Rebuilding a 300 gallon mixed reef

[Mike_dani]

I have a 300 gallon mixed reef that was awesome up to the crash due to 9 days of power outages during the Alabama tornadoes in April of this year.

I am now building a LED system and want to go with a ATS for this system, I am in need of advice from you successful ATS guys out there. The tank has an external coast to coast overflow and a 5' long sump, without the skimmer I can use 30" x 22" for the scrubber and would also like to use some LEDs for the scrubber as well.



Any recommendations at least for a design starting point would be great. Start them coming

Thanks
Mike

[SantaMonica]

How much will you be feeding?

Looks like the LED in the pic is for the display.

[Mike_dani]

I feed a two inch by two inch square of rods food daily. My plan is to have a school of anthias and a dozen tangs with a trigger.

The lights I have thus far are for the display lighting and need to build one for the ATS.

[SantaMonica]

Use this for sizing, and try using 1/2 the wattage:

An example VERTICAL waterfall screen size is 3 X 4 inches = 12 square inches of screen (7.5 X 10 cm = 75 sq cm) with a total of 12 real watts (not equivalent) of fluorescent light for 18 hours a day. If all 12 watts are on one side, it is a 1-sided screen. If 6 watts are on each side, it is a 2-sided screen, but the total is still 12 watts for 18 hours a day. This screen size and wattage should be able to handle the following amounts of daily feeding:

1 frozen cube per day (2-sided screen), or
1/2 frozen cube per day (1-sided screen), or
10 pinches of flake food per day (2-sided screen), or
5 pinches of flake food per day (1-sided screen), or
10 square inches (50 sq cm) of nori per day (2-sided screen), or
5 square inches (50 sq cm) of nori per day (1-sided screen), or
0.1 dry ounce (2.8 grams) of pellet food per day (2-sided screen), or
0.05 dry ounce (1.4 grams) of pellet food per day (1-sided screen)

[Mike_dani]

Ok so if I frozen cube cut in half (to equal the thickness of rods food) and placed side by side that is close to 1 sq. inch. So if 1sq inch of food is 12sq inches of screen then I need to multiply by 4 to equate 4 sq. inches of food so I need 48 sq. inches of screen.

Now if I do 48 sq. and only light one side I can always add more lighting if needed, but how do I tell if I need more.

[SantaMonica]

If you only light one side, you can only feed half as much. Best would be 24 watts per side.

If it does not start growing green within a few weeks, it's not enough light.

[kerry]

Two sided, its the way to go if you can. I have 4 scrubbers, two one sided and two double sided. The double sided are much stronger if you can go that way. Either way its still better then the old fashioned way LOL!!

[Mike_dani]

I can go any of the two I am looking for some help in the design. Please feel free to give me ideas

[kerry]

Here is an example of an easy build.
[attachment=0:s4hgmqcn]2011-09-26_05-44-22_857fix.jpg[/attachment:s4hgmqcn]

[MorganAtlanta]

Have a look at my "Gone LED" thread. I'd build it like that, but maybe up-size it a bit based on how much you want to feed. I wouldn't get too much wider than 24" on the feed pipe so that you don't need a huge amount of flow. I wouldn't mess with dimmable drivers. Just get drivers that run the LEDs at somewhere in the range of 500-700 mA. You can get acrylic already cut to size from TapPlastics.com, so building the scrubber box is easy. Just take the pre-cut pieces and glue them together with weld-on #16.