Coralgrowing

Today the delivery man stopped by with a big box of goodies. As I opened up the box and got the lights, the reflectors, the drainpipe, the pump and … that is all that came out of the box. The one thing I need first on this project is the bulkhead and it wasn’t in the box. There was a paper in the box though, it says that the bulkhead is out of stock and will be delivered asap.

Nothing I can do but wait. In the meantime I hooked up the pump for a test run. I have to say that the pump is pretty quiet, well as quiet as 15,000 l/h can be that is. The flow is enormous! I wonder if it won’t be too much for my tank and sump to handle?

The t5 lights will be tested tomorrow. Oh and if the supplier reads this: thanks for the extra reflector! You’ve send me 3 instead of the two I ordered and paid for

I just found an incredible deal on a pump: 15,000 l/h (almost 4,000 gal/h) for only 88 Euro instead of the normal price of 269 Euro. This pump will be good for a display tank turnover rate of 62x which is a lot more than the 23x I have in my small tank now. That is a lot of flow, but searching the ‘net I’ve found people running even higher turnover rates, so I guess this pump can be used. Besides, the pump will probably not run the full 15,000 l/h, losses due to the plumbing will probably lower the output to 12,000 to 13,000 l/h which equals 49 to 54 times turnover.

I’ve also ordered 2 54W T5 lights with matching electronic ballast and reflectors. The lights I got are 20,000K and will be used in addition to my 70W 10.000K HQI, which is what’s in use on my small tank now.

I hope the lights, pump, bulkhead and standpipe are delivered by DHL tomorrow. As soon as I’ve got the bulkhead I can start drilling the bottom of the tank.