[Advice Needed] 6x2.5x2.5 Mixed Reef Setup

[JasonT]

Hi everyone, this is going to be my first marine tank. I'm looking for a minimum maintenance mixed reef tank with notification if there's any issue thus I've come up with the set up below after researching online for months. As I'm totally new, I'm not sure if I'm well covered with the set up below for the purpose of having a stable tank with least maintenance. Any kind advice is appreciated, thanks in advance!

 

Display Tank

>6x2.5x2.5 [12mm w euro bracing]

>Crystal Glass front

>Internal overflow in the center back [Bean Animal]

>Black silicon, black background

Equipments

Aluminum stand with leveling legs

Rock – Dry Rock

Sand – Dry Sand

Light – Radion XR15 G5 Blue x 6

Wavemaker – MP40 x2

Pump – Vectra M2 [closed loop]  

 

Sump Tank [4x2x1.5]

>1st compartment [Roller Mat Filter + Protein Skimmer

>2nd compartment [Space for Reactor & Bio Media]

>3rd compartment [Refugium]

>4th compartment [Return Pump]

 

Equipments

 

1^st Compartment [Mech Filter]

>Clarisea SK5000 x 2

>Nyos Quantum 220

 

2^nd Compartment [Bio Filter]

> Reactor [Leaving space for future use]

> Bio Media [Marine Pure Block]

 

3^rd Compartment

>Refugium

 

4^th Compartment [Return]

> Vectra M2 x 2 [ for redundancy]

> Chiller Coil

 

Beside Sump Tank

> Mastertronic

> Dosetronic

> Seneye

> ATO System

> Dosing Pump x3 [Alk, Calcium, Mag]

 

Water Changing Station

> 5 stage RODI

> 200L Drum x2 [Storage for RODI & Saltwater]

> Wavemaker to mix saltwater

> Dosing pump for automatic 3% water change daily

 

Quarantine Tank [2x1x1]

> Sponge Filter

> Thermometer

> Air Stone

> Large PVC fitting [for fish hiding]

> Bio media to take from sump tank when needed

 

Test

> Mastertronic – Phosphate, Nitrate, Calcium, Magnesium, Alkalinity

> Seneye – Temperature, PH, Ammonia

> Refractometer - Salinity

[alexcyf]

Impressive list of equipment!

Just wanna find out, why such a tall tank? Would you be concerned about scaping and sticking your corals?

Why not xr30?

With such a large volume, have you considered calcium reactors than dosing?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JasonT]

Why such a tall tank?

> I would prefer to see fishes swimming up and down the tank rather than left and right only. I've wanted to go for 3ft but the concern of scaping and sticking coral forced me to 2.5ft for a easier time.

 

Why not XR30?

> I'm thinking that with 6x XR15 rather than 3x XR30, I would be able to better adjust the lighting across the tank.

 

Calcium Reactor instead of dosing?

> I'm not sure if I'm able to handle the knowledge of handling calcium reactor especially when I'm new and there's so much to learn in this new hobby but I've left space in the sump for calcium reactor if I ever felt confident in future

[josephwzr]

I would recommend 3x XR30, and possible add an extra in the future if you’re more heavily stocked on corals. Otherwise you’d have a lot of power supply and cables from the XR15.

I also find 2x mp40 is not enough. I currently have 2 on my 6x2x2 tank, and will be adding extra wavemakers soon. As yours is taller and wider, I would think you may need more too.

Also, have you considered the apex system? Has many functions and alerts that are customisable to your needs, as you mentioned you wanted notifications.

[JiaEn]

8 hours ago, JasonT said:

I would prefer to see fishes swimming up and down the tank rather than left and right only. I've wanted to go for 3ft but the concern of scaping and sticking coral forced me to 2.5ft for a easier time.

My aquarium has the same depth and width as you. Personally, I find the extra depth and width provides a lot of flexibility in terms of the aquascape. It is, however, very difficult to access some parts of the aquarium for scaping or maintenance.  I see that you are using 12mm glass,  do consider top and bottom bracing for your tank size. 

