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Lighting for 400 gallon tank

hermesfansf

hermesfansf

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I am currently shopping for T5 lighting for my fish tank. My fish tank is 400 gallon, the dimension is 10ft x 2.5ft x 2ft. I am planning to get 2 hanging T5 panels (4 ft each????), however, I am not sure about how many light bulbs per panel and the distance between the light and fish tank.

Need some advices from you guys.
 
If it were me, and fish only, I would definitely go with a retrofit kit (bulbs, reflectors, endcaps and ballasts) and spread them out over the tank since the lighting is only going to be used for seeing stuff in the tank.

However if you want to do T5 panels, I wouldn't do more than 4 bulbs and simply mount them a bit higher than normal so that you get full spread over the tank.
 
The tank is going to be mixture of fish and corals. I am setting it up at my garage. Are you guys building your own auto top-off system? Is there any good commercial system out there? I don't really see myself top off the water manually everyday.....lol
 
What kind of corals are you planning to keep? 4 or 5x250W MHs would be good enough for you to keep pretty much everything.

Check out www.autotopoff.com for auto topoff device.
 
There are some auto top off systems out there, go to any one of the "big name" online vendors and search for "ATO" just to get an idea of what's out there. At 400 gallons you'll probably be evaporating quite a few gallons every day so want something that can keep up with that demand level.

Something simple like a float switch connected to a pump could fit the bill fairly easily.

Back to the lighting question, for T5s you might want to go more than 4 bulbs then :D 8-12 bulb combos probably would be a good start (although I'd go with halides myself when you're talking a tank that big)
 
A pricey (In my league but sure for a guy in the 400G club is not) is a Spectrapure LM3 with water "X" modules; those should make life easy (er)
 
I was thinking about Tunze Osmolator Universal 3155 as well, since i just bought 2 Tunze pumps. Setting up a 400 gallon is a very challenging. The sump is 160 gallon divided into 5 chambers.

Below are the configuration that i am setting at the sump at the moment, please kindly give me advices:

1st. Drain Chamber --> carbon socks, and rocks
2nd. Protein skimmer --> PM bullet 3 protein skimmer. (will upgrade if it is not capable)
3rd. Refugium Chamber.
4th. 2 GFO reactors Chamber with some live rocks.
5th. Return Chamber-->UV sterilizer, calcium reactor, carbon reactor.

The questions:

1. Which chamber should the top-off water go?
2. Which chiller is recommendable?
 
That return chamber is where you want your ato to go. That is where you will see evap the most. Depending on the type of corals I would look into MH.
 
1st. Drain Chamber --> carbon socks, and rocks
My advise on carbon if you are going to run it all the time, make sure you change it regularly or don't run it at all.

2nd. Protein skimmer --> PM bullet 3 protein skimmer. (will upgrade if it is not capable)
Sounds good, can't comment on the capability, not familiar enough with that skimmer, and when you go with tanks that large you really go into a whole new category of what you need

3rd. Refugium Chamber.
Sounds good

4th. 2 GFO reactors Chamber with some live rocks.
Ditto with the GFO, I would only run it if its necessary

5th. Return Chamber-->UV sterilizer, calcium reactor, carbon reactor.
This is going to be the chamber which fluctuates in height due to evaporation, as such I wouldn't actively pull any water from here unless of course its going to the display. Also being as the return pump is here, and one of the hotter pieces of equipment, I'd keep the calcium reactor more upstream to let it dilute a bit, if anything so you get less calcification on your impeller magnet.


The questions:

1. Which chamber should the top-off water go?
Last chamber for sure, as mentioned earlier that's the only chamber that will fluctuate water height

2. Which chiller is recommendable?
Where do you live? If you're not in a place where the temperature gets very hot (i.e. San Francisco, Marin, Pacifica, etc), then one beefy enough to handle a tank that size might be too expensive to be useful. If you live in a particularly hot area (San Jose, many East Bay cities) might be a nice add on.
 
FWIW, you may want to consider plasma lighting - I'm running two of the Stray Light Optical units on my 150G with great results. Three units at 16 inches over the tank would be solid coverage and a ton of light. The lights are dimmable and give the shimmer effect you lose with T5.
 
Yes, I am getting the MH. A friend just told me that he could get me 50% on the MH. I was planning to get 2 Tek Light T5 8 ATI blue light system, but the total cost ended up to be too high.

Lets talk about MH. What kind of light bulb will you guys recommend? What wattage of the bulb is recommendable? Is 3 light sufficient for my fish tank?


Thanks.
 
I live in Daly City/Pacifica. It is super cold right now. However, this past summer was really hot, especially when there was a heat wave. The heat did almost wiped out my nano tank:-( The chiller will be the final add on.


I will start the project this week, i hope to have it up and running by next week. Meanwhile, please kindly give me any suggestion. Many Thanks.
 
hermesfansf said:
I was thinking about Tunze Osmolator Universal 3155 as well, since i just bought 2 Tunze pumps. Setting up a 400 gallon is a very challenging. The sump is 160 gallon divided into 5 chambers.

Below are the configuration that i am setting at the sump at the moment, please kindly give me advices:

1st. Drain Chamber --> carbon socks, and rocks
2nd. Protein skimmer --> PM bullet 3 protein skimmer. (will upgrade if it is not capable)
3rd. Refugium Chamber.
4th. 2 GFO reactors Chamber with some live rocks.
5th. Return Chamber-->UV sterilizer, calcium reactor, carbon reactor.

The questions:

1. Which chamber should the top-off water go?
2. Which chiller is recommendable?
Click to expand...

Not sure all those sump chambers are the best idea.
When you turn pumps off, water drains back into your sump(s).
With a big tank, that ends up being a LOT of water.
As such, you need a lot of surface area in your sump, or that water level goes way up and down.
If you divide up the sump into multiple small chambers, it can be a problem.
You can get pretty much the same result by just having regions.
Basically, vertical baffles, so flow between areas is roughly controlled.

You may want carbon + GFO to be in last region, working on cleanest water.
(Although not sure what carbon socks means)

You may want calc reactor to dump into skimmer, to blow off CO2.
BTW: It is not mandatory. The BRS two part strategy is economical
even for large tanks.

For chiller:
You might want to consider a big automatic fan, blowing across the sump.
Evaporative cooling is very effective. And a normal chiller for a huge tank would be expensive.
Viability depends on what other heat sources you have and where you live.

Read up on how useful UV sterilizers are. Definitely different opinions,
especially on large tanks.
 
John, those sound like a nice option but are they available commecially yet? I thought they were still in beta (I have an application which would be particularly appropriate for them).
 
The amount of "extra" water that drains back in to your sump when the power fails is usually a factor of surface area and how high above your overflow the water level is. This amount of "extra" water usually would be controlled by the size of your overflow and the size of your return pump.
Notes:
Skimmer holds water.
Siphon breaks need to be in order.
 
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