HD's 144 1/2 Moon

Fudsey

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Top pic...

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What's the distance from the right side to the left of the openings(both) and front to back?
 

dante411x

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Wow. Just went through the thread. I’ve never been a fan of bow front/curved tanks but you might be changing my mind :)

A couple random things that I’ve no idea if you’ve addressed already.

Sand sifting fish - I had a sleeper gold head goby in my 210. That guy did an amazing job of keeping my sandbed clean, only problem was that the bottom 2-3” of everything was always covered in sand lol.

Tank placement - it’s possible to move the tank a few inches... it’s a gigantic pain in the bottom bit but doable. I had this same issue with the 210 and it was a big enough problem that I ended up moving it. The way we did it was “borrow” 5 large trash cans from Home Depot.. wash them out and drain all but 2” of water from the tank. Then have a few people lift up the stand about 1mm and move it forward about a half an inch. Repeat the process on each side until the tank is off the wall. Then pump the water from the trash cans back into the tank. Only things are.. my tank was sitting on a very very overbuilt diy stand. Made it a lot easier to handle after I took all the side panels off. And I had flexible tubing on all the plumbing with quite a bit of slack so it didn’t affect the plumbing at all. Not sure if this is something that would work for you but thought it would be worth sharing. (Also, one of my friends that was helping is a structural engineer and spent about a week telling me of all the risks to the structure of the tank with doing something like this. It’s not a great idea. But in dire situations...)

And as far as lights.. what about adding another 52hd to each mounting arm? Have two of them on each side, would certainly open up more options for coral placement.
 
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hdsoftail1065

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Wow. Just went through the thread. I’ve never been a fan of bow front/curved tanks but you might be changing my mind :)

A couple random things that I’ve no idea if you’ve addressed already.

Sand sifting fish - I had a sleeper gold head goby in my 210. That guy did an amazing job of keeping my sandbed clean, only problem was that the bottom 2-3” of everything was always covered in sand lol.

Tank placement - it’s possible to move the tank a few inches... it’s a gigantic pain in the bottom bit but doable. I had this same issue with the 210 and it was a big enough problem that I ended up moving it. The way we did it was “borrow” 5 large trash cans from Home Depot.. wash them out and drain all but 2” of water from the tank. Then have a few people lift up the stand about 1mm and move it forward about a half an inch. Repeat the process on each side until the tank is off the wall. Then pump the water from the trash cans back into the tank. Only things are.. my tank was sitting on a very very overbuilt diy stand. Made it a lot easier to handle after I took all the side panels off. And I had flexible tubing on all the plumbing with quite a bit of slack so it didn’t affect the plumbing at all. Not sure if this is something that would work for you but thought it would be worth sharing. (Also, one of my friends that was helping is a structural engineer and spent about a week telling me of all the risks to the structure of the tank with doing something like this. It’s not a great idea. But in dire situations...)

And as far as lights.. what about adding another 52hd to each mounting arm? Have two of them on each side, would certainly open up more options for coral placement.
Thanks for stopping by and looking! Actually I just added a diamond goby and took another stab at a CCB today! I knew I had to add something to work that sand. I have been watching the goby for sometime (I know they are messy too). I was keeping the additions quite until I seen how they do for a few days.
I'm afraid I will eventually have to pull that tank from the wall soon. Before I take the leap I'm going to build a custom stand to put this on. Everytime I look at that stock stand I have bad visions that run through my head.
My wife is wanting a RedSea 250 or innovatine Marine, trying to keep it 50-60 gallons for upstairs. I have tossed around 2 52's for a little more spread and putting the 26's on hers. But with the price of the 52's new for another 50.00 each I can do Radion pro's. Decisions, decisions..... Thanks for the tips/suggestions!
 
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hdsoftail1065

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Just stopping in and checking out the progress.

Looking really good Jay
Thank you for the compliment and stopping by! I'm really enjoying this build, this is one of the easiest tanks I have maintained so far.
 

Dbasileccim

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I have the same tank. Planning setup over last year or so. I made the decision to use 6 ai 26’s. Two in each big opening in the center and one each on the sides. My theory is that with the 26 vs the 52’s I can have more “granularity” and control of 6 different areas of the tank. With the 30” depth some of the lights will be at close to full power, while others might be at 50%.

