After my 120 was up and running successfully and the fish were growing and the corals were encrusting, my oldest son decided to help his Daddy clean the glass.....He's only seven, so,,,I could only get so mad,,,,,He picked up sand with the magnetic scrapper and scratched up the whole front and sides of the tank Now, I didn't get mad at him because he was showing an interest in the same thing that has brought some much happiness to me. So after explaining to him how to properly clean the glass, I started to think,,,how nice it would be to have scratch free glass!!! Than the idea arose of expanding the tank by 110 gallons. The tank would have been a 5' by 3' by 2'. Really nice size!!! Well,,,the wife said,,,,,and,,,,,,and##$$%^,,,,@##@%$.
So, now the new tank size is going to be 150 gallons and it's 5' by 2' by 2'. I know, you guys are thinking this guy just gave into his wife. No way!! This was a war that wasn't worth fighting. She has let me get away with so much already that it wasn't worth the fight
So here's the plan as of right now
Ok so here are my thoughts so far..... The tank is 5'long by 2' tall by 2' deep. I have used powerheads in the past but I think I may use a CL on this one. My problem is that I want to have a feeding type mode and a sleeping mode. That is when the current dies down enough to give the livestock(mainly fish) a just to rest. Corlas don't need rest. So how would one do this with a CL???? And I really don't want a ton of pipes under the tank. I also am scared of using a 4 way. Too much piping!!! I haven't seen one done yet that looks planned out. Pipes going everywhere!!!! Not clean looking. So what do you guys think???? I wonder if I could put the pump on a timer and have it timed to come on when the
actinic's come on. Kinda like daybreak or like when the tide comes in(out)??? I might be overthinking this Here's a good question,,,,,Would the flow just from the returns be enough during lights out to keep the corals happy??? My return pump is moving 750
gph. And would that be enough flow to feed the corals with food in the column????
OM's are iffy at best. I have heard way too many people telling me of stories about sand getting into it, so how about this
So in the true spirit of
DIY, I have come up with this idea!!! What if I used a reeflow pump pushing out around 4000
gph. And I used two irrigation valves wired to a irrigation controller. I own a landscape installation company and I have hundreds of 1" valves laying around. I also have controllers sitting around as well. These controllers have up to 16 start times aviable and can run up to 32 valves. I of course would only need 2 or 3 valves at the most. I would use two outlets (1") to feed the pump with each valve having three returns. So actually, I would have 6 returns feeding flow to the tank. This can also be programed and timed to start down when the lights go off. So what happens is when the lights come on, the pump comes on and the program on the controller starts.
So what do you think????????????
