ideas needed for setup...?

[yardy]

Ive been rasing freshwater fishes my entire life and finally decided to mess around with saltwater. Ive been doing alot of research for the past few months but still needs alot of tips and ideas from everyone. Im planning on going with mainly live rocks and a few corals but still undecided how to lay everyting out. Any landscaping ideas? Here are my plans along with some more pictures of the tank itself and the sump that came with it. Place I purchased everything from said that the sump is ready to go and the only thing that I would have to occasionally do is rinse the blue sponge and the canister from the protein skimmer. I was thinking of throwing a few live rocks in there but not sure if i needed it. Any opinions???????

Tank Specs

115 Gallons 3/4 cylinder
back flat wall 28 inches
tank depth 36 inches
Tank width 32 inches

I'm planning on using 3 power heads, not sure if this is enough???? 2 all the way on top in each corner (to hide the wires) pointing down. And 1 more in the middle towards the bottom of the overflow with the wire running through the overflow box to conceal it. (the overflow box has a double wall so running through the first one wont mess anything up. If i could get away with out putting any in the bottom, that would be even better....?

Still doing research on something to automatically monitor all the parameters of the water for me. Any suggestions?

Main issue that Ive run across so far is finding an LED light that will work in a setup this deep. Ive spoken to boost led so far and they said that I could use 2 of there 135w lights. i would prefer to go with a single unit so im still shopping around. Any suggestions?

 

[cstmpprl]

Nice looking Tank... I'm just the cleaner in the house, don't know and don't want to know the technical aspect of the hobby . But from what i gather those bio balls are going to cause you some problems.. I'm sure others will chime in here for you.

 

[Neya]

Im still learning a lot also. But I will chime in on the leds. At 36" deep you may have a hard time finding an off the shelf item. Someone on another site mentioned the vertex illumina has 150 par at 30" ?? Not sure how accurate that statement is. Some off the shelf systems may have swappable optics (which is what you'd need to boost penetration of lighting). Again, I wouldn't know much about retail products as they've never met my own personal needs for my tanks, and therefore have never looked much at them. A more versed member could help you out.

The bioballs might make for more maintenance then you're planning, if unwilling to maintain often they will probably be "nitrate factories". I think this is a more personal choice, I don't like remembering to rinse media every week - so I dont use it.

 

[yardy]

Thanks for the responses and I too have been reading mixed reviews about the bio balls. That's how the sump came with the tank from the manufacturer and they said it was ok.....place I got it from was 4fishtanks.com.

 

[jamesdong009]

:w to the BRS.

Definitely a cool looking tank. Like Michelle said, the sponges might be more harmful than benefical down the road.

What do plan to keep down the road as for corals go. With the height of the tank, tighter optics on LEDs should be considered.

 

[yardy]

Sponges? Or did you mean bio balls? I actually found 2 companies that claim they have lights for setup but they are over 1000, yikes lol. Not too sure on the corals yet because I'm new to this. Any ideas?