MH Coverage

[Delphinus]

Hi Sean,

Personally, I think you'll be OK with the setup you're describing. I think you can probably raise the pendent somewhat if you find the light to be uneven. With a 400W lamp over a tank of that depth, you'd have some wiggle room.

As a comparison, I am currently running a 30x30x30 cube with a single 250W (DE) pendent and I find it's just right (I have the coral island in the middle idea too). If you like, come by sometime and check it out. It's not a technical SPS tank so it's suiting my needs perfectly. In fact I don't really notice the edges being dim at all (they probably are, but it's not perceptible to my eye. I have lower light LPS in this zone so it works out fine.) So that's why I think a 400W pendent would give you all the flexibility you need.

The only thing I miss is the dusk/dawn effect and I'd like to one day see about putting something extra on for that. Maybe some t5's or something. But for now the setup is working fine.

Also, I try to aim for no more than about 5-7x sump turnover myself. I think that's enough to be able to keep your heater in the sump without having to worry about the main tank losing too much heat. Going faster just increases the gurgle noise and also increases the chance for microbubbles to persist. I hate microbubbles and I've had very poor success designing baffles and sump setups that eliminate microbubbles and I think it's in part that I tend to overdo the sump/tank volume turnover. As far as that is concerned, I think minimalist is better than overdone (IMHO).

HTH