8 hours ago, JasonT said:

6x XR15 rather than 3x XR30

Depending on what you intend to keep,  especially on the sand bed,  you may end up needing much more light than this. The challenge of a deeper tank is that if you ever consider keeping light demanding animals on sandbed (for example clams), you light requirements will be very very high. I second @josephwzr and @alexcyf that going for xr30 (or equivalent)  is a better choice,  and do prepare to get more down the road. 

 

9 hours ago, JasonT said:

>Internal overflow in the center back [Bean Animal]

My previous aquarium has internal central overflow. I experienced two issues with it. 

1. The overflow compartment is not very accessible,  especially with the aquarium being so deep and wide.  If any fish jumps in ( it happens even with all the cover.), the retrieval is troublesome. 

2. The central box tends to create dead spot. So really need to have more wavemaker. 

I feel an external (backpack)  overflow is much more serviceable. 

 

9 hours ago, JasonT said:

Pump – Vectra M2 [closed loop]  

 

9 hours ago, JasonT said:

Vectra M2 x 2 [ for redundancy]

Are these the same pumps?  If you use one of the vectra as closed loop, then there is no redundancy. Unless the closed loop is a third pump,  in that case, excellent. 

 

Welcome to reefing! 

[SubzeroLT]

Looks like a intenteresting build coming up.

For auto water change, since you are on the ecotech ecosystem, 2 sets of Ecotech Versa will fit in.

Keen to see the close loop design. If without one, consider an MP60 + 2x MP40 

Good plan to reserve space & plan for future upgrade / supplement with a calcium reactor. Though there is an initial learning curve, there is much less intervention in the long run. 

Noticed you listed Mastertronic & Dosetronic only. As highligted on Focustronic facebook page " Note that Mastertronic will not be controlling dKH (Alkalinity) with Dosetronic because the kh testing is limited to once per day due to the fact that if dkh needs to be controlled, it needs many data points per day and not just a few". That means you need to have an Alkatronic if you want dosetronic to auto dose. 

Consider battery backup for wavemaker

 

 

 

[JasonT]

15 hours ago, josephwzr said:

I would recommend 3x XR30, and possible add an extra in the future if you’re more heavily stocked on corals. Otherwise you’d have a lot of power supply and cables from the XR15.

> Noted on your point, I’ll definitely consider XR30 for this set up!

15 hours ago, josephwzr said:

I also find 2x mp40 is not enough. I currently have 2 on my 6x2x2 tank, and will be adding extra wavemakers soon. As yours is taller and wider, I would think you may need more too.

> I have a closed loop system in the tank, if the flow is still insufficient, I’ll add more wavemakers.

15 hours ago, josephwzr said:

Also, have you considered the apex system? Has many functions and alerts that are customisable to your needs, as you mentioned you wanted notifications.

> To be honest, I’m still quite confused about how these systems work, and I’m not sure if the equipment I’m getting will be compatible with Apex controller. I would definitely not want to be locked in Apex eco system as recently the trident’s reagent seems to be out of stock and consumers can do nothing about it. I would appreciate if you could kindly share your experience and knowledge on the different types of controller system.

[JasonT]

14 hours ago, JiaEn said:

My aquarium has the same depth and width as you. Personally, I find the extra depth and width provides a lot of flexibility in terms of the aquascape. It is, however, very difficult to access some parts of the aquarium for scaping or maintenance.  I see that you are using 12mm glass,  do consider top and bottom bracing for your tank size. 

> Yes, bracing will be done

14 hours ago, JiaEn said:

Depending on what you intend to keep,  especially on the sand bed,  you may end up needing much more light than this. The challenge of a deeper tank is that if you ever consider keeping light demanding animals on sandbed (for example clams), you light requirements will be very very high. I second @josephwzr and @alexcyf that going for xr30 (or equivalent)  is a better choice,  and do prepare to get more down the road. 

> Noted on your point to be future proof, it would be better to get XR30 as what @josephwzrand @alexcyf has recommended. I’ll definitely keep it in mind.

