I am about to set-up a 28g SPS dominated tank. It will have about 3/4" of live sand, only one fish though(engineer goby), and only 10lbs of rock or so, I am putting on a custom venturi skimmer(prototype) and for circulation there will be a SEIO 1100, lighting will be a 400W 20K halide. I dont see any problems that should come up for me with this system, will let you know how it goes. It should be up and running within the month as all the rock is already cycled and I have all the equipment its just a matter of setting it all up.

Chris

Hmmmm, I do have a spare 400w ballast kicking around.... :mrgreen: Will have to think about that one..... What are you doing to fight overheating the water? What are you doing for a canopy?

My tank is just a little over 20g, the measurements from the guy I bought it from were off.

I am simply going to get a couple 12v fans from princess auto or something, get a battery charger and run them off that, and let the fixture hang about 12-14" over the tank. There will be a box around the rim of the tank likely extending up about 2-2.5ft, with a lid. The fixture will hang inside that, then one one side, there will be an input fan, and the other side, and output fan. I have this set-up on my 75g right now which has dual 400W halides, and that works just fine. I dont anticipate the water getting heated by the light at all. This system may get a sump in the future, but will not have one for now.

Chris

You have PM :biggrin:

Ok, I ordered a 24" reflector, and an XM 20K bulb. 400w it is!

Sounds great! I am very happy with the XM 20K 400W bulb, and cant wait to set up this one over the 28.

Chris

My return pump is a Mag 7 split by SQWD into opposing tank inputs. I'm probably getting 500 gallons/hr out of it...plus there is one 600gph powerhead in the tank that activates every now and then....so I suppose I've got 20x tank volume at least.

That is a nice thing about the small tank...really easy to get LOTs of flow relative to tank size.

I also have a ER skimmer rated at 80-100 gallons. I like a lot of skimming.

400w over 20-28g tanks? That's nuts! I have a hard enough time keeping up with evap. on my 20g, AND heat.. especially in the summer.

I think that's pretty brave haha.. and without sumps and so on. But, hopeully your fans help you out, in turn though.. only to have more evaporation. And in a small system, topping off is really important, because one day without topping off will seriously increase your salinity, and then that just stresses the SPS out.

Good luck!

I will be running a sump, and and auto-top off, with two fans in the hood.

I can also add fans over the sump if needed. This should be enough cooling.

Well if you have a sump and auto top-off then I'd say your set. The fans will definately be a big, big help.

When do you plan on setting this up?