3 to 5 years without water change Did you miss out anything on the website? Or you happened to read the article by the guy who 'invented' the sump.

If just relying on a DSB, thats definitely not possible. As far as i know, DSB only does nitrification at the upper levels and dentirfication at the lower levels. This only takes care of the bioload, what about the other processes like elements lost through natural processes? Corals take in elements like calcium and other trace elements.

There's quite alot of chemical reactions going in the tank and elements found in the water actually can aid in making everything stable. I've yet to fully understand this so i can't really explain

Regarding the depth, at 30"-33" of water, metal hallide is a must if you intend to keep corals unless you are willing to put all the corals high up and leave the bottom empty or with some of those non-photosynthetic corals.

Are you going to keep fishes or you intend to just keep corals? There's someone in this forum who owns such a tank, coral-only setup.

What about a wider tank instead of such a deep tank? Fish swim sideways mostly, not up and down.

[trader_best]

if you intend to stick to 3ft, why not go for 3x2.5x2.5

quite a nice tank to work with for a start, not quite a problem to reach the bottom of the tank, easy to maintain, probably need a tunze for a good circulation....

the height you have proposed may be a problem, hard to reach the bottom as wat the brothers have said earlier and lighting plus circulation problem too....

would realli advise you to go straight for sump and IOS, canister realli dun work as good as having a sump, coz i have experienced it myself, just upgraded to a sump.....of coz u need the protein skimmer as well, very important i must say...

my 1 cent

[typrobin]

Hi typrobin,

Thanks for your advice and opinon.

IOS and sump is my second priority.

I have read a reef website said that a good DSB do not need any filter system, skimmer or change water for 3 ~5 years but it need about 6 to a year for the DSB system to work efficiently. So I intend to use Ehiem 2260 external filter to run first

I have space constraint and 4 ft tank is too big, so no choice stick to 3 ft la...

bro, i really dunno where u read the article from but i personally feel tat skimmer is the no.1 equiptment tat MUST be used.

not changing water for 3-5yrs?? i think its bullshit (no offences,think the article mislead u)...unless your tank is connected to the ocean or u have a tank as big as the south china sea.

a very simple theory, watever goes in must come out juz like watever goes up must come down.all the fish food,coral food, planktons,additives and any other things that we add into the tank, somehow or another it must be removed physically, as such, we definitely need to do water change!even matured tanks of experienced reefers need to do water change once in a while,perhaps lesser but 3-5yrs is ridiculous.pls always remember that the ocean is much bigger and number of fishes per gallon of water is definitely much much lesser that in our tanks

DSB is not god, juz remember that the ocean has a much much much wider DSB that our tank, therefore natural filtration can occur.one point tat u noted is true, DSB needs 6mths to 1yr to mature but it's DEFINITELY not enough to maintain a healthy tank.

as for the sump, most reefers do not really use it as a filtration medium. most use a few pieces of sponge filters to filter out the bigger undissolved particles.the sump is mainly used to house equiptments like skimmer and maybe bags of carbon and phosphate removal and macroalgae tat are unsightly. and also it creates a bigger resorvoir of water.

bro, no offences meant but i think u should ask experienced reefers rather than read articles from i dunno where, sometimes this perfect systems need to be taken with a handful(not even a pinch) of salt....

[Jameshong]

Hi guys,

Thanks for your sincere advice.

I will reconsider the dimension of the tank again, may be 36" or less in depth.

Anyway, i will use 3 months to do a research on DSB, Sump, Refugium and IOS system.

Thanks again..

[typrobin]

bro, u can learn things by reading but frankly speaking, most things u'll only learn after u setup....i research for about 1yr b4 setting up....but......still failed....hahahahha....anyway, welcome u to this expensive hobby.....hahaha

[Tanggy]

Do reconsider your dimension. in a reef, depth is more important than height. 1.ft depth with 43 inch height for starter, almost impossible to scape. the steep angle make stacking of rock very hard and no space to put corals. 1.5ft do no look good from the front also.

As for the height, 43inch is almost impossible to maintain. unless you are 2m tall with very long arms. you will not be able to reach the bottom. even with 1ft DSB, most people still cannot reach the bottom.

And lastly. at 3.5ft tall. you need 15mm thick glass. this will be very expensive. 12mm would be a bit risky at this height.

due to the small surface area, you DSB will not be very effective as well. jus my 2 cts worth. why not consider a 3x2.5x2.5ft tank. or at least a 3x2x3ft tank.