1000 gallon tank for a beginner!

[twentyleagues]

Yes.

It's not bad numbers for the tank size and how high they are mounted. That's really interesting the numbers you are getting. I was thinking you were going to have a hard time getting any par at the bottom on the tank.

 

[SlowAndStupid]

I'm pretty pleased considering how deep it is. I really couldn't ask for any more brightness. The amount of light coming out of the front pane when they are at 100% is almost blinding. When the lights are off downstairs it still feels like daylight.

I will plan to add some 6 foot meso blues when in stock to add a little more blue to it though I don't expect much in the way of par when I add them.

 

[twentyleagues]

I'm pretty pleased considering how deep it is. I really couldn't ask for any more brightness. The amount of light coming out of the front pane when they are at 100% is almost blinding. When the lights are off downstairs it still feels like daylight.

I will plan to add some 6 foot meso blues when in stock to add a little more blue to it though I don't expect much in the way of par when I add them.

Might bump those top numbers a bit. Could be good!

 

[Sltloser]

I am controlling them with 0-10v from my hydros wave engine. I left them high so that I can still get in the tank when necessary! I still have to be able to squeeze in there although I did realize dropping them would help. I'm not sure if I want drop them for the above reason though. Also I don't have a big enough printer to make something that long either.

Totally hear you there, having the ability to easily do maintenance is key. I was at @iReefer12 place the other weekend and he had a cool t slot attachment that allowed him to pull a lever and swing the t slot bar that held the lights up towards the ceiling to give him more room to work. Hopefully he can chime in on what it's called, I can't for the life of me find what it was haha. It's basically a way to "store" the lights closer to the ceiling when you need to get into the tank.

Out of curiosity I took my light off it's mount and held it about 2 feet off of the tank. The topmost rock previously reading at 320 read a max of 350.

That doesn't surprise me too much, you're losing a lot through air IMO. When I chatted with Luca he said on my 34" tabk he would want to see 8-10" between the reflector and the water. I think if you even went down to 16" you'd see quite a bit of a bump in PAR.

 

[Sltloser]

I think he may have used 2 pivot joints on a short piece of aluminum to allow for the entire piece of 8020 to be pivoted up towards the ceiling with the lights attached to it.

Something like this?

 

[iReefer12]

That is exactly it! You need 4 of them for one rail, so it’s not a cost effective solution, but it works really well, the handles make it so simple and easy.

Here’s a picture of mine.

 

[Liquid361]

I am the lucky owner of a 1000 gallon in-wall aquarium through the purchase of its house and for the past 6 years have been running a large frontosa freshwater tank. Unfortunately during a recent and significant winter snap in the south I lost all of my fish (and learned that I need more automation to prevent such an incident again). I am currently in the process of completely breaking down everything for a deep clean, and it seemed an appropriate time to consider transitioning to a saltwater tank.

About me: I have only ever cared for 1 aquarium in my lifetime, this 1000 gallon one. No prior experience before jumping headfirst into it. It was an empty eyesore that I turned into something I was quite proud of. When I first began I, rightfully so, deemed a saltwater tank too complicated for an absolute beginner to jump into at such a large scale. But with plenty of time and research my first tank was a success. In some ways the large tank may have made things easier as there were no quick swings in water parameters at such a large volume. I understand that changing to saltwater is much more complex compared to the tank I have been running.

I am hoping that with plenty of time and planning I can create another successful tank. I expect the planning stage to take months to gather the appropriate materials and gear and to spread out the cost of doing so over time. By posting here I am hoping to receive advice that will help move this in the proper direction. I also have a lot of material and gear that cannot be reused but I am hoping some may be.

The tank:

The acrylic is 1.25 inches thick and measures 8 feet long x 4 feet deep x 5 feet high. Three overflow weirs empty down the back of tank with three returns drilled into the bottom of each (one 2-inch and two ¾ inch pipes). Two 2-inch return pipes feed water back to the tank which empties into the top of the aquarium.

The tank is accessible through an aquarium maintenance room behind it. Unfortunately space is pretty tight in there. I have about 26.5" x 25.5" of room to the side of the tank. I have looked at adding a sump below the main tank but the supporting beams would prevent placing anything of significant size under it and there is very little room to crawl under there to service it anyways. There is hot and cold water plumbed to the maintenance room in the form of a laundry washer hook up and there is a drain on the floor as well.

For filtration, I currently have a 50-gallon drum acting as a DIY sump. It normally sits half-full with the remainder of the space available for overflow should I lose power or need to turn off the pumps. It is plumbed to empty into the floor drain in a controlled manner. For mechanical filtration the water passes through a 5-gallon bucket-sized pain strainer mesh disposable bags and then into quilt batting. The water is then pumped through an Ultima 1000 filter for biological filtration and then back to the tank. I’m not sure that the stand-alone ultima filter is even compatible with salt water and may have to go.

Is there anything with my freshwater filtration system that can remain or does it need a complete overhaul? The relatively tight space here makes it a little tough to design around.

I have space along the backwall of my maintenance room where I typically house two small quarantine tanks. I suppose I could take that space and place your typical sump there instead and plumb it back to the main tank from there. I would just lose my quarantine tanks.

I currently have the incoming water passing through a 2-stage filter and know I will have to add on or convert to RO/DI.

Thanks for reading. As I said above, I am currently in the process of breaking down the aquarium to clean it up. The current sand and rockwork has to go in place for salt-water appropriate replacements. I know a lot of planning will be required to convert such a large tank to the more complex salt water but I am excited at the prospect of doing so. I look forward to some good advice. Thank you.

