Allwork65
New Member
I'm a postgrad student in a fairly cash-strapped lab. I am going to be running an experiment using 2 small polyp coral species, altogether I'll be using 80 fragments. The fragments will be about 4 cm. I've worked with these two species previously in a pre-existing aquarium setup. They were 5 x 20L tanks attached to a sump tank with a flow rate of 2500 L/h. The corals sat at a depth of about half a meter down and were illuminated with T5 actinic and white bulbs. The corals were fine in that aquarium setup but the aquarium setup is now gone. So I have to start from scratch and I have never actually built an aquarium system on my own. I want to know what size (lxbxh measurements) tank and sump will be good to hold 80 frags comfortably? What type of LED lights would be good to use for the new tank (I think LED is better to use these days)? What distance should I put between the LED light and the coral frags in the tank? What's the average flow rate I should aim for? What is an easy/economical filtration system for the tank (I was previously given many, sort of rolled up sponges that was said to be biofilters, that were chucked into the sump tank, but I didn't find them very efficient)? Any tips/advice to successfully set up a simple aquarium for sps corals will be highly appreciated! Thank you.
