First, welcome to Canreef, and welcome back to the hobby!

Adding in on the lights issue, speaking from experience. An organism that uses light for photosynthesis has no idea how many gallons of water it is in. It only 'knows' how bright the light is. In a 25" deep tank, you have a lighting challenge if you want to keep light-loving corals or clams near the bottom. Eventually, it will become a trade-off between light and heat.

Tank might also be too small for a scooter blennie. They have roughly the same requirements for live rock volume, healthy pod populations and tank stability as a Mandarin.

The final note I'll make on the 45 tall is that you're minimizing surface-area to volume with that setup (again, this is my experience with a not-too-different effort). That leads to dificulties with aquascaping, access (how long are your arms?), water flow, heat control and oxygen exchange. If I were doing it again, I'd be looking to reverse the ratio, and go for a longer, shallower tank.

Cheers,
Matt

Basically, yeah.

There are a few different designs, some people use a series of baffles to maintain water levels in the skimmer chamber and to control micro bubbles. A cool design though that I think I just got my head around (and I think I am going to swith to) has just one baffle in the middle just above the water line with a hole drilled in the lower part of the baffle with a ball valve.

If you have room for the sump it is something to look at, hwoever you would need to either drill you tank or look at a hang on overflow to move the water to the sump, and then a return pump plumbed in to return the water.

I can just touch the bottom of the tank as the stand is only 29" tall. Had to be that way for me to reach. worst case, I go with a different tank.....Ive got 36" length for where the aquarium goes, so its leaving a few options......thanks for the reply !

Yeah drilling isnt a option for me...unless I go to a different aquarium, and use this 45 for the sump. Since noone in my home town drills glass I would haveto go with a HOB overflow box.

Thanks for all the help thus far guys/gals....greatly appreciated!

Pictures? Links? I'm in the process of redesigning my sump.

There are some pictures of the ball valve sump design in Richards thread here http://canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=37356

A sump is primarily a holding tank for extra water, pumps, skimmer, heater, calcium reactors, sensor probes, autotop off and any other equipment that you don't want to see hanging in you main tank.

A fuge or refugium is a place to hold additional liverock, house a deep sand bed and grow macro algae (most common is Cheato). The purpose of this area is to add to the filtration of your system. The additional live rock provides more surface area for the beneficial bacterias to grow, as well as to give an area for pods (copepods, mysis, etc) to grow and breed with no preditors. A deep sand bed (optional) creates an area of low oxegen and denritification will occur. The macro algae is used to export excess nutrients. As the algae grows it takes up the same nutrients that the bad algae's use. You then remove a portion of the macro and dispose of it, thus removing these nutrients from the system.

Old 12-14-2007, 05:08 PM #1
smoke20ster
squid

Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Nebraska
Posts: 5

Some questions
OK, Ive talked to a few of you yesterday about this 45tall, after sitting down and loooking at the aquarium...and what I wanted to invision it to be.

Ive looked into a much larger aquarium. Going from a 45tall(25x18x25) to a 75tall(48x18x21). So what I wanted to know....hopefully a few others I talked to will remeber my other thread, Im also going with a "sump" as I was pointed in that direction.
Since its not glass, yes glasscages.com wont ship to Nebraska(for glass) and driving to Des Moines, IA is the closest they will ship to so I kind of get screwed, it was cheaper to go with glass in the same size....I hadto go with a acrylic, overflow built in "reef ready". Looking like around 500 shipped (tank, all the bulkheads, acrylic tops, and drilled, overflow, and finally a sump), unless someone has another source?

So, knowing that I will need 2 Hydor Koralia #4's, a skimmer(not sure what kind) and a 48" light (looking at a T5 or T6 with a possible MH or just all T5/T6 bulbs with lunar lights)

Does anyone have any suggestions concerning the tank, or what have you?