My father had a very large in wall reef tank in his home in Destin. He was a chemical engineer. He spent 20+ years on that tank. I grew up with it and learned from it. He had redundancies on redundancies. During a hurricane he lost power for 3 weeks. The flood destroyed the generators and he lost the entire reef. I had never seen my father cry till then. It destroyed him. He quit reefing. No matter how much automation and backing up you do, **** still happens. This was his…

 

[SlowAndStupid]

My father had a very large in wall reef tank in his home in Destin. He was a chemical engineer. He spent 20+ years on that tank. I grew up with it and learned from it. He had redundancies on redundancies. During a hurricane he lost power for 3 weeks. The flood destroyed the generators and he lost the entire reef. I had never seen my father cry till then. It destroyed him. He quit reefing. No matter how much automation and backing up you do, **** still happens. This was his…

Looks like a labor of love.

 

[SlowAndStupid]

Did some more experimenting with numbers. The par I get at the topmost rock with the lights at their current position is a max of 320. I then dropped the lights down while monitoring par. To get to 400 I have to drop the lights down to 16 inches from the top of the tank which means the reflectors sit only 10 inches from the top.

I'm not sure it makes sense to drop them so far down where I can't even take the lids off of the tank without breaking down the lights. Does this rule out all SPS?

I may just have to pick and choose what I put in the tank. I'll also have to reassess when I add some helix lights as well but I doubt we'll see a huge jump there.

 

[EliMelly]

Did some more experimenting with numbers. The par I get at the topmost rock with the lights at their current position is a max of 320. I then dropped the lights down while monitoring par. To get to 400 I have to drop the lights down to 16 inches from the top of the tank which means the reflectors sit only 10 inches from the top.

I'm not sure it makes sense to drop them so far down where I can't even take the lids off of the tank without breaking down the lights. Does this rule out all SPS?

I may just have to pick and choose what I put in the tank. I'll also have to reassess when I add some helix lights as well but I doubt we'll see a huge jump there.

320 isn’t bad for Acros, you want at least 250 on the low side to my understanding. Not all SPS need higher light mainly Acros.

That definitely sounds like more work than it’s worth. Is there something else you can do to add more light if and when you decide to add more acros?

 

[SlowAndStupid]

320 isn’t bad for Acros, you want at least 250 on the low side to my understanding. Not all SPS need higher light mainly Acros.

That definitely sounds like more work than it’s worth. Is there something else you can do to add more light if and when you decide to add more acros?

I'd like to add two 6 foot blue bars to supplement the white light. Beyond that I don't think there's enough room to realistically add anything else.

 

[EliMelly]

I'd like to add two 6 foot blue bars to supplement the white light. Beyond that I don't think there's enough room to realistically add anything else.

I’m sure this will give you the jump in par you need!

 

[twentyleagues]

I’m sure this will give you the jump in par you need!

I think so too.
I personally would add the helix and see if I could figure out a way to lower and raise the lights easily. That way they could sit at 16-20" off the top and maybe be raised up to 36-40" for maintenance.

 

[SlowAndStupid]

I think I'll keep things just as they are for now until I add some helix bars when they are back in stock and see how the numbers look.

 

[Sltloser]

Did some more experimenting with numbers. The par I get at the topmost rock with the lights at their current position is a max of 320. I then dropped the lights down while monitoring par. To get to 400 I have to drop the lights down to 16 inches from the top of the tank which means the reflectors sit only 10 inches from the top.

I'm not sure it makes sense to drop them so far down where I can't even take the lids off of the tank without breaking down the lights. Does this rule out all SPS?

I may just have to pick and choose what I put in the tank. I'll also have to reassess when I add some helix lights as well but I doubt we'll see a huge jump there.

I agree with EliMelly, I think you'll grow across fine in the top 1/4 of the tank. You can use the PAR gradient to place corals in optimal places for their lighting needs. If at some point you want to lower them you could always look at adjusting the lighting rack then!

 

[keithw283]

Did some more experimenting with numbers. The par I get at the topmost rock with the lights at their current position is a max of 320. I then dropped the lights down while monitoring par. To get to 400 I have to drop the lights down to 16 inches from the top of the tank which means the reflectors sit only 10 inches from the top.

I'm not sure it makes sense to drop them so far down where I can't even take the lids off of the tank without breaking down the lights. Does this rule out all SPS?

I may just have to pick and choose what I put in the tank. I'll also have to reassess when I add some helix lights as well but I doubt we'll see a huge jump there.

you can get some growth out of acros with those numbers. I have some of the "easier" acros and get decent growth with about 280 par.

 

[twentyleagues]

I am not in to leathers. But I do love me some lps especially euphyllia. No one said you have to do sps. I know some torches would love those light levels.

 

[SlowAndStupid]

Welp with the addition of heavy duty lights comes the start of the ugly phase. Looks like the beginning of a diatom bloom to me. There's some subtle brown to the sand but significant browning of the white rockscape. I had kept my lights off for months in hopes to lessen this. I guess we will see how bad it is.

I am continuing to dose phyto daily and every Thursday I harvest tigre and tisbe pods that go into the tank as well. Finally, the first tank of fish are just under a week away from finishing their time in copper.

 

[lubeck]

It’s crazy. Doesn’t even look like there is water in it.

 

[Sltloser]

Welp with the addition of heavy duty lights comes the start of the ugly phase. Looks like the beginning of a diatom bloom to me. There's some subtle brown to the sand but significant browning of the white rockscape. I had kept my lights off for months in hopes to lessen this. I guess we will see how bad it is.

I am continuing to dose phyto daily and every Thursday I harvest tigre and tisbe pods that go into the tank as well. Finally, the first tank of fish are just under a week away from finishing their time in copper.

Do you have all the lights running at 100%? Without cora in there you could probably run them at 40-50% to lessen the algal bloom and possibly reduce the duration of the ugly phase.