Just theory of course, but we will see.
 

dante411x

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Thanks for stopping by and looking! Actually I just added a diamond goby and took another stab at a CCB today! I knew I had to add something to work that sand. I have been watching the goby for sometime (I know they are messy too). I was keeping the additions quite until I seen how they do for a few days.
I'm afraid I will eventually have to pull that tank from the wall soon. Before I take the leap I'm going to build a custom stand to put this on. Everytime I look at that stock stand I have bad visions that run through my head.
My wife is wanting a RedSea 250 or innovatine Marine, trying to keep it 50-60 gallons for upstairs. I have tossed around 2 52's for a little more spread and putting the 26's on hers. But with the price of the 52's new for another 50.00 each I can do Radion pro's. Decisions, decisions..... Thanks for the tips/suggestions!
Duh. I meant 26's. However... 52's should have more coverage than the radion pro's. plus, if you go that route, it adds another thing to program separately from the lights you already have.

Assuming you actually want to have all the lights on the same app and get 52's.. could mount them long ways from front to back and put the 26's on the small openings. That would definitely make things easy for control. Expensive too though.

Since the lights are inside your canopy, you could very easily go with some t5ho fixtures from amazon/ebay that aren't pretty at all but work. Or even black box chinese led's if you want to stick to led. Way less control but can't beat the price. I had 2 evergrow 2080's on my 210 and everything grew like crazy
 
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hdsoftail1065

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I have the same tank. Planning setup over last year or so. I made the decision to use 6 ai 26’s. Two in each big opening in the center and one each on the sides. My theory is that with the 26 vs the 52’s I can have more “granularity” and control of 6 different areas of the tank. With the 30” depth some of the lights will be at close to full power, while others might be at 50%.

Just theory of course, but we will see.
I done a par test and was quite pleased with the depth performance of these lights in a tank this deep but the spread was a little disappointing It would improve greatly "if" I raised the lights above the hood but then there are those annoying braces. I am trying to avoid light bleed since that is our projector room. I do believe the 52's would probably give better coverage in the center due to the extra length of the fixture and 2 more pucks, but that's just my theory. Edit: .that is keeping the light s at the same mounting points that the 26s are using now and putting them at an angle following the curve of the tank.
 

azreeftank

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I have the same tank. Planning setup over last year or so. I made the decision to use 6 ai 26’s. Two in each big opening in the center and one each on the sides. My theory is that with the 26 vs the 52’s I can have more “granularity” and control of 6 different areas of the tank. With the 30” depth some of the lights will be at close to full power, while others might be at 50%.

Just theory of course, but we will see.

I have this same tank as well. The back corners can be tricky. I wanted corals to grow in all parts of the tank. So I went with heavy Kessil with 2-AP700 on the large center openings in the middle. Then 2-360s In each of the smaller openings on the sides. I finished up by adding a 48” 2 bulb t5 for the back of the tank. I am getting great growth on both corners with this light. Here are a couple pics of my sides. Putting a A360 in each of the smaller openings made all the difference in the world it was shaded badly before I did that.

IMG_4654.JPG
IMG_5482.JPG
IMG_5480.JPG
IMG_4655.JPG
IMG_4131.JPG
 
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hdsoftail1065

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I have this same tank as well. The back corners can be tricky. I wanted corals to grow in all parts of the tank. So I went with heavy Kessil with 2-AP700 on the large center openings in the middle. Then 2-360s In each of the smaller openings on the sides. I finished up by adding a 48” 2 bulb t5 for the back of the tank. I am getting great growth on both corners with this light. Here are a couple pics of my sides. Putting a A360 in each of the smaller openings made all the difference in the world it was shaded badly before I did that.

IMG_4654.JPG
IMG_5482.JPG
IMG_5480.JPG
IMG_4655.JPG
IMG_4131.JPG
I was wondering if small kessils would fill it in.
 

azreeftank

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I was wondering if small kessils would fill it in.

Yeah they sit about 3” above the opening and the spread is not perfect but they cover a good 12x12 section, enough for the Opening. I tried several options but getting the 360 or even 160’s over those openings will solve the problem for the corners. Others that don’t have this tank will say raise your center lights higher but with the tank frame up top no matter how high you go you will get shadowing in the corners. The t5 I got are overkill but I have a lot of corals placed all over the tank so I wanted to make sure I had no shadowing
 
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hdsoftail1065

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Ya that 12x12 section you are referring to is exactly what the shadowed area is in my corners. Par read anywhere between 0-7. It's still low following the front curve but some of the lower light demand corals would probably do good, I don't remember what the readings are off the top of my head I'm not at the house to see what I have written down but it greatly improved coming out of the corners swinging out to the front.
 

azreeftank

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Ya that 12x12 section you are referring to is exactly what the shadowed area is in my corners. Par read anywhere between 0-7. It's still low following the front curve but some of the lower light demand corals would probably do good, I don't remember what the readings are off the top of my head I'm not at the house to see what I have written down but it greatly improved coming out of the corners swinging out to the front.

Yeah I know what you mean. Get a pair of Kessils and it will fix your problems In that section.
 
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