Ideal Tank Size

[ReefMonger]

I am seriously thinking of setting up a NPT and was wondering what is the ideal shape and dimensions?

Would a 36x8x12 be good? Or a taller tank?

Do alot of you suspend your coral upside down?

[dendro982]

Nobody answered yet, then allow me add my 2 cents worth. But: I'm significantly less time in the hobby, if you see any faults - make corrections.

Most have large rectangular tanks with more than enough space for pumps (or powerheadls on wavemaker) placement and, what is important, enough space for aiptasia eating fish, copperband butterfly or marine betta (comet). If peppermint shrimp or aeolid nudibranchs worked well for you, then no problem.

Is 8" width or height? This is not NPS, but nano-tanks specific:
- possibility to put hand in the tank to pick up or place anything, that can't be picked/placed by tongs,
- enough space for hand plus syringe for treating aiptasia under the rocks,
- place sources of flow, even small powerful powerheads have minimal physical size. Several of them (or tubing of closed loop) could be necessary to sweep out powder-like food leftovers from under the rock AND up, for removing by filtration. And keeping food suspended in water column for a long time.
- Depending on type and amount of corals, that you plan to keep, even vast amount of pods, bristle worms and hermits with snails could be not enough (I already tried refugium type of tank). For me access for cleaning was important.
- most gorgonians are 7"+ high, some inflated dendronephtyas - too. If the flow in upper regions will be directed on them and be strong - this part of polyps will not open for a feeding. Some improvisation with flow, reflected from glass or rocks, before it reaches corals, could be necessary.
- clean up crew should be proportionally sized, like very small snails ($4 each here) and small blue legged hermits. Even astreas, not mentioning turbos and medium hermits, are wrecking havoc in the tank, and picking up after them each morning is not fun at all.

Apart from physical size limitations for hand, hardware and aiptasia eaters, this kind of tank could be as good as any other.

My personal preferences are cubes with rounded corners, hexagons, round and half-round tanks, allowing reflected flow around, but I tried only first two. Now have shallow 6" tall tanks for smaller corals and 12" high for taller gorgonians.

With shallow tanks the only problems is with setting flow between, around, but not above corals (not enough place for dissipating cone of flow, that become wide at short distance).

Sump with good filtration/skimmer on hang-on equipment may be necessary.

Some are suspending dendronephthyas, chili coral and sun corals, but all mine disapproved this.

HTH

[sammy33]

I look around on this forum and others and seem to see two basic style NPS tanks. One is the Sun coral style aquarium where you are target feeding and the other is the Neptheid style tank where you are broadcast feeding with some sort of automated pump and high levels of laminar flow.

It seems easier to me to get my hand and a turkey baster in the cube style tanks. Tanks at least 18" long/wide leave room for corals and makes target feeding much easier by allowing you to get the end of the feeding tube in caves and such. So I vote for cube shaped tanks for sun coral style NPS tanks.

With some of the neptheid corals requiring flow speeds as high as 15cm/s (6in/s) you may need more space to get good laminar water motion. With an 18" tank you have a potential of 3 seconds of food particle movement in a tank before it hits a wall. Even less if you are using a powerhead that sticks off the aquarium wall 3" - 4". I think a longer tank may allow a better laminar motion and a longer food particle travel time. A 36" tank would allow a potential 6 seconds of food particle travel time with flow speeds of 6in/s.

Your dimensions you posted above were maybe supposed to be 36x18x12? That sounds like a 30g breeder tank. I had thought about using the 40g breeder for a neptheid style tank. Then how big of a sump would you use?

[ReefMonger]

sorry it was a typo it is 18 inches wide on the tank

[dendro982]

Here is link (http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=267075&page=6) to much larger tank, but it is also long and all details of setup are posted online.
HTH

[muzzler]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13796640#post13796640 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sammy33


With some of the neptheid corals requiring flow speeds as high as 15cm/s (6in/s) you may need more space to get good laminar water motion.

how to make this flow?
My tank dimetions - hight- 48 cm, wide - 73cm and depht - 53 cm.
what kind of pump and amount of pump I must use for mountane flow about 15cm/s

[dannyfromholland]

Hi All as Dendro stated befor ideal flow is laminar flow this can only be achieved if you make a rounded or 45 degree angle corners and have all the pumps aimed at one direction at this way flowspeed can also be adjusted.

As Sammy said flow needs space to, all rock work will redirect flow so it isn't easy

Cheers

Danny