14 hours ago, JiaEn said:

My previous aquarium has internal central overflow. I experienced two issues with it. 

1. The overflow compartment is not very accessible,  especially with the aquarium being so deep and wide.  If any fish jumps in ( it happens even with all the cover.), the retrieval is troublesome. 

2. The central box tends to create dead spot. So really need to have more wavemaker. 

I feel an external (backpack)  overflow is much more serviceable. 

> My tank is going to be set up against a wall. Even if the overflow is external, I would still have the same issue of reaching out to it from the front. Totally agreed on the above 2 points but due to space and view constraint, I would still go for the internal center black overflow. Thanks for the reminder though!

14 hours ago, JiaEn said:

Are these the same pumps?  If you use one of the vectra as closed loop, then there is no redundancy. Unless the closed loop is a third pump,  in that case, excellent. 

> Yes, the closed loop is a third pump.

[JasonT]

2 hours ago, SubzeroLT said:

For auto water change, since you are on the ecotech ecosystem, 2 sets of Ecotech Versa will fit in.

> Thank you for the recommendation, will read up on Ecotech Versa.

2 hours ago, SubzeroLT said:

Good plan to reserve space & plan for future upgrade / supplement with a calcium reactor. Though there is an initial learning curve, there is much less intervention in the long run. 

> As I’m new to the marine tank, I’m afraid that a calcium reactor would add in more variable that I would not be able to handle as a beginner, but a calcium reactor is definitely in my future plans.

2 hours ago, SubzeroLT said:

Noticed you listed Mastertronic & Dosetronic only. As highligted on Focustronic facebook page " Note that Mastertronic will not be controlling dKH (Alkalinity) with Dosetronic because the kh testing is limited to once per day due to the fact that if dkh needs to be controlled, it needs many data points per day and not just a few". That means you need to have an Alkatronic if you want dosetronic to auto dose. 

> Thank you for pointing this out, I’ll add Alkatronic to my setup!

 

2 hours ago, SubzeroLT said:

Consider battery backup for wavemaker

> Definitely!

[josephwzr]

> To be honest, I’m still quite confused about how these systems work, and I’m not sure if the equipment I’m getting will be compatible with Apex controller. I would definitely not want to be locked in Apex eco system as recently the trident’s reagent seems to be out of stock and consumers can do nothing about it. I would appreciate if you could kindly share your experience and knowledge on the different types of controller system.

Ecotech equipments have their own integrated app called Mobius, allows you to set your light, wave and pump schedule.

As for Apex, it Is a computer system, trident is just an optional add on automated tester. A big bulk of apex comes in its monitoring and controlling capability. One can easily programme their equipment to turn off/on upon certain timings or conditions, so as long as your equipment has a plug, you could say it’s compatible. It also comes with an alert system to let you know when something could possibly go wrong (e.g temperature or ph out of range)

Compared to Focustronic, I wouldnt call it a computer system. It’s more of an automated testing machine.

[JasonT]

22 hours ago, josephwzr said:

Ecotech equipments have their own integrated app called Mobius, allows you to set your light, wave and pump schedule.

As for Apex, it Is a computer system, trident is just an optional add on automated tester. A big bulk of apex comes in its monitoring and controlling capability. One can easily programme their equipment to turn off/on upon certain timings or conditions, so as long as your equipment has a plug, you could say it’s compatible. It also comes with an alert system to let you know when something could possibly go wrong (e.g temperature or ph out of range)

Compared to Focustronic, I wouldnt call it a computer system. It’s more of an automated testing machine.

 Thank you for the information however what I'm confused is whether information from ecotech / focustronic equipment can relay their device information into Apex rather than just using Apex as a remote switch to on/off the system.

[Harlequinmania]

Apex itself is a aquarium computer which is good for monitoring of parameter, ph, salinity and orp ect.. And the power bar has some option to control your equipment on/off ect.. there are plenty much to explore about this.

Whereas for the alkatronic , it is more of a stand alone system to auto test / auto dose your KH to maintain stability in your system. 

All these can be stand alone for use. 

 

Looking forward to your tank build pictures !